Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
When the disciples receive judgment for eating without hands thoroughly washed, Jesus transforms the judgment into a reminder that the way we live into tradition is nothing compared to how we tend to our souls. Jesus said, “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
In this shift of thought, we are reminded of the ways in which tradition, including our laws, can be used to exact judgment against people around us, even when the inner heart of the accuser — or the systems that bring accusation — are acting outside of the ethical ways to tend to the souls of those around us. If the seat of evil intentions comes from the human heart, then there are not people who are innocent and people who are guilty, judged and held on opposite ends by a system stewarded by people with those same evil intentions. There are only people, each containing the same capacity for goodness and sin. This gospel invites us into understanding the universality of our human hearts, how we are bound to one another by each having that seat of evil intentions inside of ourselves, that possibility that we could go against the laws and traditions that were not created for our flourishing. This is not to bring judgment, like judgments were brought against Jesus and the disciples, but instead to offer compassion that is worthy of sin that we all hold in our human hearts.
If we each have a human heart capable of evils, then we would be wise to look at those in front of us — especially those being judged as guilty alongside Jesus and the disciples — as people just like us, people who have the same capacity for both goodness and sin as we do. If these evils come from within the heart, they are all something we are capable of, and yet the gift of grace is that God can only understand our guilt in relationship to our belovedness, because that is what we receive in salvation. We, then, have the opportunity to share that same grace of God with those around us, choosing to see in those who are judged “guilty” a face of belovedness, knowing that any capacity they have for evil is a capacity we hold in common, and all evil is deemed defeated and resurrected by Jesus Christ.
We are all guilty, we all house that same seat of evil intentions, and yet only some of us — and usually those on the margins — bear the societal pain of systems of punishment. In order for our world to ever feel like the kingdom of God, we will have to offer compassion to the universality of what we are capable of, begin to treat the actions of others in relationship to their belovedness, and entrust it all to the God who defeated and resurrected evil.
Erin Jean Warde (she/her/hers) is a priest, writer, spiritual director, and recovery coach in Austin, TX with more writing at www.erinjeanwarde.com.