Please... Wash Up!!!!

Aug. 30, 2015                              
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 20-23

Story: A pastor was asked to dinner by one of his parishioners, who he knew was an unkempt housekeeper. When he sat down at the table, he noticed the dishes were the dirtiest he had ever seen in his life. “Were these dishes ever washed?” he asked, running his fingers over the grit and grime. She replied, “They’re as clean as soap and water could get them.” He felt a bit apprehensive, but blessed the food anyway and started eating. This is really delicious he told her. While thinking… “despite the dirty dishes.” When dinner was over, the hostess took the dishes outside and yelled, to her dogs “Here Soap! Here Water!”

I love this image… I imagine Snoopy is saying to PigPen… “Please Wash Up before you go to church.”

Prayer

This is a challenging story in many ways… and the lectionary does this to us. Many of us don’t like the challenging stories in the gospels or the bible for that matter. We tend to run into them as we approach the end of the church year. Not that we have to be at the end of the year to be challenged. Here is one such story and whether we like it or not we often resemble the heart of the Pharisee’s rather than the heart of Jesus.

So… as we look at our story today it appears the word is getting out about how this guy named Jesus is teaching and healing people contrary to the Law of Moses. The religious leaders have sent out surrogates to follow and keep tabs on this Jesus. These religious types want to know what he is teaching and doing and for them to report back to Jerusalem. These reports are infuriating them so they decide to go and see this Jesus to get a firsthand look at what Jesus is saying and doing. And… much to their pleasure they see a violation right away…. Jesus’ friends don’t wash before they eat. I would imagine this is what they said… Violation of code 375-2a & 2b… 
Thou shalt not eat before washing hands.

Must use soap & water for 5 minutes.

So they ask Jesus why they’re not obeying the Law of Moses. Really what they’re asking is… why are you disobeying the rules and the traditions.

This reminds me of my parent’s rules in our home. Perhaps you and your parents had similar rules. Of course when I became a parent I had mostly the same rules as my parents, and I remember as a kid testing those rules and the authority of my parents. And I experienced my kids testing my authority.

What Jesus is challenging in this story are the cultural and religious traditions of Jewish life. These were interwoven into Jewish life and the Pharisee’s were the authority figures that upheld these traditions. And the Pharisee’s were the arbiters of those rules… in fact… in addition to the 10 commandments there are some 750 other rules that help you keep the commandments.  

Similarly… we also have traditions and rules concerning our practices and traditions and authority figures to keep them in place.

As you can begin to tell… this story isn’t just about washing hands before one eats, but about the traditions and authority behind the practices. And how we know this is in the rest of the story that wasn’t read. The lectionary omitted this part of the story and the crux of the story.

Jesus rebuffs the Pharisee’s by saying… “Didn’t Moses command you to respect your father and mother? Didn’t he tell you to put to death all who curse their parents? But you let people get by without helping their parents when they should. You let them say that what they own has been offered to God. You won’t let those people help their parents. And you ignore God’s commands in order to follow your own teaching. You do a lot of other things that are just as bad.”

Jesus throws the rules right back at them when he says, “You want to talk about the law… well let’s talk about how you’re not following the law.” Jesus is challenging the religious elites of their fondness for the traditions & the rules only to look the other way when it benefits them.

Jesus scolds the Pharisee’s saying, “You praise me with your words, but you never really think about me.”

The NRSV is more pointed… “You people honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me.”

What about us… What about You? Are you just giving Jesus lip service?

Are our traditions & rules more important than the mission of connecting others with the love of God?

Lutheran Theologian David Lose suggests, “Jesus is challenging them as to how their traditions contribute to them fulfilling their mission. I mean, maybe we don’t seem at first blush quite as fussy about tradition as Jesus’ opponents did, but what if you were to suggest tinkering with some of our own traditions? Perhaps changing worship in order to make worship more understandable and accessible to a younger generation? Or what if you were to cancel all committees in favor of a more nimble way of governing the congregation? Or what if you were to suggest getting rid of pews to make the sanctuary space more flexible? Or what if each fourth Sunday folks didn’t come to church at all but rather were engaged in community service throughout your community? Or are you just giving lip service to Jesus?”

Lose continues… “We love our traditions. I love our traditions. They have helped to mediate the faith to us in countless ways. But what if they’re not doing that for the emerging generation? What if we’ve come close to worshiping the traditions instead of the God they were supposed to point to? And what if Jesus is calling us to put our mission – whether to care for our aging parents, feeding the hungry, opening our doors to the homeless, making our building available for community groups, sharing the Gospel with folks much of the church rejects, partnering with the community to care for more of God’s children, whatever – what if Jesus is calling us to put our mission ahead of even our most cherished traditions? What then?

So… here’s the good news my friends… hearts can be remade and reshaped. Jesus invites us into a heart relationship. Jesus invites us to the table of grace and forgiveness…. And Jesus invites us to engage in the heart practices of Prayer, Worship, Learning, Serving, Relationships, and Generosity.

These are the practices and traditions that invite us to draw closer to our loving God.

These are the practices Jesus was proclaiming to the people of his day.

These are the practices Jesus is proclaiming to us today.