Word to the Wise
Saturday, January 15, 2022 - Saturday in the 1st Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Sam 9:1-4, 17-19; 10:1 and Mark 2:13-17]"Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners. [Mark]
In the blunt and adversarial world of the Gospel According to Mark, the scribes and Pharisees are the bad guys. This was not simply because any of them were scribes or Pharisees, but because their position in the Jewish society of the time had become corrupted. They abused their authority to benefit themselves [cf. Mark 7:1-16]. Jesus was a direct threat to this position. This is in the background of the incident in today's gospel.
Tax collectors are rarely popular people anywhere, but in Jesus' time, the job automatically made its holder "unclean" and therefore ineligible to participate in temple worship and other religious activities. Tax collectors had to handle currency with Caesar's image on it. Since Roman emperors were often considered divine, this made their image idolatrous in the eyes of the Pharisees and a violation of Mosaic law in the eyes of the scribes. But Jesus went directly against this prejudice and associated with tax collectors and other persons who held positions that made them "unclean." His position is simply stated in the quotation at the beginning of this reflection.
Jesus coupled this approach with a less stringent interpretation of sabbath duty by healing on the sabbath and asserting that certain human needs could have greater priority. It is no wonder that the scribes and Pharisees began early on the plot against him and finally succeed in getting the Romans to do the dirty work. The Gospel According to Mark is, in no small part, flavored by resentment against those religious authorities who plotted against Jesus.
Religious righteousness can be dangerous, as we can see! It is not just the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' time, but is still a problem in our own time. In the Catholic Church we see it in those movements which refuse to accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. On a more individual level, too much concern with ritual correctness and "validity" can cause a person to forget God's mercy and grace. Pointing a finger at the scribes and Pharisees should only be done after a thorough examination of conscience on our own part. AMEN