15 PENTECOST

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: 15 PENTECOST
PROPER: 17 B
PLACE: ST. JOHN’S PARISH
DATE: AUG. 31, 1997

TEXT: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 - Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come. . .”

ISSUE: The passage deals with what is really important, which is a matter of what is truly in the heart. The Pharisees, jealous of Jesus’ increasing honor, challenge him. In a confrontive manner, Jesus challenges their emphasis upon man-made human tradition over the law of Moses, the Torah. It is not the forms of religion that matter as much as what is in the human heart. Inspite of our facade, the human heart can be badly diseased with and by things that are not of God. We can go through the religious motions, but not really deal with the spiritual development of a loving, caring, compassionate, and a profound faith in God.
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This passage from the Gospel account of Mark is a very confrontive one. Jesus is being challenged by the religious leadership, the pharisees. It is likely that Jesus was receiving an increasing honorable status among some of the common folk. The pharisees challenge him and his disciples concerning their improper religious practices, particularly that of not washing their hands before eating. This was not an issue of hygiene in Jesus’s time, but a religious ritual practiced by the pharisees, the honorable ones. They publicly bring attention to the fact that Jesus’ disciples are not following proper ritual, ceremonial cleansing. The effort is to dishonor him publicly on this point.
The process of ceremonial cleansing of the hands was complicated. The water had to be kept in special jars. The hands had to first be free of any foreign matter, like sand, mortar, gravel, whatever. Then the ceremonial washing could begin and hands had to be held in a certain position so that water that had touched the wrist did not run back down on the hands. It appears that you would need to have some kind of assistance to do it properly. Food eaten without the hand washing was considered itself to be polluted. Eating with unclean hands made you subject to a demon, named Shibta.
There were also elaborate pharisaic rules over the cleansing of pots and vessels, which applied to certain dishes that had a rim, but not to vessels that did not have a rim. The letter of the law in these respects were very complicated. And food brought from the market was also ceremonially cleaned considering that it may have been touched by a Gentile, or some other unclean person. Remember also that lepers, women in the time of their menstrual period, corpses, dead animals or fish were all considered unclean. Well for the poor people, for fishermen who were constantly dealing with dead fish, these rules would keep them for the most part considered to be people that were ritually unclean and unworthy religious beings. Jesus’ ministry really challenged all these intricate traditions of the pharisees. In fact, Jesus did touch lepers, women in the time of their menstrual cycle, the dead. He challenged the strict adherence of the Sabbath which forbade healing. He dismissed the ceremonial hand washing. These practices alienated the poor and people who did not have money for servants and time for carrying out these elaborate rituals. In fact, water was scarce and not readily available.
Furthermore, if the early church was to have a mission to the Gentiles, in which it attempted to proclaim Jesus Christ as Messiah and Lord, it would be burdensome, if not superficial to require all these elaborate rules and regulations of tradition. Keep in mind the rules Jesus abandons are not the basic commandments and law of God. It is the elaborate traditions that evolved which were sometimes well intentioned in their beginnings, but that lost meaning and eventually overshadowed the real intentions of law and being a people who were of God, pure in heart, and who were intended to be witness of the grace of God and light to the nations of the world.
In a very confrontive way, Jesus responds to the Pharisees, quoting scripture, a passage from Isaiah (29:13). He refers to them as “hypocrites.” A hypocrite was an actor. What he is essentially saying to the Pharisees is, “You actors, scripture may be the lines you quote, but it is not the script by which you live.” (Or as Isaiah wrote: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human doctrines.” The issue for Jesus is not what you put into yourself in terms of whether the hands are ceremonially clean or not, but what is inside already, what’s in the heart. What is important is what comes out of a person. Jesus lists all the evil stuff that comes out of people. And that long list of sins is typical of rabbinical listings of the time: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. It is in the this response and the quoting of scripture that Jesus maintained his honorable stature among the poor.
In the passage we can all see that what the point that Jesus makes is well taken. However, we need to consider whether or not our own traditions enable us to purify our own hearts and what comes out of them. There is sense in which we also are “hypocrites” that is, actors. Look at me. I am all dressed up in these robes and vestments playing a part in a ritual, as are the choir and the acolytes. You folks in the pew have dressed in your “Sunday-go-to-meeting” clothes. Together we follow the script of the liturgy. But what gives us true religion? All of our religious play acting is only as good as it allows our hearts to be ministered to by God, and as we allow ourselves to be changed and transformed by the presence of God. If we go through the liturgies and return home and persist in malice, holding grudges, intent upon keeping our prejudices, practicing adultery and sexual promiscuity, continuing in shady business deals, keeping the status-quo with hardened hearts and ongoing stinginess without a sensitivity to the poor and those in need, then we are hypocrites, play actors, in the worst sense of that word.
There’s a funny little story of a man who wanted to be spiritual and have a close relationship with God and God’s way. So he set an hour of time each day for prayer, scripture reading, and meditation. He was regular and devoted to his discipline. However he was frequently disturbed during his meditations by his cat, which would jump on his lap. So each day during this time of prayer, with a leash he tied the cat to a chair until he finished the time of devotion. He became a holy man. His son of the next generation, which was a busier time followed in his father’s footsteps. He could not devote quite as much time each day, but he dutifully read scripture, prayed, and kept the cat tied up during this devotional period. He too became something of a holy man. Now this man’s son recognizing the importance of this need for devotion lived in a still much busier time. So he dutifully each day tied up the cat for an hour, and went about his business. He did not become a particularly holy man.
In this post Christendom era, I think we are sometimes inclined, like the man of the third generation, simply to tie the cat to the chair. We go through the rituals, but maybe without the real devotion. We live with the idea that all is well and that Christianity, the church is doing fine, but we are insensitive to what is really happening, having eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear. What appears to be surfacing is a world and country threatened by serious moral decline and a loss of true godliness. Our own personal lives, and family lives are often in spiritual crisis. People find themselves caught up in messes that are in sharp contrast to their lives of ritual and values they want to profess. Are we not all sinners? And our spiritual hearts can be sometimes as diseased as our coronary arteries.
At the same time that we can be glum, prophets of doom, and play the “Ain’t It Awful” game, it is important to be aware that God is still alive and active in the church and the world. People are being transformed and changed and wrestling with issues of their faith. Many churches are taking a hard look at themselves and how they can be more effective spiritual witnesses to the world rather than tying the cat to the chair and just existing. New missions, hopes and dreams abound among people of renewed deep faith. Jesus was renewing people’s understanding of God who sought to be in their midst. Jesus wanted to clear away the clutter that blocked a genuine spirituality, closeness with God and that invigorated a sense of mission, of being a light for the world. Jesus did not abandon traditions and rituals. He participated in the synagogue and the Passover Feasts. But he did have a clear vision of God and Godliness.
Our need today is renewed trust and faith that God will lead us into what he would have us be and do as a church community and as individuals for that matter. Certainly, Jesus was shaking the foundations of his time, challenging the rituals and the tabus, in terms of who and what was touchable. He revealed through his faith and sacrifice the loveliness of God. There is an old hymn which could be the prayer of our lives for today. It is in the Hymnal 1940 and the new one Hymnal 1982, (number 694).

God be in mine eyes, and in my looking.
God be in my head, and in my understanding;
God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;
God be in my heart, and in my thinking;
God be a mine end, and at my departing.

Each Sunday we pray:
Almighty God unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name.
No doubt this prayer, so very familiar, makes us less attuned to it. But it expresses what we need: cleansed and open hearts so that what we say and do hear may be truly lived in our lives. May our lives be truly transformed and our hearts open to the spirit of God that our lives may be a genuine expression of what God is calling us to be and do in our world today.
We are indeed the Actors of God, God’s own hypocrites. But may our script be truly God’s scripting and words, etched upon our hearts and lived out on the stage of life.