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14. Sunday after Pentecost, 09/02/2012
Sermon on Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23, by David Zersen
And now Jesus was approached by the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem. They had noticed that his disciples ate their meals with "common" hands-meaning that they had not gone through a ceremonial washing. (The Pharisees, and indeed all the Jews, will never eat unless they have washed their hands in a particular way, following a traditional rule. And they will not eat anything bought in the market until they have first performed their "sprinkling". And there are many other things which they consider important, concerned with the washing of cups, jugs and basins.) So the Pharisees and the scribes put this question to Jesus, "Why do your disciples refuse to follow the ancient tradition, and eat their bread with ‘common' hands?" Jesus replied, "You hypocrites, Isaiah described you beautifully when he wrote-‘This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men'. You are so busy holding on to the traditions of men that you let go the commandment of God!" Then he called the crowd close to him again, and spoke to them, "Listen to me now, all of you, and understand this, There is nothing outside a man which can enter into him and make him ‘common'. It is the things which come out of a man that make him ‘common'!" But," he went on, "whatever comes out of a man, that is what makes a man ‘common' or unclean. For it is from inside, from men's hearts and minds, that evil thoughts arise-lust, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, arrogance and folly! All these evil things come from inside a man and make him unclean!" (Philips)
LIVING FROM THE INTERIOR
A house next door to us is for sale, but the interior is a disaster. If you approach it from the street, it looks decent. The lawn gets mowed by the realtor, the painted exterior is attractive and the fenced-in yard awaits a friendly dog. However, two consecutive rental parties left the interior in shambles. The carpeting, although shampooed for the sale, has to be ripped out. The doors don't swing properly on the hinges. The window trim was painted badly. The bathroom has mildew all around. The copper tubing from the hot water heater was ripped out by the last tenants as they left. The basement floors and corners show that the drain tiles are broken. If one considers the listing price from the outside alone, it might look like a deal to a potential buyer. Once the inside is considered, however, a potential buyer knows that $20,000 will have to be added to make the building livable. It's the inside that tells the story.
In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus is dealing with a similar problem. According to custom, many Jews had a practice of ritual washing that prepared a person for eating properly. The practice went back to ancient times when food offered for sacrifice, and ultimately to the priests for consumption, had to be hygienically and spiritually clean. After the destruction of the temple, this practice was continued in Jewish families living, becoming a kind of sacred ritual. Certainly the people of Jesus' day did not understand what we know about bacteria being passed from dirty hands. It was more a matter of proper cleanliness from the kind of dirt a laborer might have on his hands, as well as a preparation for eating God's bounty with clean hands and a pure hot.
Mark raises the additional concern about cleaning pots and pans on the inside. Some years ago, I was asked to be a consultant to a college in Accra, Ghana, which was seeking governmental accreditation. Among the critical comments I made were the fact that the food preparers for the noon meal simply washed the pots on the grass with a hose and no detergent. They wrote off this concern as unnecessary because this is the way pots had always been cleaned in Ghana. Although I questioned whether I would ever want to eat the food that was prepared there, it's clear from our Gospel lesson that this ancient practice was common. And there were concerns in Jesus' world as well with eating and drinking when the proper approaches to cleansing had not taken place, whether for hygienic or spiritual reasons.
When practices becomes Laws, life is restrictive
In our own country, we have many practices that have become rules and laws that at times can lead to a kind of legalism, especially when one forgets the intent for the practice in the first place. The often-told story about the woman who always cut the edges off the roast before she put it in the pan is supposed to be funny. She had forgotten that in following her mother's practice, the original intent was simply to make the slab of beef fit the roasting container. However, many of the practices that we follow have become laws that no longer make sense or that should at least be reconsidered.
We like to say that we are a "nation of law," meaning that we don't just act capriciously and, as a result, have no rhyme or reason other than our emotions for judging or incarcerating or executing people. Two examples for this come from an analysis of issues in our Constitution, a real basis for the claim that we are a people of law and order. On the one hand, the 2nd Amendment guarantees citizens the right to "bear arms." This is a law. However, when we simply follow the law, and don't try collectively to analyze its intent, then we end up with situations in which unstable people collect automatic weapons and use them on humans. "We are following the law, Jesus," citizens might say. "We are only doing what we ought to do."
Another example comes from the objection to a proposal to provide health care for all citizens. The objection that a requirement to buy health insurance might interfere with federal intervention in interstate commerce (an objection that the Supreme Court had to strike down) does not address the concern about the proposal's intent. "We want to follow the law, Jesus," the citizens can say. However, the larger concern that Jesus might be asking us is how we collectively address human need for health care in our society. And our current partisanship prevents us from addressing this question.
The ultimate concern with a life based only on law is that it becomes restrictive, repressive and judgmental. It is this aspect of a life of law that both Jesus and Paul are challenging in the New Testament record. There is no question about the fact that the challenges will create controversy for us. They will even give offense. "What do you mean, Jesus, this is how we've always done it. We follow the rules. When we fail, we recognize our guilt, we repent, we make sacrifices and we begin again. What's wrong with that? We are living by the rules!"
The real problem with this approach to life is that its focus is on following an established rule rather than being open to genuine concern, or broader and more visionary attitudes than have heretofore been conceived. It is too restrictive. If I do just what I'm being told to do, I may never be open to serve or love extravagantly. I may never consider generosity of heart and spirit. I may never go the second mile and give the second coat, to paraphrase Jesus.
When love becomes the norm, life is free to experiment
James Allison has proposed that until one recognizes this insight, real living is at a standstill. A Christian needs to come to grips with the fact that there will be challenges, controversies and conflicts when one steps beyond a life which merely follows the rule of law. One may very well, as was the case with the hearers in this Gospel lesson, become offended with Jesus' proposal to think outside the box, to move beyond following an established rule. One has to ask the question about meaning, about intent, about the welfare of others in order to decide what's appropriate. And then, of course, a decision will be necessary. Either you will walk away and decide that any alternative to what you have considered to be correct is not possible. For example, "Jesus and his freedom to live a life of love and concern for others is too radical. Count me out." However, the alternative is to let God's spirit fill you with a new heart and a new life. That choice is called "faith," a trust that God's love for us and in us can make all the difference in the world and for the world. Allison proposes that such faith always comes after a confrontation with an offensive remark. A choice has to be made, "life or death," as Joshua once said it. To choose a life based solely on rules and regulations, meticulously followed, leads to a dead end, to death. However, a life that lets God's love in Christ be centered in us can lead us to new approaches and services that we have not yet considered. Love, not legalism, leads to an open heart and mind.
Jesus is proposing a change in the focus of our relationship to God. It is false to say that the Old Testament was a religion of law and the New Testament is a relationship of grace. God's extravagant kindness for his people is evident throughout the Old Testament. However, it can happen among any group of people that the focus in life is on performance, acceptability, and even perfection. Within Christian circles this came to be called "entire sanctification," the notion that in this life it was possible to become perfect people. The problem was not just the theological notion, although that is problematic in itself. The problem is believing that one has achieved such a status and that one's relationship with God is now based on obedience, rather than on trust. One could name names of denominations and spiritual leaders for whom this notion has been preeminent, but that would be to succumb to the temptation lifted up by the marketers who manage politicians seeking office. Rather, I would like to sketch the life that results from the relationship with God that Jesus is proposing.
This Sunday I chose to use a version of the Gospel lesson prepared by J.B.Phillips, something I have not done for many years. Philips was one of the first to attempt to present the biblical languages in a contemporary paraphrase that might take readers closer to Jesus' world than did the formal and much beloved language of the Authorized Version, typically called the King James Version. In Phillips' paraphrase he has Jesus saying that the Pharisees are too concerned with being "common," his word for defiled. To be common is to be less than perfect, from the standpoint of the Pharisees. The common man or woman, in other words, is the unacceptable person in God's sight. Jesus, however, provides a new definition for the common man. Unlike the dictionary definition, as well as the Pharisaic one, of common, namely to be one of the great unwashed, the hoi polloi, the lower class, the mob, the rabble, the rank and file, and the the riffraff, "common" for Jesus means to be the simple folk who base their confidence not on their personal qualities, but simply on their trust in God's mercy and love. This is a relationship of trust, not of obedience. These are, to be sure, the poor and the disenfranchised, the humble and the lowly. Because God's grace declares them acceptable, however, they are saints, citizens with names written in heaven, and a royal priesthood.
When you and I are confronted with something that at first seems offensive, like considering that God might choose to communicate his love through the death of Jesus of Nazareth on a cross, we can reject such a notion out of hand, or accept it in faith. When we are exposed to an offensive idea that has previously been considered inappropriate or out of the ball park for us, we have a choice to say "I'll just follow the practice that I've always considered correct" or "let me rethink this practice using what I have come to understand from God's love and mercy."
It is certainly true that people may look at you from the outside and assume that everything is as it was. Or, to continue with the example with which I began, they may look at you and assume that you are no different than you ever were, and that your "house" is no more valuable than it ever was. What they may not know is that you have been confronted by some choices and that you have overcome the scandal or the offense initially feared. You have been encouraged and inspired by God's spirit to live from the interior. You may have been inspired to make a whole new beginning which is possible only when you are happy to be common men and women who know that your treasure is God's acceptance and forgiveness, not your piety.
It may happen that in living from the interior you offer your fellow men and women a better bargain that what they expected from the exterior. In the fictional work that some have considered the greatest American novel, Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Boo" Radley is the hermit-like neighbor to whom people prefer to condescend. They make jokes about him and the kids tell stories about him. He's riff-raff. On the outside, when seen at all, he is like the ramshackle exterior of his house, much in need of repair. However, he is the one, when Scout and Jem are attacked by Bob Ewell, who carries Jem home and, although the story never has a need to follow through on the matter, kills Bob Ewell, the real villain in the plot.
For Christians, an interior life is a work in progress. From the time of our baptisms, God is fashioning a beginning in us that through his grace alone can lead to a more complete and fulfilling life. At times, life can seem routine, like washing hands and cleaning pots. Daily we should remind ourselves, however, to look at what God has done for us and what he continues to do within us. There's no way to chart what people who know God loves them can yet become.