Commandments of God or Human Traditions?

Mark 7:1-13

The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered round Jesus, and they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with unclean hands, that is, without washing them. For the Pharisees, and the Jews in general, follow the tradition of the elders and never eat without washing their arms as far as the elbow; and on returning from the market place they never eat without first sprinkling themselves. There are also many other observances which have been handed down to them concerning the washing of cups and pots and bronze dishes. So these Pharisees and scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands?’ He answered, ‘It was of you hypocrites that Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage of scripture:

This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me.

The worship they offer me is worthless,

the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.

You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.’ And he said to them, ‘How ingeniously you get round the commandment of God in order to preserve your own tradition! For Moses said: Do your duty to your father and your mother, and, Anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death. But you say, “If a man says to his father or mother: Anything I have that I might have used to help you is Corban (that is, dedicated to God), then he is forbidden from that moment to do anything for his father or mother.” In this way you make God’s word null and void for the sake of your tradition which you have handed down. And you do many other things like this.’

Food for thought!

You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.

This is a strong statement, especially when made by Jesus against you and me.  Is it possibly true that we do put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions? This is what Jesus is saying that we do. In order to understand Jesus' point, let us remember that the commandments of God are 10 (ten), which I assume you still remember. All the rest are human traditions. These include the traditions, the rules and laws of the church. Yes, these are not commandments of God.; they were made by the church to help us live better the ten commandments. They were meant to reinforce the commandments of God, not to substitute them. For instance, not eating meat on a Friday is a tradition of the church, not a commandment of God.

In the time of Jesus, the religious scholars (scribes and Pharisees) had transformed the religious rules and traditions into the essence of religion. To observe them was to please God; to break them was to sin. This was their idea of goodness and of the service of God. In the religious sense Jesus and these people spoke different languages. It was precisely because Jesus had no use for all these regulations that they considered him a bad man, just as we consider bad those who don't keep the laws, rules and discipline of our Catholic church.

There is no greater religious peril than that of identifying religion with human traditions and customs. There is no commoner religious mistake than to identify goodness with certain so-called religious traditions. Church-going, bible-reading, careful financial giving, even time-tabled prayers do not make a man a good man. The fundamental question is, how is a man's heart towards God and towards his fellow-men? And if in his heart there are enmity, bitterness, grudges, pride, not all the outward religious observances in the world will make him anything other than a hypocrite.