Year B

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

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Actions of Faith Living

For five Sundays now we have been in the gospel of John talking about bread and wine-body and blood- finally we return to the gospel of Mark and find we are talking about washing hands. How many here this morning believe it is important to wash your hands? How many times did our parents say to us, or we have said to our children when they walked in the door after playing outside or after coming home from school, don’t forget to wash your hands. Just about the first thing I do when I walk in the door is wash my hands. To me, it seems like the right thing to do because hands touch a lot of things that are pretty germy. So why is Jesus getting so upset with the Pharisees when they point out that the disciples are eating without first washing their hands? We certainly can understand the sincere question raised by the Pharisees, a sect of Judaism and the official leaders of the Jewish religion in Jesus’ day. They appear rightly concerned that Jesus’ disciples do not demonstrate good hygiene or reverence for the tradition of the elders, since the ritual of hand washing was considered an important part of the Jewish faith and identity.

In the centuries before Jesus came on the scene, the Pharisees developed a whole set of regulations or practices concerning ritual purity to conform to this verse from Leviticus 19:2, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” The Pharisees believed that the practice of eating with undefiled hands was an obligation not only for the Temple priests, but for all Jewish people who sought to be the holy nation they had been called to be. And, they believed that unless you washed in a particular way you were considered ritually unclean, unclean in the sight of the holy God. To follow this oral law was not seen as trivial but demonstrated how seriously the law of God is to be taken. We hear this stressed in the OT text today from Deuteronomy. Observe the laws and statutes for thereby you will display your wisdom and understanding….and people will say…what a great nation this is.

The Pharisees were admired and looked up to by the common people. Therefore, they felt it important to ask Jesus, a Jew, “Why do your disciples, all Jews, not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands”? They were expected to follow Jewish laws and traditions. Yet, as we see in this text, and in many other stories in the scriptures, the Pharisees often find themselves speaking in opposition to the message and ministry of Jesus. In response to their criticism, Jesus doesn’t apologize for his disciple’s failure to follow the prescribed ritual; rather we hear him charge the Pharisees with using the tradition to avoid observing the commandments of God. No wonder tensions between the two continue to rise.

 He says, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” You, hypocrites, teach the tradition but abandon the commandments of God because they are too hard to follow. The washing of hands and the way it is done, becomes more important than the inner cleanliness it signifies. We humans have the tendency to give equal status to tradition, the way we have always done it, which can at times detract from being faithful to God’s word.  Jesus is saying do not hold onto empty practices, claiming they are holy things. Most of our traditions in the church rise out of devout intent. Their purpose is to draw attention to God. If they draw attention to anything else, they cannot be considered sacred or holy.

Jesus then turns to the crowd to teach what is sacred by making the point that “there is nothing outside of a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. Jesus appears here to question the rationale behind the entire Levitical structure of dietary kosher laws and regulations.  In doing this, he locates the roots of impurity and hence of sin where they belong within the mind and the heart.  It is not a matter of ritual observance, or of outward appearance, or of correct performance of ritual acts that makes Israel acceptable to God or holy Jesus tells us, but the behavior that comes out of a person. What renders a person “unclean” in God’s sight is the dispositions that form inside a human heart that creates the problem. For this is the source of our egoism, selfishness and cruelty.

The heart, Jesus would say, is the measure of true religion and obedience to God must come from the heart.  The heart for centuries was thought to be the center of one’s will and decision-making abilities, to turn one’s heart away from God or to find it filled with evil intentions is considered a serious sin.  James, the brother of Jesus, later concerned with the manner in which the Christian life is to be lived, speaks to this sin in his letter, a manual for Christian conduct.  He is particularly interested in the ways in which the Christian life finds wholeness and integrity. He urges his readers to reflect the character of God who supplies the good things and is our source of help for moral living. Every perfect gift is from above to give us the word of truth, to bring our faith to maturity and that faith is made visible by deeds of compassion, generosity and honor.

A good example of this is when we buy a child a piano and give that child an opportunity to take lessons and insist that the child practice every day sometimes even with tears. The lessons, the exercise, the daily drudgery may seem like a burden for a very long time. But they are truly a part of the gift. The child who perseveres in the discipline until the habits of fine piano playing are second nature will gradually become free to play the piano. Free not just to make sounds but to speak what is in the heart. It is not enough merely to hear the word we have to practice it so it speaks from our hearts. And James promises that hearers will be blessed in their doing and giving because the doers can rejoice in knowing that their actions, born out of the word of God, demonstrate heart filled faith.

A faith that embraces neighbor and self: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. When we love God, we love our neighbor. This is the foundation for Christian behavior and this is what Jesus is saying to us today. What matters to God is faithfulness to the covenant with our creator, to choose right relations with God, each other and our community; so that our hearts reflect God’s love for the world. Our purpose is to draw attention to God in our rituals, our deeds, and our lives. This is the way to achieve the holiness God desires. Anything else cannot be considered sacred or holy.