But Jesus does more than simply reveal the contradictions in the casuistic interpretation of the Law. His own argument goes much deeper. He calls the woman “a daughter of Abraham.” That is: she is part of the chosen people of God, a representative of Israel. As such she has been bound by Satan for eighteen years, and as such she is now freed from her bonds. No, she is not only freed, she “must” be set free. The phrase “reign of God” is not spoken, but it is quite obvious that it is precisely what is at stake here: the reign of God is happening now, God is becoming Lord in Israel now, Satan is being bound now, and now the people in Israel are being freed from the fetters with which they have been held bound. It is Jesus himself who forces his way into the “house of the strong man” and binds him (Matt 12:29). If we look closely we see that Jesus’ Sabbath healings have a great deal to do with his proclamation of the reign of God. God will now become Lord in Israel once and for all, and the spread of the reign of God cannot be delayed for any reason.
We also need to ask ourselves why Jesus’ disciples were plucking and eating ears of grain on the Sabbath, of all days. Obviously it was because they were hungry (cf. Mark 2:25). And why? Is not the background here the insecurity of Jesus’ and his disciples’ itinerant existence in service of the reign of God? Jesus’ disciples, like himself, were dependent on people who would take them into their houses in the evenings and give them something to eat. But they did not always find houses open to them, and the labor for the Gospel did not always leave them time to think of eating at all. In this connection we need to take seriously what Mark writes, “Then he went [into a house]; and the crowd came together again, so that they [Jesus and his disciples] could not even eat” (Mark 3:19-20). The story about plucking ears of grain presumes such a situation of completely insecure itinerant existence in which no planning was possible. The plucking of grain was not a game; it was done out of necessity, because of the hardship of existence for the reign of God. But that means that this breach of Sabbath rules is firmly connected to the proclamation of the reign of God. Here again, the first commandment has greater weight than the third as it was then interpreted.
Clean and Unclean
But there is a text that sharpens the question of Jesus’ relationship to the Torah still further. In Mark 7:15 we find a saying of Jesus that really does give the impression that here an important part of the Torah, namely, the whole of the laws regarding what is clean and what is unclean, is being declared invalid. It reads, “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” The Lutheran theologian Ernst Käsemann (1906–1998) commented on this passage: “The man who denies that impurity from external sources can penetrate into man’s essential being is striking at the presuppositions and the plain verbal sense of the Torah and at the authority of Moses himself. Over and above that, he is striking at the presuppositions of the whole classical conception of cultus with its sacrificial and expiatory system.”34 He concludes from this that a Jew who speaks this way “has cut himself off from the community of Judaism”—or else he is the Messiah and brings “the Messianic Torah.”35 Against this, of course, one must point out that there is no such thing as a separate “Messianic Torah” in Judaism. The Messiah is the model of fulfilling the Torah of Moses. He serves it. He interprets it. He sees to it that it is obeyed everywhere, but he does not promulgate a Torah of his own.36 Of the alternatives Käsemann proposes, then, only one is possible: Jesus had “cut himself off from the community of Judaism.” But did he really? Does what Jesus says in Mark 7:15 permit that conclusion? Let us look more closely!
Mark (or the tradition Mark used) locates the logion in this context: some Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem observe that Jesus’ disciples do not ritually wash their hands before eating and thus also make the food they eat unclean. The disciples do not obey the prescriptions regarding ritual cleanness established by the community of the Pharisees. The purpose of those prescriptions was to impose the priestly Torah of clean and unclean on the whole nation. All Israel is to be a “priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Exod 19:6). It is possible that in such a situation Jesus defended his disciples with the saying found in Mark 7:15.
But we can imagine other situations in which Jesus might have spoken these words. He often ate with people who most certainly did not keep the Pharisaic rules of cleanness. Consider, for example, his eating with “toll collectors and sinners” (Mark 2:15). Probably there was little regard for ritual questions of cleanness and uncleanness in such circles. In the eyes of the Pharisees, or of people who lived according to the Pharisaic interpretation of the Law, Jesus made himself unclean by entering into such a table community and thus exposed himself to hostile attacks. The saying could come out of a context like that as well. In that case it is not a fundamental rejection of the Torah of cleanness and uncleanness but subordinates that aspect of Torah to the love commandment and the proclamation of the reign of God.
But there is a third possibility that seems to me by far the most probable.37 We have already seen, again and again, that particular texts in the gospels are best explained in terms of the unstable itinerant lives of Jesus and his disciples. If the disciples had been traveling all day and in the evening could be happy to be received into a house and given something to eat, they would scarcely have inquired whether the food corresponded to the Pharisaic laws for cleanness. Jesus could have legitimated such an attitude on their part with the saying in Mark 7:15. In favor of that, in any case, is his saying, “eat what is set before you” in the mission discourse (Luke 10:8). We might add: “eat what is set before you without asking if it is clean or unclean.” In any case, the Coptic Gospel of Thomas connected Jesus’ saying about “clean and unclean” with the mission discourse (GThom 14). If Mark 7:15 originated in the itinerant existence of Jesus and his disciples, it is not meant to reject the Torah of clean and unclean but rather, as we have seen in the cases of the third and fourth commandments, to set the proclamation of the reign of God ahead of every other law.
Certainly we must admit that Mark 7:15, seen by itself, gives no hint of a concrete situation; it is formulated in basic terms and absolutely: what comes from without cannot make one unclean. Only what comes out of a person makes her or him unclean—the evil in the heart. But was Jesus, in fact, not abrogating the whole Torah of cleanness and uncleanness in Scripture when he said that?
We can probably make more progress on this difficult question only if we compare the way Jesus dealt with other parts of the Torah. He has no thought of eliminating the Sabbath commandment, but on occasion he subordinates it to the proclamation of the reign of God. Nor is he thinking of abrogating the fourth commandment, but when necessary he subjects it to the requirements of the reign of God. And he does not intend to abolish the temple cult, but he can subordinate it to the necessity of reconciliation (Matt 5:23-24). In the same way, we can say that Jesus was not thinking of declaring the Torah of clean and unclean false and outdated. At any rate, he commanded the leper he had made clean to show himself to the priest, in accordance with Leviticus 14, and to present the sacrifice prescribed for cleansing (Mark 1:44). Nevertheless, here again we must say that Jesus had already touched lepers without the least hesitation. Apparently he always acted with great freedom. And Mark 7:15 is really formulated in very radical and basic terms. So is this, after all, an unsolvable problem?