NOTHING THAT GOES IN DEFILES A MAN

 


WEDNESDAY, FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Gen 2:4-9,15-17; Ps 104:1-2,27-30; Mk 7:14-23

The source of Defilement and Death

We have the second account of creation today, which focuses more on man and the workings of his mind. The account presents the creation of man as requiring the personal involvement of the Lord God. “The Lord God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being.” This replaces the Trinitarian involvement in the first account. The self-invitation of the Trinity to make man in God’s image and likeness correlates to the divine breath of life which gave man a special life different from other living things created by God.  God’s love for man makes him plant a beautiful garden where he put the man, Adam, and Eve, the woman God made from the rib taken from Adam. Our attention is quickly drawn to the middle of the garden where the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil are located amidst other fruit trees in the garden made for man. “The Lord God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden.” Their location relates to their importance for the well-being of man. 

The two trees and their fruits are only symbolic representations of the fact that man and woman received life and can also lose the life given to them, and what determines whether they hold onto the life given to them by God or lose it is their allowing the prerogative of deciding what is good and evil for them to remain with God. The admonition God gave them translates to this: “The Lord God gave man this admonition, ‘You may eat indeed of all the trees in the garden. Nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die.’” Worthy of note is that God never forbade man and woman from eating from the tree of life, because everything that came to be from the word of God is for the well flourishing of life of the human persons. But to conceive and do the contrary to the word of God would surely cause death or diminishing of man’s life. In this sense, we understand the design and engineering of the natural or material world for the flourishing of the human person and life. Thus, we are to eat, learn, and imitate nature, which comes from the all-powerful word of God, to act rightly. Our science and technology ought to follow and enhance nature. The power to dominate the material universe given to man in the first account and the duty to cultivate the garden in the second account all point to this end. 

The purpose of nature is to engineer and maintain the body and mind of man in his vocation to the knowledge of God and obedience to his divine will. The Lord confirms this in the gospel when he teaches that nothing (natural) entering into man defiles him, because they are made of God, but what comes out of him that are of his own making. The disciples were surprised by the teaching due to their misinformation coming from the tradition of their ancestors. So, they asked for more clarification from him. “He said to them, ‘Do you not understand either? Can you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot make him unclean, because it does not go into his heart but through his stomach and passes out into the sewer?’ (Thus, he pronounced all food clean.) And he went on, ‘It is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.” The evil intentions that emerge from men’s hearts are not taught by nature but learned from the evil one and his cohorts. The Palmist testifies to this. “All of these (creatures) look to you to give them their food in due season. You give it, they gather it up: you open your hand, they have their fill. You take back your spirit, they die, returning to the dust from which they came.” Nature tutors us in the knowledge and way of God, thereby preparing us to be like God. What we learn from nature is confirmed and reinforced by the word of God. To disobey nature is to disobey God, which causes us to die. The artificial re-engineering of nature and society raises a lot of concern for all. 

Let us pray: Keep your family safe, O Lord, with unfailing care, that, relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace, they may be defended always by your protection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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