Posted by The WORD in other words (2015) by Fr Joseph Miras SVD – Toronto, Canada
Tuesday 5th Week in Ordinary Time
The notion of purification, though practiced in many cultures, assumes the features of each particular society. As a system of meaning codified in the cultural consciousness of the people, it determines their social behavior and makes sense of their own everyday lives.
For example, dirt is considered dirt when it is out of place. One will see dirt clearly if the surrounding area is clean. If all area is clean the dirt will become obvious.
In a society, there are imaginary lines or boundaries that determine what is acceptable or unacceptable, what is allowable and not, and these define the behavior of people. The violation of these social boundaries makes the person deviant and therefore considered different, outcast our marginalized.
What were some of these behaviors or social customs that Jesus’ people went through? Let us consider some of them: They followed the rules of the Sabbath, they had some specific time when to pray the Shema (Sh’ma Yisrael or Hear O Israel) as mitzvah (religious commandment), or the recitation of the kaddish, or when to perform the rite of circumcision. They had specific rules whom to touch, to marry, eat with, and who could perform certain actions. They had laws for meals, how to prepare them, what could be eaten, where to eat them, etc.
The temporal distance between Jesus’ time and our is getting bigger with each passing day. But perhaps the social distance between our society and Jesus’ society might even be greater. How then shall we modern readers, get into the social meaning of Jesus’ culture, especially about its purification laws?
The encounter of many cultures should, theoretically, enrich these cultures. Consequently, the people of those cultures should be better off in many senses after each encounter. Although one culture may dominate other cultures, it will definitely take on and “absorb” aspects of the dominated culture/s also. For its part, a dominant culture may resist a dominant culture in many subtle ways. In the meeting of cultures, therefore, something new always emerges as a result of the encounter or contact.
We moderns live out the social meanings of our society. However, we can find parallels of the prohibition laws in Jesus’ society in ours. Racial intermarriages in North America have increased in number only in the late half of the last century. Pasta and pizza have only been popular in recent years. We still have strong lines that distinguish who is civilized and who is not. We still have the state of being quite as opposed to being talkative as a criterion to determine who is smart and who is stupid. The characterization alone of what is the First World and the Third World demonstrates that we still follow certain rules that make us distinct from others.
As we reflect today’s Gospel, let us ponder these questions: What are those boundary lines deep within our cultural consciousness which have enabled us to marginalized God from some areas of our lives, if we have not yet done it totally? How aware and sensitive are we about our actions and words that empty our values with the meaning of the Gospel? In living our faith, how much have we been exclusive?
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