The interior and the society of the exterior
(Lk 11:37-41)
"Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and tray, but your inside is full of robbery and wickedness" (Lk 11:39).
The ablutions before the meal (v.38) were an imposed religious obligation.
But the Eucharistic banquet [which we read in the watermark] does not celebrate detachment, nor does it suffer from purist idolatries.
The stern, 'dyeing' spirit - as Pope Francis would say - still gives a coat of whitewash to the Father's reality [at that time, it also served to protect the spirit of robbery of the veterans: v.39].
Indeed, the impurity does not proceed from shortcomings of form (as in façade religiosity), but from behaviour that denounces a substantial void.
That which stains is all within, and broods despite fine petitions of principle, or good manners - which cover up bad habits.
In short, what is offered is pure; what is withheld is impure (v.41).
From a spiritual point of view, only those who give themselves are without blemish; impure are those who think only of themselves in a trivial way, or who turn to their neighbour to manipulate him.
Thus, often the external norms or ideas of men do not go to the root: they fossilise.
They do not tear out or integrate from within the malign contents, the unrighteous desires - the true goals.
Dispositions devoid of inner conviction build at best seemingly impeccable people and a ritualistic world that (as it happens) turns to the most degrading corruption.
It is denoted in all the centres of power - again - all well covered by fatuous theatrical forms, and exaggerated catwalks.
In short, in order not to interrupt our thread of life, we can no longer stand there on studied and well-thought-out rules, believing that we have solved it.
Make-up does not capture the core.
In fact, even impeccable jurisdiction, or reason and intelligence, do not preserve from disheartenment, humiliation, loneliness - from what is authentic and continually surfacing.
Those forms of contract - so devious or conspicuous - do not restore a healthy balance, nor do they reach the lives of ordinary people.
It seemed to be pedagogy, but it is not: we see it.
Common religion itself sometimes lives by outward signs - often almost indecipherable or meaningless in themselves, when they flaunt, masking pyramids, and now increasingly blatant hypocrisies.
Not infrequently, the observances themselves create spiritual competition.
In doing so, they annihilate the spirit of charity and hospitality - the compendium of the Law - from which those same ancient signs were born, in the first assemblies of faith.
Certainly, Justice plays a decisive role, but it is an existential commitment, not a cultic or scenographic one.
The 'righteous position' is for life, not for setting things right [dead things, or sophisticated and abstract things that are].
For the Gospels, one must not confuse God with precepts or ideologies of the future, if schematic and disembodied.
The Lord wants to enter into our concrete existence - and the excess of minutiae or fantasies can make us lose the fundamental orientation of his Calling, corrupting our sensitivity to the signs in which he reveals himself.
Legalism, habit, or abstruse and imported fashions can make us unable to correspond to the missionary Vocation.
They become shrouds that prevent us from serving the individual freedoms of the sick.
They make us clumsy in accompanying people so that they increase their capacity for life and character.
Why is Christ's victory His people?
Only the spirit of hospitality of the Sons in a relationship of mutual care, sensitive, able to perceive, creates the living environment that enables us to better connect our souls with the Mystery of the Hidden King, the great Meaning of our desires and His "intentions".
Here Jesus invites the Pharisees back to His Church to understand God's freedom and not to turn the Faith into just any pious, cunning, or abstract (spineless) creed.
It is not the supposed untaintedness or 'right' thinking that empowers us in his presence and makes us proceed on endless paths.
We experience Him, in the global crisis.
It is meeting Him that consecrates and makes us adequate, pure, fulfilled, already complete.
"Perfect" - for the kind of Seed we are called to plant in the world.
No more added worries that leave everyone in the worm, in torment, and with no way out.
As if even in the People of the Sons it is permissible to impose and see cages, lanes, obligatory worldviews, and padlocks everywhere.
To internalise and live the message:
What was the key moment when you felt forgiven and pure? Copying someone?
On an occasion when you experienced total gratuitousness, or deserved it?
On an occasion when you were true to yourself, or all outwardly projected?Misrepresented holiness: there is no sacred and profane in itself
Hypocritical traditions and ideal order: purity of advantage
(Mk 7:1-8.14-15.21-23)
Under the Herod dynasty, the sense of clan and community was crumbling.
Because of survival problems, families were forced to close in on themselves, loosen their bonds, think of their own needs.
This closure was reinforced by the religion of the time in every respect. In vv.10-12 we see an incredible example of this: those who dedicated their inheritance to the Temple could leave their parents without help!
Offence and offering: injustice and normative behaviour - a strange connection, in the apparent form of an exemplary accent.
The observance of purity norms was a factor of ordinary marginalisation for many people.
The wretched, in particular, were considered ignorant and cursed, because they were unable to comply; consequently, they lacked the consoling blessing promised to Abraham.
A daily drip that undermined the profound meaning of existing together.
In particular, ablutions were a kind of ritual during which a satisfying divarication between the sacred and the profane was celebrated - in the detachment from people and situations considered impure.
By staying away from the supposed filthiness, never could any of the unwashed be uplifted.
So the rules were not a source of peace, but of bondage. To extend a charitable hand would even have been sacrilegious.
In short, inhuman trifles were placed before the Law itself, thwarting its inclusive spirit (fraternity would have benefited the enthusiasm to exist).
Jesus could not tolerate the closed world of conformist religiosity being bent and used to ascertain the existence of others with judgement, to divide and discriminate - to annihilate relationships.
This is why the control of the Pharisees is opposed by the freedom of the disciples (v.2), who refuse to obey that which does not make sense for concrete life - where visible love feeds ideal love.
In ancient cultures, the religious and mythical view of the world led people to appreciate any reality from the category of holiness as detachment and separateness, even inaccessibility.
Purity laws indicated the conditions necessary to stand before God.
At the time of Mk some Jewish converts believed they could abandon their ancient customs and approach the pagans; others were of the opposite opinion: indeed, it would be like rejecting substantial parts of the Torah (e.g. Lev 11-16 and 17ff).
In fact, the Gospel emphasises that the problem is "in the house" (v.17 Greek text: "within the house") i.e. in the Church and among its members.
Christ must insist on teaching, now not addressed to strangers, but precisely to the habitués, incapable - unlike the crowds - of "understanding" (v.14) the abc of spiritual things.
There is no sacred and profane in itself.
In order to educate the stubborn ones still "devoid of intellect" (v.18) who consider themselves masters, the Lord does not go to just any dwelling place - but to the place where, unfortunately, expectations far removed from the people are cultivated (vv.14.17).
In short, only Jesus in Person frees the crowd of the voiceless and lost from the obsession of torments and fears, from always being on the defensive.
And even if some leaders accuse, let us learn not to feel dismay that we are not religiously 'successful' - but Firstfruits!
