Today’s readings: Deuteronomy 4, 1-2.6-8; James 1, 17-18.21-22.27; Mark 7, 1-8.14-15.21-23.

One of the best books I’ve read these past years remains the one by philosopher John Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct? Caputo provides a glimpse of what the concept of deconstruction might look like in the hands of Jesus as applied to the Church.

In a 2,000-year-old Church always tempted to settle down to petty things and forget about the essentials, this is a therapy we need. It is also a therapy many sectors within the Church are inclined to resist. This is something that has been recurring since the birth of Monasticism, since Francis of Assisi, Theresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Catherine of Siena and Martin Luther himself.

Deconstruction is not a negative concept. Jesus in today’s gospel quotes Isaiah claiming that the worship people offer can be worthless and that the doctrines we teach can be only human regulations. We need to beware of such warnings because religion and our theologies and teachings can very easily turn into idolatry.

Theology, in fact, is idolatry if it means what we say about God instead of letting ourselves be addressed by what God has to say to us. Idolatry can be a very serious blockage in the life of faith. The Scriptures today call for a rethinking or even re-imagining of our religion. The apostle James in the second reading is very clear on what religion is about: “Coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world”.

In the New Testament, Jesus was a radical, never afraid of attacking the tradition whenever the latter serves to block the opening to God and to His grace. In Mark’s gospel Jesus goes a long way to prove this, starting from the very beginning by declaring clean the leper to the point he is making in today’s reading.

The reason for the Church to exist is fellowship, to enhance and bring broader, deeper fellowship and sense of companionship and community among people. When that view is blurred, the very reason for the Church’s being is distorted.

In today’s gospel, Jesus attacks exclusive table fellowship, which was the Pharisaic practice. The Pharisees and scribes were bringing to the attention of Jesus the fact that “his disciples were eating with unclean hands”. Jesus reacts to this, quoting from the prophet Isaiah that “this people honours me only with lip service”.

The issue was the purity code governing table fellowship. In Mark, the maintenance of strict group boundaries is commonplace. It is what to this day we continue to debate about, holding on to doctrine at the cost of people. Jesus gave up his life in his struggle to open up the community to make it inclusive as much as it can be.

In these issues so much recurring in religion and Church practice, what remains vital is the right key to interpret Jesus himself. While the Pharisees speak of “unclean hands”, Jesus uncovers their hypocrisy and as always turns upside down the whole argument, declaring that “it is the things that come out of a person that make that person unclean”.

For Jesus, the true site of purity and impurity is not the body but the heart, which in Jewish anthropology is the moral seat of the person. Addressing from the perspective of the gospel, the Church’s real institutional life today is of vital importance if we want to make of tradition the core of its being as meant by Jesus.

As Caputo writes, there are two Churches: the big, visible one on top, with bishops, buildings and what can easily be envisaged as a power structure, and another one underneath, down in the underbelly of the Kingdom of God, in the streets where marginal Christians and Christian communities are disclosing the mark of Jesus on the world quietly and without a lot of fanfare.

In the face of crude reality, many people out there are struggling to come to terms with belief. The Church, fragile as it may appear, needs to be there, accompanying those on this journey. One thing we are sure of today more than ever is that a more self-doubting Church can be more humane, whereas the lack of doubt can only fuel further fanaticism.