What comes out is what defiles

 

In Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Jesus teaches that the people of God are not set apart by particular religious traditions or ethnicity, but by what comes from the heart, characterized by love for others. We do not need more religion, but more reflection on what proceeds from our heart. Yes, traditions can be good, and can help point us and others closer to God. However, they can also send subtle or explicit messages that say "you don't belong."

Jesus challenged the purity “laws” and turned them upside down. In their place he substituted a radically alternate social vision. The new community that Jesus announced would be characterized by compassion for everyone, not based on external compliance to a purity code and egalitarian inclusivity.

"No outcasts," writes Garry Wills in What Jesus Meant, "were NOT cast out far enough in Jesus' world to make him shun them — not Roman collaborators, not lepers, not prostitutes, not the crazed, not the possessed. 

“Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile…from within come evil thoughts and they defile.”

Who do we judge when we sanctimoniously spurn those who are not like us or not part of our group? (Bible Study Blog, Bob Reina, August, 28, 2012)