The Law of God and the People of God
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8
St. Mk. 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
It is difficult to know where to begin talking about this week's Gospel lesson. Five years ago, at a much earlier stage in my conversion, I wrote at some length on how Christ treats the Law of Moses, and I substantially stand by what I have written there. I hope you will take the time to read that more thorough commentary on how Christ applies Moses. In fact, what I would really like to say much more briefly here is said better in my old article.
Suffice it to say for the moment that commentators are mislead when they claim simply that Christ "abrogates" the Law. If that were the whole tale, then He could not appeal to the Law in his own defense in verses 8-9. Rather, Christ criticizes an approach to the Law which emphasizes form over substance.
This is a refrain which goes back to the prophets. Amos writes in astonishing verse, "Though you give me grain offerings,/And your burnt offerings I accept not,/nor will I look at your fattened peace offerings.//Take away your noisy songs,/And I will not hear the music of your lyres.//Rather, let justice roll down like water,/and righteousness like a mighty stream." (Amos 5:22-24)
It will not serve to do God mere lip service. What we may not notice is that Christ ironically reverses Isaiah's prophecy about lip service: where the prophet was referring to empty prayers, Christ is referring to empty observance of dietary rules. "They honor me with their lips," in only eating with washed hands. Indeed, for Christ, it is precisely words which matter, "the things that come out from within defile," because what we say betrays our true relationship with God.
But let us take a moment to look at Isaiah 29, where this prophecy is found. The Father first warns that He will deal with Israel's hidden sins and lip service. But this is followed in verse 17 by a surprising reversal: "Not but a little while longer, and Lebanon will be restored as an orchard, and the orchard will seem a forest!" The Lord promises to restore the damage done by the crimes and their punishment.
But this verse can be read another way, "Lebanon will return to the Carmel,/and the Carmel will seem a forest!" That is, a Gentile country (Lebanon) will become as if it were part of Israel (the Carmel). This is a hint of what Isaiah will tell in full later, namely, the gathering of the Gentiles to the restored Jerusalem.
In the great hymn of the New Zion in Isaiah 60 the prophet exclaims, "Arise! Shine! For your light is come./And the Lord's glory upon you dawns!//For behold, darkness coats the earth/and stormclouds the peoples//And upon you the Lord shall shine,/and His glory shall be seen upon you.//And nations shall walk to your light,/and kings to the brightness of your rising!"
We meet this rising light of God again in Zecheriah's Canticle in Luke 2, "to give his people knowledge of their salvation/through the forgiveness of their sins,//in the merciful heart of our God,/by which He has visited us as the Dayspring from on high,//to enlighten those that sit in darkness and the shadow of death,/to guide our feet into the way of peace."
The restoration of Zion in Isaiah means the visitation of God's Glory upon her, a light to gather in the Gentiles. Indeed, Isaiah ends bringing these two themes together, the rejection of mere lip service and sacrifice (Isa. 66:1-4), followed by the restoration of Zion and gathering in the Gentiles in verse 18, "It shall come, the gathering of all the nations and languages, and they will come and see My glory."
This is the context in which Christ "declared all foods clean" (St. Mk. 7:19). As St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, he "tore down the dividing wall of enmity through his flesh, He has nullified the law with its commandments and precepts, to make the two into one new Man in his flesh." (Eph. 2:14-15)
It is in the service of this new unity that Christ specifically suspends dietary laws which prevented Jewish and Gentile Christians from eating together. Indeed, this becomes one of St. Paul's regular themes (see Romans 14:15-23, I Corinthians 10:25-33). It even becomes the subject of a confrontation between St. Paul and St. Peter in Galatians 2, specifically over the inclusion of Gentiles.
I say all of this to make an important point: we live in a world that tends toward lawlessness, and it
seeks justification to ignore the laws of God. So texts like our Gospel lesson are often used as a pretense for ignoring other matters addressed by Moses. But Christ himself says in the Sermon on the Mount that he came not to abolish Moses' law, but to fulfill it (St. Mat. 5:17), and goes on to strengthen, not weaken, precepts such as "thou shalt not murder," and "thou shalt not commit adultery." Our Gospel lesson is about fulfilling the commission of Zion as a "light to the Gentiles" (Isa. 49:6). It is a part of the Restoration of the world, and laying the foundation of the New Jerusalem, "That they all may be one." (St. Jn. 17:21)
St. Mk. 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
It is difficult to know where to begin talking about this week's Gospel lesson. Five years ago, at a much earlier stage in my conversion, I wrote at some length on how Christ treats the Law of Moses, and I substantially stand by what I have written there. I hope you will take the time to read that more thorough commentary on how Christ applies Moses. In fact, what I would really like to say much more briefly here is said better in my old article.
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| Moses with the Ten Commandments Rembrandt |
This is a refrain which goes back to the prophets. Amos writes in astonishing verse, "Though you give me grain offerings,/And your burnt offerings I accept not,/nor will I look at your fattened peace offerings.//Take away your noisy songs,/And I will not hear the music of your lyres.//Rather, let justice roll down like water,/and righteousness like a mighty stream." (Amos 5:22-24)
It will not serve to do God mere lip service. What we may not notice is that Christ ironically reverses Isaiah's prophecy about lip service: where the prophet was referring to empty prayers, Christ is referring to empty observance of dietary rules. "They honor me with their lips," in only eating with washed hands. Indeed, for Christ, it is precisely words which matter, "the things that come out from within defile," because what we say betrays our true relationship with God.
But let us take a moment to look at Isaiah 29, where this prophecy is found. The Father first warns that He will deal with Israel's hidden sins and lip service. But this is followed in verse 17 by a surprising reversal: "Not but a little while longer, and Lebanon will be restored as an orchard, and the orchard will seem a forest!" The Lord promises to restore the damage done by the crimes and their punishment.
But this verse can be read another way, "Lebanon will return to the Carmel,/and the Carmel will seem a forest!" That is, a Gentile country (Lebanon) will become as if it were part of Israel (the Carmel). This is a hint of what Isaiah will tell in full later, namely, the gathering of the Gentiles to the restored Jerusalem.
In the great hymn of the New Zion in Isaiah 60 the prophet exclaims, "Arise! Shine! For your light is come./And the Lord's glory upon you dawns!//For behold, darkness coats the earth/and stormclouds the peoples//And upon you the Lord shall shine,/and His glory shall be seen upon you.//And nations shall walk to your light,/and kings to the brightness of your rising!"
We meet this rising light of God again in Zecheriah's Canticle in Luke 2, "to give his people knowledge of their salvation/through the forgiveness of their sins,//in the merciful heart of our God,/by which He has visited us as the Dayspring from on high,//to enlighten those that sit in darkness and the shadow of death,/to guide our feet into the way of peace."
The restoration of Zion in Isaiah means the visitation of God's Glory upon her, a light to gather in the Gentiles. Indeed, Isaiah ends bringing these two themes together, the rejection of mere lip service and sacrifice (Isa. 66:1-4), followed by the restoration of Zion and gathering in the Gentiles in verse 18, "It shall come, the gathering of all the nations and languages, and they will come and see My glory."
This is the context in which Christ "declared all foods clean" (St. Mk. 7:19). As St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, he "tore down the dividing wall of enmity through his flesh, He has nullified the law with its commandments and precepts, to make the two into one new Man in his flesh." (Eph. 2:14-15)
It is in the service of this new unity that Christ specifically suspends dietary laws which prevented Jewish and Gentile Christians from eating together. Indeed, this becomes one of St. Paul's regular themes (see Romans 14:15-23, I Corinthians 10:25-33). It even becomes the subject of a confrontation between St. Paul and St. Peter in Galatians 2, specifically over the inclusion of Gentiles.
I say all of this to make an important point: we live in a world that tends toward lawlessness, and it
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| Daughter Zion and the New Jerusalem From the Cloister Apocalypse, circa 1330 |
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