Year B

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Holy Law That Frees

We just finished the summer Olympics in Japan and many of us are now looking forward to the winter Olympics next February in China. My favorite sport in the summer Olympics is gymnastics and in the winter, it is the figure skaters. They seem so free as they glide over the ice, and make it look so easy to twirl and jump. We might even envy their talent and think I could do that before we remember for some of us our age and then how much work goes into making it look so easy. They are gifted. Talent they do have but the one additional ingredient in their achievement of success is discipline. Only the daily, repetitious practice which builds habit makes possible the full freedom of human artistry.

My gymnasts granddaughters are at the gym at least two nights a week and again on Saturdays. They spent most of summer in the gym practicing. The gift without discipline is a gift buried in sand. Israel certainly understood this. For Israel the law or the Ten Commandments was the practice manual for forming habits which would make possible their freedom to live a full healthy life. Only daily practice would tone the muscles, fill the lungs and secure the balance so that one could leap freely into the joy of living. In this is wisdom, to live the gift of life to its fullness from God.

Thus in our OT text today, Moses farewell address to his people and the prologue to the Deuteronomic law given to the Israelites by the Lord God, Moses is telling the people of their need to live their lives in accord with the Commandments that they have been taught and that they are not to alter the law in any manner; it is holy, because it has come to them from God. The name “Deuteronomy” means “the second pronouncement of the Law, for the Ten Commandments first appear in the book of Exodus, and then again in Deuteronomy. They are not to add to the law nor subtract anything from it; it must be kept intact and obeyed by the people of God for their present and future welfare, and their happiness which God is providing.

Therefore, God wants them to realize that theirs is a special privilege, that they have a unique kind of law; a divinely-ordered law, not a law conceived and carried out by human beings. They are to appreciate and respect this privilege and Moses reminds them of this as he asks “What great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us? The laws of human beings may be altered, even discarded, but the law of God shows God’s love for humans and is perfect and, as such it must be the discipline by which they live their lives and make known to their children and their children’s children.

Many, years later, in the last centuries before the Christian Era, a sect of Judaism called the Pharisees, the most powerful religious group among the Hebrews, who in the end actually plotted Jesus’ death, developed a set of regulations or practices intended to be a “fence around the law.” As the world’s conditions changed there was a need to apply the laws to new situations. So the Pharisees set out modifications, changes to the law as added disciplines to refine the skills for living. But in many cases, the doing or the technique, the adherence to human traditions became more important than the obedience to God’s law.

And in the gospel today, Jesus’ disciples confront just such a situation: the washing of hands becomes more important than the inner cleanliness it signifies. The disciples by not obeying the detailed rules and laws of religious ceremonial handwashing, failed to carry out what had become the all-important externals of religious policy and procedure which had nothing to do with obeying the will of God. The people’s faith practice had become no longer based on living the commandments of loving God and loving their neighbor. It had become a complicated nightmare of trying to follow thousands of trivial traditions and people actually believed this was the way of following God’s will.

True, the disciples may have been eating with defiled hands, but as Jesus pointed out the religious leaders were living with defiled hearts. Their obsession with washing hands, cups, pots and just about everything else had become a faith hindering problem that had destroyed the people’s ability to follow the commandments of God properly. No longer were they involved in loving others so Jesus then tells them exactly how it was, using Isaiah’s words, “This people honors me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.”

The problem that Isaiah and Jesus identified in people thousands of years ago very interestingly remains the same problem we have today. We, too, honor God with our lips while many times our hearts remain far from God. We hold to traditions and rules that at times prevent us from being about and doing the very thing God calls us to do. It is so easy to be focused on ritual practice because observing the real commandments of God is so very hard. Jesus makes very clear what’s most important if we are to have a good relationship with God and others.

Change is needed and it must take place in the deepest part of our hearts. This is where the source of our spirituality lies and our relationship to God, which is not a matter of following a list of do’s and don’ts; it’s simply a matter of following the God’s Spirit. Now, this may sound simple but living life through the spirit, putting God first in our hearts, living a life of disciples based on the commandments of God, is far beyond our own capacities. Therefore James reminds us today that it is God who nurtures us, gives us gifts, and provides direction for our lives in God’s rule of life which is to love God with all our hearts, with everything we are and have and to love our neighbor as we do ourselves.

We find that by following God’s rules, specifically the greatest commandment, we will find wholeness and integrity. James was struggling with a church community that had things out of order and in doing so had invited disaster into their midst. “You must understand this, my beloved, he says, let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” We can wind up deceiving our hearts and rendering our faith worthless. Therefore, he says, we are called to restrain anything that might corrupt God’s perfect creation. It is of no value for us to claim that we have heard God’s word unless we have become doers of that word, and have decided to live our lives by it. We hear James say, “Those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act…they will be blessed in their doing.”

God who gives us life also gives us the law, the commandments and Jesus summed up the 10 commandments with the greatest commandment and insists we practice it every day. The law is indeed part of the gift of life. As Jesus pointed out, the true purpose of the law is to liberate us so that we become capable of genuine healthy living. Only daily practice will tone the muscles, fill the lungs and secure the balance so that one can leap freely into the joy of living. In this is wisdom, to live the gift of life to its fullness from God. As we practice being doers and not just hearers of the word, as we practice the discipline of the law to love God and neighbor, we will become free to twirl and jump, we will become free to reflect God’s intentions for all humanity.