Pentecost 15B Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, chapter of the gospel of John where we have talked about Jesus being the bread of life.

Transcription

1 1 Pentecost 15B Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, Welcome back to Mark! For the past five Sundays we have been looking at the sixth chapter of the gospel of John where we have talked about Jesus being the bread of life. And today we make a return to the gospel of Mark..and wow, what a place in which to return. This is certainly a challenging reading to tackle. It s kind of like a bird that has been flying around for days having no place to land because of a great flood. When finally the bird spots a solid piece of land on which to rest it finds that the piece of land is actually a hungry alligator. If we are honest, this reading is one that makes us all squirm a little bit. We begin with the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem. And once again they are up to no good. They are once again challenging Jesus and his disciples. It is always easy to dislike the Pharisees and the scribes. It is easy to label them the bad guys because they were in opposition to Jesus. They tried to trick him and they tried to get him into trouble. But let s not be too hard on them because, while they did do these things, they were acting out of sincerity. They thought, without a doubt, that they were right and that Jesus was wrong. The Pharisaic tradition of washing one's hands before eating has a long history. Since the Book of Exodus when the Law was given to the Israelites, it was required that the high priest, before he even entered the temple, ritually wash both his hands and his feet. Over the years since that time, it had become the norm for all followers of this tradition, not just the priests, to wash their hands before eating. For the Pharisees then, these were not just empty acts without meaning. The devout Pharisees were perfectly sincere in their ritual washings. They were making the unclean clean so that they would not be defiled on the inside. It s just that, over time, more and more of these

2 2 cleanliness rituals came into being and things got out of hand. They came to believe that by strict observance of these cleanliness laws their deeds could keep them clean on the inside. Well Jesus knows that this is wrong and he makes his displeasure very clear when he calls them hypocrites. He notices that a large gap has developed between the Pharisees' external religious practice and their internal belief. The Pharisees have concentrated so much on these external acts of religious ritual..they have become so obsessed by them, that they have not seen the world around them the way that Jesus wants them to see it. They are trying to be outwardly perfect, recognizing, and perhaps not even admitting, that they are not perfect on the inside. They fear what they are, or what they aren t, on the inside so they put so much time, energy and importance on what they do on the outside. And so, they perform these tedious rituals out of fear showing that they are really concerned about themselves, and this is what gets Jesus upset. But let us not diminish the importance of doing. Outward acts, or good works, are most certainly important. Earlier in Psalm 15 you heard read, those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak the truth from their heart; who do not slander with their tongue, and do no evil, nor take up reproach, who honor the Lord, who stand by their oath, who charge no interest, and who don t take bribes..those who do these things shall never be moved. This my friends, is all about doing. Earlier in James you heard read, but be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. This my friends is all about doing. What you say and what you do are not separate from who you are. Period. Your words and your actions are indeed windows through which to view your soul. Anyone who thinks

3 3 otherwise..is fooling themselves. This is what the Pharisees thought. They acted in an effort to be outwardly perfect in order to cover up their inward faults. When we do this, we are modern day Pharisees. We can count ourselves among those whom Jesus scolds when he says, this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines. The Pharisees, in all of their efforts to follow the law, avoided the unclean. They avoided the dirty, the despised, the different, the sick, the unpleasant..they avoided the world around them. Well, what about our world? There is certainly a lot of unpleasantness in our world too isn t there? We fight against hunger, homelessness, racism, violence and corruption in almost every country of the world..including our own. And then, there is significant unpleasantness and uncleanliness that is even closer than that. The most tortuous struggles we face are sometimes those things that reside in ourselves. When we face our own hypocrisy, our own greed, our own prejudice or violence, we are facing the unpleasant power of our own uncleanliness. Those are also the powers that Jesus speaks of when he says that what comes out of a person is what defiles that person. He says, from within, out of the heart of people, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness." And this is what makes this reading so difficult sometimes..that is why it may feel like a tired bird landing on the back of a hungry alligator. We are forced to look at our own uncleanliness. We are forced to not only look at it, but feel it..feel it and recoil in horror at what we know to be true. We look in the mirror and we gladly turn away from the person we see looking back at us..because we know that these unclean things of what Jesus speaks dwell in our hearts. So we look in the mirror at a convicted person and gladly turn away from that image.

4 4 Jesus was right..of course he is..jesus is always right. there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. If unpleasant, unclean things lie within our hearts how can we then make ourselves clean? How can people with unclean hearts stay away from doing unpleasant, unclean things on the outside? Scary questions to ask aren t they? Or, more accurately, maybe we are scared of the answers to those questions. This fear causes us to think like modern day Pharisees. This fear throws that mirror back in our faces and we once again turn away in shame at who we see. This fear causes us to think that we have failed and that we are broken and lost. It is this fear that sometimes causes us to lose sight of the truth. And the truth is this. Jesus needs to reside in your heart. The Son of God, your Savior, needs to be in your heart so that it may be pure. There is nothing in all the world that we can do in order to make ourselves clean on the inside. That job belongs to God..and through Christ, God has delivered. When we admit to have unclean hearts, and when we know that the only way to make them clean is to accept Jesus offer of forgiveness and grace..then we will have clean hearts indeed..then we will be sparkling clean in the eyes of God. It was fear that tricked the Pharisees into thinking that if they did the proper external acts, then they would be made inwardly clean. If they washed their hands before every meal, then nothing unclean would ever enter them. This is the kind of thinking that takes us away from whom Jesus wants us to be. He doesn t want us to hide away from the uncleanliness. He doesn t want us to stay sheltered away from the unpleasant things of this world so that we might become unclean. So we don t need to live in the fear of condemnation; we can instead live in the freedom of grace. It is freedom that is the opposite of fear. It was the freedom of Jesus that troubled the

5 5 Pharisees so much. Jesus blatantly disregarded the tradition of the elders. He ate with outcasts, with unclean people. He plucked grain on the Sabbath. He ate without washing his hands, but it was also the freedom of Jesus that drew people to him. He was free not to be scared of society or of his enemies but to speak truth to them in love. It was the freedom of Jesus that enabled him to accept the outcasts, the unclean. It is freedom that allows us to look at ourselves honestly and to see that, yes indeed, there is uncleanliness in us. There is all manner of sin inside of us and there is plenty to be ashamed of. But it is freedom which enables us to accept the mercy and the grace of Jesus Christ. Knowing that just how lost we are without the grace of God and how completely redeemed we are in our Savior, we are made free. It is this freedom that leads us to look outwardly..to see those who are unpleasant, who are different and who are unclean..to not only see them but also to reach out to them, not being fearful of them..to touch them and to help them in love. Jesus accepted the common things and broken things of this world, which is why he accepts us. He was not afraid of what went into him. He was not afraid to get dirty, to brush against and touch the unclean things of this world. It is not what goes into us that defiles us. It is what goes into us that makes us holy..or rather, who goes into us that makes us holy. Jesus wants you to realize that he knows what is inside of you. He wants you all to know that he has made all of that uncleanliness clean. He has made you pure. So the next time you look into a mirror, see not a condemned, unclean person..feel not the shame and fear that is reflected in that image..instead see a child of God, made pure and clean by the sacrifice of Jesus..a deeply adored child of God. And when the time comes to turn away from that mirror, turn not away in shame, instead turn away from that image in thankfulness and then think about how you might get your hands and your feet dirty as you live your life in the grace of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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