SCRIPTURE Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 7 The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles. [a] ) 5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, Why don t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands? 6 He replied, 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. 7 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules. [b] 8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions. 14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes [16] [f] out of a person that defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person s heart, that evil thoughts come sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person. This ends the reading from the Gospel of Mark. Thanks be to God. Page 1 of 5
The Gospel reading for today is a turning point we pivot from the travels and road trips of the summer to the lessons of what we have learned, how we have changed, what changes and healing we need in the days ahead. The Gospel reading for today asks the question what is really important, what is most important. The Pharisees were asking Jesus in all earnestness how it could be that he and disciples did not wash their hands before eating. My mother has asked me that same question more than once. Indeed, many times growing up, I was told to wash up before dinner. So the Pharisees want to know it could be that Jesus and the disciples would so easily ignore what are called the piety laws or the purity laws, this complex set of rules of their faith. This purity law was established in order to serve as a faithful reminder that we belong to God. So, the natural question is, how could it be that one should ignore this law? We Christians have been on Jesus side for a long time now, for so long that we ve lost most of the respect we might have had for the Pharisees. When we read the scriptures, we just presume that the Pharisees are wrong; they aren t supposed to win the argument; they are in the story as the antagonist in order to prove the point for Jesus. But that does the Pharisees an injustice. These are smart, faithful, even obedient people trying to live a life of faith as they know it. The question they raise is a fair and good question. It s even a question we talk about today though not in those terms, per se. Still, we often ask ourselves and others: what is really important? Is God more interested that we followed all of the Ten Commandments or that we shared food with the hungry? What do we do to serve the interests of God is it to follow the traditions and rules of our ancestors or is it to do something else? For Jesus, his answer is this if you are only going through the motions to check the box off of your to-do- list but don t have your heart it in, then it isn t a ritual of connection to God, is it? If the act of washing one s hands becomes the litmus test rather than the acts from the heart, then what has become of your faith? When I was eight years old, my family moved from a suburb of Detroit to Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, in the middle of state. Dad had gone ahead because the university semester had started and he was teaching. So Mom and us kids stayed to watch the movers pack the house and then, after dinner, we headed north with a station wagon full of suitcases towing our tent trailer behind. About two hours into the three-and-a-half hour drive, the station wagon got a flat tire. It was dark outside and cold. Mom pulled the car to the shoulder, on the flashers, found the flashlight under the seat and got out to see the damage. She told us to stay in the car. Natalie was sitting in the front seat. Given that she was ten years old and clearly the smartest one among us, Natalie pulled the car manual out of the glove box and turned to the section on flat tires. And then, she started reading to Wayne and I about the instructions on how to change the tire. Mind you, Mom was not in the car to hear these instructions, so it was just Natalie reading for our own edification. The rear driver-side tire was indeed flat. The spare tire was under all of the gear packed in the back of the car. So Mom opened the trunk door and started unpacking until she got to the spare tire and tool kit. Page 2 of 5
Another car pulled in front of us, off on the shoulder, and a man got out of his car. Mom quickly reminded us to stay in the car and now she told us to the lock the doors. This guy was offering to help. He took the jack and positioned it under the car. Then he got the wrench and started to work on the lug nuts. They didn t budge. Again and again, the lug nuts didn t budge. Natalie saw flashing lights and, sure enough, the Highway Patrol pulled up behind us and the Trooper got out of his car. He talked with Mom, he talked with the stranger who had stopped to help, he went back to his car and got some other kind of tool and then, with his steel-toed boots, he kicked the hell out of that wrench to turn the lug nuts. From there it was a cool ten and the tire was changed, everything was back in the car and we were once again on our way. Natalie told Mom that she did well you know, as if she had been grading Mom on her performance. And then Mom told us that the stranger who stopped to help had been speeding. The Highway Patrol had actually been following him to give him a ticket for his driving. But, when the Trooper saw that he had stopped to help us and was doing everything he could, the Trooper decided to give the man a warning and let him go. The rule of the law was not more important than helping a stranger. For me, that was a powerful lesson not that I should go speeding down the highway and hope I can get away with it but that even for the professional patrol officer, there was a difference between justice and mercy and there was a higher calling above the laws on the books that is to help one another. As I read the scriptures and as I have come to know Jesus, it seems obvious to me that God is enormously concerned for those who are not doing very well in life. You can see it in the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, the Magnificat, the parables, the laws of the Old Testament, and elsewhere. In observing the human race, God's binoculars are always on the back of the pack. We please God when our concern is also focused on those who are not doing well in life. Who do you know that hurts, who is feeling the pain of loss? Who is at the back of the pack in your part of the world? That person or those people represent an opportunity for us to serve what is important to God. As I read the scriptures and as I have come to know Jesus, it seems obvious to me that God is a gathering God. The Creative force that brooded over the universe of chaos and spoke so that it might find order and pattern this is a gathering God--that which calls people from their individuality into relationships and relationships into families, families into clans, clans to tribes, tribes to nations, and nations into harmony. That force is from a gathering God, the one who is manifest in the healing miracles of Jesus and the invitation that all be one as Jesus and the Creator are one, is a gathering God. The barriers that divide people are the opposite of such a God, and those who would serve what is important to God will be busy reaching across the barriers of life and removing the barricades. What are the divisions in your family? Your community? What is there in your life that tiptoes around divisions and disconnects? Those pieces of your life provide an opportunity to serve what is important to God. As I read the scriptures and as I have come to know Jesus, it seems obvious to me that God's wish for all people is joy. The one who pronounced creation good at its beginnings is into joy. Jesus, who Page 3 of 5
said that the purpose of his coming was to let us share the joy of God so that our own joy would be complete, that God is into joy. The one who offers us peace that passes understanding is into joy. Those who would serve the interests of God can do so by giving expression to joy in their lives. Those who feel the embrace of such a joyful God have much to offer the hurting and disconnected of our world. In the beauty of the day or in the people of your life, in the promises of God or in the facts of your own blessedness, in the resources you have to share or the grace with which you can receive, there are opportunities to serve what is important to God. In the north of the Netherlands there is a small village which, a few years ago, drew international media attention. As part of an experiment sponsored by the European Union the village of Makkinga took a radical step: they removed all traffic signs. Down came the advisory signs, the speed limits, the stop signs, the parking indicators, and even the lines in the streets were removed. All that remained were the signs indicating the names of the streets and a sign at the entrance to the village declaring that the town is verkeersbordvrij (free of traffic signs). What thought lies behind this apparent insanity? Hans Monderman, a Dutch traffic expert and one of the project s co-founders put it this way: The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We are losing our capacity for socially-responsible behavior. The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people s sense of personal responsibility dwindles. In the right context, he believed, allowing drivers a significantly greater degree of liberty in determining their driving habits would also heighten their sense of responsibility for road safety, and increase their consideration for others using the road with them. The results? A lower average traffic speed compared to when the signs were up, and a dramatic decline in traffic-related incidents. Other, larger towns in Holland and around Europe have since followed suit. You see, what if being faithful is not about following the external rules imposed by some human conception of what it means to be good and faithful? What if being faithful means to do away with the purity laws and, instead, look within to find the moral compass of living a life of love and forgiveness and healing and hope. I don t know why both of my stories today are about road trips and driving. It s a curious thing. Perhaps because we are at the end of our road trip summer. Perhaps because God calls us beyond the journey, beyond the seeking, to be part of the solution, to be part of the faithful, responding to the important things in life. Perhaps it is simply that, when we arrive at our destination, there is work to do, a higher calling. Now, in case you think I am proposing we throw away all of our laws and rules and you suddenly get a free pass to do whatever you want because there are no more rules to follow, I would only remind you that such freedom is an even higher responsibility. Jesus was not disposing of the purity laws in order to make life easy. Jesus was saying, there are just two laws for you to follow love the Lord your God and love your fellow human beings. Jesus didn t make life easy, he turned up the heat. Two is not a very long list of rules, but they are hard. Harder than you think; harder than you want it to be. Page 4 of 5
Our God always looks to the back of the crowd, to those who are less well off, to those who are suffering. Our God gathers us together. Our God looks to those who are hungry, those who are thirsty, those who are not yet free. Our God seeks full bellies, clean water, reconciliation, healing and hope. Our God wants joy to fill our life and overflow to others. That s why we share communion. That s why we gather round the table. Amen. Page 5 of 5