Mark 7:9-13

Mark 7:9-13 And he said to them: “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

“You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the Law were allowing people not to support their fathers and mothers by saying I have given this money to God that was supposed to have gone to you. Of course, this was a way of getting more money into the coffers of the priests. Jesus rebukes them for this tradition because it violated God's written commandment of ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ By dishonoring their fathers and mothers in this way, the Pharisees were actually leading the people into a horrible judgment by God. This abridgment to the commandments was dishonoring God, for the fathers and mothers had passed down to the children the ways of God by their living examples. They were the daily implementers of the Law. By allowing the fathers and mothers who were past their prime to fend for themselves, the religious leaders were dishonoring God. To not honor fathers and mothers was a terrible affront to God himself.

We also can fall into this selfish mindset. We might rightly honor our fathers and mothers, but we allow ourselves to violate God's royal Law of loving others as ourselves by setting up a lifestyle that is too busy or too self-oriented to allow anyone else into it. We can point to all the good things that we have done, but have we done the necessary things for God. Jesus said, "And you do many things like that.” They not only dishonored their fathers and mothers, they were doing other activities that were displeasing to God. Jesus knew their hearts were far from God. Their basic focus was on their own needs and making life easier for themselves. We can also adopt that mode of thinking. We might not steal money from our fathers and mothers, but we might steal time away from our loved ones and people who need us. We might hoard our personal time for ourselves. We might find ourselves gluttonous in doing our OWN WILL, going our own way.

I believe the above passage is not primarily about abridging a commandment--it is about lifestyle, focus. Otherwise, Jesus would not have alluded to the many things they were also doing wrong. He was pointing out the emptiness in their lives. They were self-protecting, self-absorbed. Even in their religious activities, they were there for their own reasons. I believe we do this as well. Church is sometimes viewed as something we do for ourselves. We go to church, not to help out, not to serve others, but we go there to get our spiritual tanks filled and our needs met. Oftentimes we use a religious activity purely for ourselves. And we seek the church that best meets our needs, not the church that needs us. However, our gathering together should be for the body: to meet the fathers', mothers', sisters' and brothers' needs, not just ours. Do we walk into the church seeking to build up and to strengthen others, or do we walk into the church focused only on ourselves? We need God's perspective: He loves us dearly, but He loves the body dearly too. We need to fit into the body, functioning for every member. We don't just fulfill a tradition of going to church; we fulfill a law of God (the heart of God) of loving each other as we love ourselves. Jesus knew the hearts of the religious leaders. He knew that their activities and manmade traditions were mainly for themselves. We need to be wary of living a religious or secular life that is primarily for ourselves. Jesus said they would know we were his followers because we love one another. . .