Mark 7:9

Wisely do you set aside God’s commandments,” he exclaimed, “to keep your own traditions!


a self-made expert
carries a delayed hubris
unrecognized

unpartnered blindness
no testing is required
uncoupled

conditioned commandments
are set in stone
forevered

rules that once worked
demand a longer reign
institutionalized

the ease of former answers
denies reassessed responses
silenced

with only alzheimic remembering
hope is a first casualty
compromised

so it goes and goes
sub-clause by mixed metaphor
confused


In continuing, Jesus builds on the abandonment of the written account of people’s encounters with G*D by noting it is not just an ignoring of it, but a decisional rejection of everything from Genesis to Zephaniah (using the Jewish traditional order ending with restoration, rather than the Christian Church reordering to end with Malachi which suits their tradition of Jesus as a new messenger building on Moses and Elijah).

This deepens the difference between the dusty roads of Galilee and lands beyond Israel that Jesus trod and the paved streets of Jerusalem and Roman Roads traveled by the Scribes; between the fields of Jesus and the towns of the Pharisees.

Do note the irony here of the official experts of the traditions are put down as experts only in rejecting the experiences of G*D and reporting of their many voices in favor of more easily constructed rules. Jesus here is taking the more difficult road of applying the stories to individual events, not claiming one size fits all. Simply remember the wide variety of ways in which healing went on, particularly those claimed by the Pharisees and Scribes to be done at the wrong time or with the wrong technique or words.

Sarcasm has its place in spiritual work. It is like a Buddhist monk bonking a student on the head when their mind wanders or a Puritan church tickling drowsy women and rapping dozing men.