In Judges 21 God has rejected the tribe of Benjamin. All of the women are dead and the men who escaped are in the wilderness. The people of Israel vow not to let their women marry any Benjaminite. But, the other tribes can’t imagine that God would allow only 11 tribes to exist so they hatch a plan to keep the tribe going. They determine that one group did not gather with the rest and kill everyone except the virgins. They give the virgins to the Benjaminites. There aren’t enough of them to go around. So the people try to figure out another way to provide wives from the people of Israel without going against their vow not to give their daughters to them.

There is a festival to the Lord at Shiloh. The Israelites tell the Benjaminites to lie in wait until the young women dance away. Then they can come and abduct the young women. They figure that they are in the clear because they have not given the Benjaminites their daughters, the Benjaminites have stolen them. Surely this plan will lead to punishment.

Mark 7 opens with a confrontation between Jesus and some Pharisees. The Pharisees are upset because the disciples did not perform the ritualistic washing of hands before eating. Jesus chastises the Pharisees because they follow human tradition and do not follow the commands of God. He mentions that they do not honor their parents by saying that all that they earn is for God. That way they use it for themselves but do not support their parents.

Jesus says that God is not so much interested in keeping clean on the outside but on keeping the heart clean. It is not what you put in that needs to be clean but what comes out of you from your heart.

Jesus meets a Gentile woman who wants him to heal her daughter of an unclean spirit. Jesus tells her that he needs to concentrate on Jews and not Gentiles. The woman implores Jesus to help and he does. Jesus also heals a deaf man. Even though Jesus tells the crowd not to tell anyone they tell all the more.

In both the Old and New Testament stories we see how we manipulate our faith practices to get what we want. We make our thoughts God’s thoughts and our ways God’s ways. Just because we say that these are what god wants from us does not make it so. We are only fooling ourselves. God knows when we stray from his teachings. It is better that we keep reading his word and following his ways. God is not being fooled by our rationalized disobedience.