All the most prominent religious systems—which, it should be noted, arose in warm climates—contain a concept of ritual purity and, conversely, defilement. This is usually understood to mean...
All the most prominent religious systems—which, it should be noted, arose in warm climates—contain a concept of ritual purity and, conversely, defilement. This is usually understood to mean, quite literally, dirt: sweat, the dust that sticks to it, soot, and so on. All this leaves a person looking unfit to appear not only before the Most High but even before other people. The Old Testament is no exception, although the emphasis in the biblical concept of defilement shifts noticeably toward the moral sphere.
Christ does not reject the very concepts of defilement and cleansing. But, He says, it is not outward and accidental things that make you unworthy of the Almighty’s gaze, but what is done by your own heart. He contrasts the hygiene of the flesh with a kind of hygiene of the spirit: it is not dirt and soot that defile a person—a person, in Abraham’s words, is himself dust and ashes—but the active doing of evil. This is what spoils God’s design for the world; this is what disfigures creation.
It is natural that we, like the Pharisees, stumble over this, because it is far more convenient for us to establish outward cleanliness than to free ourselves from the evil in our own hearts. This is an essential checkpoint in the spiritual life: do you prefer appearance to reality?
But among other things, Jesus Christ’s words in today’s Gospel are an important revelation about the Father. Jesus explains to the disciples and to us that the Almighty looks at the essence of things. If you sincerely try to help your neighbor, it is the desire itself that matters in God’s eyes, not the weakness of its execution, because in that case He Himself makes up for your weakness. But if you do something vile, it remains vile in God’s eyes, however respectable its outward form may be.
14 The murmuring of the people against Moses and Aaron, Numeri 14:1-4.
Their fruitless endeavour to still them, Numeri 14:5-10.
God's threatening utterly to destroy them, Numeri 14:11-12.
The intercession of Moses, Numeri 14:13-19.
The decree that all that generation should die in the wilderness, Numeri 14:20-35.
The immediate death of the spies, Numeri 14:36-39.
The ill success of those who would go up notwithstanding, Numeri 14:40-45.