This blog provides a meditation on the Revised Common Lectionary readings along with a headline from world news

SKY TV presenters sacked for sexism

Galatians 3:23-29

Feast day of Andrei Rublev-icon painter

The Holy Trinity by Andrei Rublev

23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. ²⁴Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, ²⁶for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. ²⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,^* heirs according to the promise.

I have before noted that the position of the slave person called Paedagogus was much more like a childminder than a disciplinarian, and should be so translated. Paul’s point is not severe discipline but the childish status of those who need minded. In Christ we become responsible children of God along with believers of all races, all social conditions and both sexes. The childish sexism displayed by two sports commentators from Sky TV this week should be something the church could laugh to scorn. Instead two vast denominations, Roman Catholic and Orthodox refuse to ordain women, while some Anglican bishops have lately jumped out of the playpen in case they are forced to work with women as equals. Paul’s passionate letter undermined all that nonsense before the Gospels were written. Nothing is dearer to the heart of religious people than petty

All one in Christ Jesus: Romany Children

distinctions and finicky practices. For Paul, Christian faith is not religious.

Mark 7:1-23

The Tradition of the Elders

7Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

“This people honours me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me;

7 in vain do they worship me,

teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

8You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

9 Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! 10For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” 11But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God)— 12then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’

14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’

17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

It’s clear that in this, as in many other matters Paul had the mind of Christ. For Jesus, all that matters is the immediate rule of the Father whose goodness heals and cleans the human person. Jesus’ common sense and sobriety are evident in these teachings: he is utterly opposed to all hocus- pocus. He might even have found it hard to imagine his followers determining the right liturgical colour for the season; but he would probably just have laughed at them, unless in their preoccupation with good form, they forgot what defiles a person and what makes them clean.