A look at the gaps in the lectionary.
This week: the gap between Proper 17B and 18B
The text: Mark 7
This week’s gospel proceeds directly from last week’s, so there is no technical gap between them. But there feels like a gulf. There shouldn’t be. Not if we’re paying attention.
As we explored last week, both in reflecting on the whole sequence and the bits the lectionary cuts out and the substance of the gospel passage, we are dealing with the articulation of difference. The difference between the tradition that certain critics of Jesus’s are seeking to police and the vision of tradition that Jesus is advancing.
This difference isn’t innate, however. It is built. Even the idea that the critics believe there is a division is reflected in Jesus’s response. He seems to be saying that there is no gap between his vision and there—but they are behaving as if there were a chasm. In other words, the big tent vision Jesus offers is treated like a “side” and that the critics inhabit, “the other side” and believe that theirs is the “right” side. Sound familiar?
This exchange about a different vision of tradition (through the lens of purity) is often read as a bit of differentiation—as Jesus making himself different. Even taking up the concept of division. This is particularly true when he calls the critics “hypocrites” and offers a countervision of reality from theirs. So Jesus does engage in a bit of dividing, though he never stoops to saying “They started it!”
Let us not let go of this moment, however, for what comes after it may lose its potency if we do.
Rules and Differentiation
The dispute that the critics make with Jesus—that he is breaking with tradition over handwashing—is an internal squabble about the rules for the people. It may be be a useful example of the proverbial internecine conflict, where people will go to war (to the death, even!) with their brothers and sisters in Christ to control the narrative. And just as useful is noting how one-sided such conflicts can actually be in practice (so the temptation to *bothsides* any conflict is among our more dishonest of impulses).
The emphasis, however, needs to be placed on the internal. This is a dispute within the in-group of the Hebrew people.
So what happens immediately after this argument within the group about tradition?
Jesus is begged by an outsider to be healed.
And then, what does he do after consenting to healing her?
He heals another outsider.
An image
There’s a scene toward the end of a famous This American Life episode, “Heretics,” that spells out this moment with incredible narrative clarity. The episode explores the experience of Bishop Carlton Pearson, who went from charismatic darling to pariah for proclaiming a gospel of love.
As the narrator describes it:
“One thing Carlton’s learned is that if you say gay people can go to heaven, gay people start coming to your church.”
And what you see is scorn from the protectors of one vision of tradition. And you find those willing to expand the love of Christ to everyone reflect a dramatically different sensibility.
I suspect our reading of the gospel this week comes from a place of Of course, Jesus accepts everyone. We walk in with an understanding that “the outsider” is someone Jesus does, in fact, love. What we might not offer, is what that looks in particular. Or what that has to do with things like tradition, rules, and doctrine. What we’ve been taught by our loving parents, grandparents, or Sunday School teachers. Or even what our beloved pastor preaches from the pulpit.
What last week’s gospel helps remind us for this week is who tradition excludes and what it means to transgress that exclusion.