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The Novelty of the Heart
After Jesus’ return to Nazareth, his homeland, the third part of the first major section of the Gospel of Mark begins. This section culminates in the apostle Peter’s profession of faith. In this third part, the Gospel resumes with a summary and the announcement of the mission of the Twelve.
In chapter 6, verse 6, part two, we find a summary: “Jesus went around to the villages in the vicinity teaching.” This serves to create a separation, to mark a transition from one section to another, and to take up what was typical of Jesus: moving from one town to another and teaching. As we have already said, each of these parts begins with a narration of vocation: The first part narrates the calling of the first four; the second part speaks of the constitution of the Twelve; and this third part explains the mission of the Twelve. “He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits.”
A mission begins. It is the first missionary experience, the so-called ‘mission in Galilee.’ During his public work, Jesus sent the disciples ahead of him to prepare the field for when they would have to work alone. This is also very important from a historical and methodological point of view. Jesus trained the disciples as teachers who prepared other teachers and sent them to announce something. He offered them guidance on what to say and gave them the power to act. He told them how to behave and what to do, and he communicated the ability to do it skillfully.
To allow some time to pass between the moment the Twelve leave for the mission and the moment they return, the evangelist narrates the only episode in the entire Gospel in which Jesus is not the protagonist. It is the murder of John the Baptist. He had already said at the beginning that John had been arrested, and Jesus began his ministry only after John was imprisoned.
Now, the final drama is told. Herod had him imprisoned because John reprimanded him for his adultery, an illicit cohabitation with his brother’s wife, Herodias. Above all, this woman had forced and persuaded Herod Antipas to silence the prophet. However, Herod was afraid and could not make up his mind, and the auspicious occasion for Herodias came on Herod’s birthday.
During the celebration, Salome, the daughter of Herodias, “came in and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests. The king said to the girl, ‘Ask of me whatever you wish, and I will grant it to you.’ He even swore many things to her, ‘I will grant you whatever you ask of me, even to half of my kingdom.’” It is an almost burlesque echo of the Book of Esther, in which the great Persian emperor makes the same promise to the queen who seeks to save Israel. Here, we have a king of Jewish background who, instead, wants to ruin the prophet, and the woman does not ask for salvation or the preservation of life but demands the head of the prophet John as a reward.
And Herod, reluctantly, a puppet as he was, lets himself be played once more and does what she asks. John the Baptist ends his life ingloriously, and his martyrdom tragically anticipates what will happen to Jesus. Also, in this case, he is the forerunner; he precedes Jesus at birth, in the mission, and in death.
After this episode, Mark resumes the narration. “The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught.” For a while, they were apart; they had much to share and were excited about their successes, but they were also tired. Jesus invited them to retire to a place apart to rest and be alone. But the people do not leave them alone. The crowds pursue Jesus. They also trouble the disciples of Jesus to the point that they no longer even have time to eat. This is another typical, picturesque brushstroke of Mark.
They want to rest in peace and solitude, but instead they are followed by a vast crowd. And Jesus, who wanted to be at peace after receiving the tragic news of the prophet John’s death, spends the day talking to the people, listening, speaking, and healing. As evening falls, they are exhausted, and Jesus proposes feeding that crowd. It is a strange proposition.
The disciples would like to send them out to buy something to eat, but the area is deserted. This does not mean they are in a place with no houses and, therefore, no shops. You must walk a few kilometers to reach the shops. By now, it is late, and Jesus invites the disciples to feed the people with what little they have: five loaves and two fish. Jesus takes the loaves, says the blessing, breaks them, and gives them to the disciples so they can distribute them to the crowd. They all eat to their fill of those five loaves that Jesus had broken after saying the blessing. Do you recognize Eucharistic language?
The story of the multiplication of the loaves was told by the Christian community after it learned to celebrate the Eucharist, and the fundamental verbs attributed to Jesus are the same: He took the bread, pronounced the blessing, broke it, and gave it to the disciples. The disciples become intermediaries. They received that bread from Jesus and passed it on to the crowds, and that bread was enough for many people.
It is not an act of charity. It does not mean he feeds the hungry. It is a gesture that shows his divine power: he can satisfy people’s desires. To give satisfaction to man’s search. He starts with what already exists and multiplies it. Or we could also change the actions and talk about the miracle of sharing. Jesus takes the bread, breaks it, divides it, and shares it, and that sharing is enough for everyone; therefore, the miracle lies in sharing the good: it is the divine power that works in Jesus, shared with humanity, and it comes to satisfy everyone. The disciples are in the middle of this mission. They receive from Jesus and transmit to others.
Jesus wants to be alone. After dinner, he retires to the mountain to pray; the disciples set out in the boat on the sea in the middle of the night. Indeed, as dawn is about to break, Jesus joins them, walking on the water. It is another display of power. Jesus feeds the man. Jesus exercises power over the sea.
Water, especially the sea, is a primordial, chaotic symbol in biblical language. There are the forces of evil, and Jesus walks on water; that is, he manages to dominate the liquid element. It is the evil that dominates the world that Jesus must trample to reach his followers and come to their aid. They are scared. They take him for a ghost, but Jesus tells them, “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!” It is the divine I Am, the proclamation of the nameless Name of God, the Lord of Israel, as revealed to Moses in the burning bush. ‘It is I.’—now Jesus pronounces it. “Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid!” Do not be afraid because I am here; I am with you and on your side.
It is a theophany, an appearance of God, a manifestation of the divine. Jesus is the complete revelation of God, present in human life for humanity’s sake. When they reached the other side, he healed in the land of the Gerasenes. We are again in a context of therapy and help, but what follows in Chapter 7 is an important moment of catechesis.
We find the scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem gathering around Jesus and posingproblems for him. They contest the way his disciples behave. They say they do not wash their hands before eating; that is, they do not observe the rules of purity that the Pharisees, on the other hand, followed with great scruples. Mark, writing for Romans who were not very knowledgeable about these Jewish religious rules, opens a parenthesis and explains that the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they have thoroughly washed their hands, following the tradition of their ancestors. “And they do not eat without purifying themselveson coming from the marketplace. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.”
All these rules of ritual purity were considered very important, yet Jesus surpassed them. He goes beyond those Jewish religious traditions, contesting a cult built on doctrines that are human inventions, and he quotes Isaiah 29, where he says: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” There is a discrepancy between the lips that speak and the heart.
The lips are religious and recite all the prayers, formulas, rules, and norms, but the heart is far from God. This is a superficial, incoherent form of religion that Jesus disputes, rejects, and seeks to overcome, and he accuses them of neglecting God’s command and observing the tradition of men.
We must be careful not to confuse the Tradition (with an initial capital letter) with the traditions that are our habits. Tradition is the solemn passage from the apostles that guarantees the preservation of the heritage that Jesus has left us and fidelity to the Gospel. The apostolic tradition that takes place in the Church does not coincide with our traditions, with our habits, with all those things we say we have always done it this way. Our religious practices are full of rituals, some beautiful, others not good, but we repeat them continuously because we are used to doing so. And the Pharisees did so, too, and they contested Jesus because he criticized them.
And Jesus also criticizes us, saying: ’You respect your traditions, you keep doing these things because you’re used to them and because you like them, and you call them ‘religious,’ but you do not observe God’s commandment. You do what you want, not what God wants, and you delude yourself into thinking you are religious because you do your thing and repeat your habits, but you look for yourself, you look for your taste, you look for your memories, and for the things you like and are used to. They give you gratification, which makes you feel right.’
Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees remains relevant to all religious people who risk becoming fixated on their habits and losing sight of God’s commandments.
Jesus is revolutionary, reforming the religious scheme so thoroughly that he amazes the disciples, who ask him for an explanation of what he said: “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” The Pharisees were afraid to touch anything impure. Why did they wash when they returned from the market? Because the dress and the hand had touched worldly objects; the world is dirty; sinners are unclean and impure. If you touch them, you contaminate yourself; you must wash thoroughly everything you might have been in contact with while outside.
Jesus says: No, the dirt is not outside; you have it in your heart. It is useless to keep washing your hands, convinced that others are bad and can make you dirty. It comes from within; your thoughts, intentions, words, and gestures are born of your heart. Rottenness is a revolution within each one, so you must heal your heart, not keep external rules of religious appearance. It is necessary to change your heart at its core, and Jesus offers this possibility; he gives a new chance for a renewed heart.
Immediately afterward, Mark recounts the episode of the Syro-Phoenician woman. This pagan woman meets Jesus and asks for his intervention on behalf of her daughter, who is possessed by a demon. Mark’s insistence on this diabolical possession is evident again; evilruins life.
This foreign woman asks Jesus: “Intervene for my daughter.” Jesus refers to the behavior of the fundamentalist Jews and says: “Let the children be satisfied first. It is not right to take the bread from the children to put it on the dogs… I have not come, except for the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (says the Gospel of Matthew). ‘I have not come for the pagans. The children are the Jews, and am I going to take the bread and give it to the dogs?’ (He is saying to that woman that she is a dog, “unfaithful dog.” Who would not have been offended and irritated?) But that woman, instead of responding to that negative attitude with a controversy, knows how to turn the metaphor: ‘Okay, I am a dog, but in the family, dogs also eat; crumbs and leftovers are given to them, to the dogs.’ She agrees to be considered a dog and notes that they are fed. And faced with this attitude, Jesus responds in his own way. He says, “Very well… your faith is really great.” What you believe has been done, according to your wishes. That woman comes home and finds her daughter healed. The faith that this mother has freed her daughter from the power of evil.
It is even the release of a derogatory reaction. That woman, meeting Jesus, let her heart be healed and transformed.
Immediately afterward, Mark narrates the healing of a deaf-mute. It is an exclusive episode in the second evangelist’s account. It is a significant episode, so much so that it has influenced the rite of baptism in the community of Rome, because Mark wrote precisely for those preparing for baptism there. The healing of the deaf-mute is a figure that announces the salvific intervention in baptism.