Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
A few years ago…I met a woman who told me about a big mess her congregation had gotten into.
- It seems the church council had voted to move the grand piano…
- Which sat in the front of the worship space.
- They voted to move it five inches.
- So that they could make room for some new handicap-accessible seating.
- I am not sure why the church council was voting on something like this.
- But they were.
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Anyway…the council members agreed on a date and time for meeting at church to move the piano.
- Now…I am not sure why they were going to do this themselves…either.
- But apparently word got out that this was happening.
- The appointed time arrived.
- The church council members gathered in the sanctuary…dressed…I suppose…
- In appropriate clothing for piano moving and…
- Maybe…feeling a little bit scared.
- You know…like lightning was going to strike or something if they dared move anything in such a holy place.
But before they even had time to think about it…
- The director of music burst through the doors of the sanctuary and barreled up the aisle.
- She said not a word.
- But rather communicated her position clearly by hoisting up her generous frame and throwing herself across the top of the piano.
- We must guess that she was dressed for piano straddling.
At any rate…she flat out…do not-even-try-to-mess-with-me…
- Refused to come down off the piano until the church council agreed not to touch it.
Who…or what…was lord in that place…do you think?
- It is easy to get confused.
- Putting tradition or culture or “my” ideas or whatever…
- At the center of our life together as believers.
- But I wonder how many of our problems…at church…
- As well as in our own personal lives…
- Would be solved if we simply remembered that JESUS is Lord.
- No thing and no one else.
So…ritual is engrained in our lives.
- Just as it was heavily engrained in the lives of the folks during Jesus’ time on earth.
In our lesson for the day…the Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law had come from Jerusalem to “investigate” Jesus.
- On the outside these Pharisees personified respectability.
- On the inside…however…they were full of fear and envy.
- Really…they were growing in their hatred for Jesus.
- They looked for any excuse to smear him and his followers.
On this day…they observed some of Jesus’ disciples eating food without first washing their hands.
- This…of course…offended them.
- Understand…this was not about sanitation.
- There was no sign around saying employees must wash their hands.
- It was not about preventing germs.
- They knew nothing about germs then.
- Instead…this was about maintaining a religious tradition.
In fact…Mark pauses for a moment and explains to his Gentile audience living outside of Palestine…the Jewish practice of ceremonial washing.
- “Unclean” …the Greek word is koinais…
- As Mark explained it…
- Meant “ceremonially unwashed.”
- It was a technical term among Hebrews denoting whatever was contaminated according to their religious rituals.
- And…for that reason…was unfit to be called holy or devoted to God.
- Unclean could refer to practices or to people.
The most common ritual cleansing was the washing of one’s hands before eating food.
- Disregarding this regulation was considered a sin for a loyal Jew.
- We would say that these disciples were engaging in unsanitary behavior when they did not wash their hands before eating.
- In the Pharisees’ minds…though… Jesus’ disciples were indulging in sinful behavior when they did not wash their hands.
Let’s pause for a moment.
- We need to acknowledge here…that this tradition of ritual cleansing…
- Would have had a positive effect on the health of the Jewish people that observed it.
- Many of the Jewish ceremonial laws protected them from disease.
- And this was certainly one of those cases.
- But protecting their health was not why they washed their hands before eating.
- It was because they were keeping the tradition of their fathers and mothers.
- And Jesus’ disciples were not observing those traditions.
So…the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus:
- “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders…but eat with defiled hands?”
- Well…Jesus knew what this was all about.
- Jesus knew the Pharisees were not nearly as concerned about whether his disciples washed their hands as they were determined to find fault with his ministry.
- He makes no reference to his disciples’ apparent ungodly conduct.
Instead…he replies:
- “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites…
- As it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips…
- But their hearts are far from me.
- They worship me in vain…
- Their teachings are merely human rules.’
- You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
Who we are…what we do…the kind of persons we are…begin within the heart.
- The place where God dwells.
- The evil we are capable of…the hurt we inflict on others…the degrading of the world that God created…begins within our hearts:
- When God is displaced by selfishness.
- When God is displaced by anger.
- When God is displaced by greed.
- When God is displaced by hatred.
Saint Paul insists that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
- So…it is right that we conclude with the words of the psalmist:
- “Create in me a clean heart…O God…and put a new and right spirit within me.”