Tradition vs. Belief in God

 Gospel text (Mk 7:1-13): When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.)

So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?” He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts. You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition! For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and Whoever curses father or mother shall die. Yet you say, ‘If someone says to father or mother, “Any support you might have had from me is qorban”’ (meaning, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.”

Reflection:

In this Gospel, Jesus explains that you can always disregard tradition as long as your faith in God is real. As Filipino, we have a lot of traditions in the Philippines that we disregard our faith in God. We keep on celebrating this tradition despite that our belief in God is compromised. We must not be hyprocrites, showing that we have strong faith in God but we still practice traditional beliefs. 

This happens only because we feel we are oblige to do it because it is a tradition. We might be isolated with out relatives because we disregard traditon. We must think and choose the right thing to do in every situation.