Scripture: Mark 7:1-23
Title: Should You Wash Your Hands or Your Heart?
Theme: Righteousness and Rituals
This sermon deals with what really matters - how do we deal with all the rules, rituals and traditions we find in our churches? What really matters?
INTRO:
Grace and peace this morning from God our Father and from Jesus Christ, our Savior and LORD who came to take away the sin(s) of the world!
Good morning!
This has probably happened to you at some time or the other. You are having a conversation with someone and in the middle of the conversation you start getting a rather strange look from either the person you are talking to or the people that have joined in the conversation. You may have been discussing some event or some individuals that you had just met or had some dealings with and suddenly the air is thick with anxiety, confusion and at times even anger. Suddenly, the person or persons you are talking to want to quickly change the subject. They don't want to continue this part of the conversation. They want to talk about something/someone else.
What usually has happened is that you've accidently hit on a spot that has some powerful prior history. There is some past event that has clouded this person's or that person's view of someone or some event that you just mentioned.
At times that person may even share with you what happened. The story of why that name, or that place or that event caused them to suddenly get reflective and quiet, or scornful, sad or even angry. Perhaps the person you just mentioned has hurt them or one of their family members or friends and they don't want anything to do with that person again. Perhaps the event you mentioned is one that brings back unpleasant memories that they don't want to relive. Such times can be quite uncomfortable.
Of course, thankfully, the opposite happens as well. When that happens it is always pleasant. You mention a person's name and suddenly everyone begins to smile and their face begin to beam. You mention an event and people start sharing their own wonderful stories about that event. They start sharing the positive impact it had on their lives.
History is important. Story is important. What has happened in the past can change the narrative of the present very quickly. Sometimes we don't always understand people's reactions to things, places and people because we do not know the full story. And when we do get the full story we are able to better understand why a certain person or group of people reacted the way that they did.
In our passage this morning, the back story is at least 600 years old. 600 years before this passage the Jewish people worshipped in another Temple - the one built by the great King Solomon. It had been the Jews place for worshipping the Good God of Creation - Yahweh for over 400 years.
However, in 587 B.C. all of that came to an abrupt end. In 587 B.C. the army of King Nebuchadnezzar invaded the nation of Judah for the third time. Twice before the Babylonians had invaded attempting to get the Jewish nation to realize that now they were under the rule and protection of the Babylonian Empire. Each time the nation of Judah had absorb the blow, recoiled, rearmed and attempted to make new alliances with other nations to keep the Babylonians out.
Finally, King Nebuchadnezzar got fed up with the whole situation. This time he sent an overwhelming force that destroyed the walls protecting the capital city of Jerusalem, torn down the Temple along with many houses and businesses. If the people of Judah were not going to obey then he (King Nebuchadnezzar) would tear the nation apart brick by brick.
The Babylonians captured King Zedekiah and his sons. As punishment for his betrayal, Zedekiah's sons were executed right in front of him. As soon as the last son was executed, Zedekiah himself was blinded and taken in chains to Babylon. Along with him went many other leading citizens (Jer 52:10–11). The land of Judah became a Babylonian province, called YEHUD.
God's people were devastated. They had suffered defeat before but never had their city nor their temple been reduced to rubble. The Bible tells us that for seventy long years they suffered under the hands of Babylonians. Many of them like Daniel and his friends were taken back to Babylon to serve the Babylonian Empire in a number of capacities.
In 539 B.C. the Babylonian Empire finally came to an end. When the Persian Empire came to power they began to allow some of the Jews to return home. And so men like Nehemiah and Ezra were able to lead hundreds of Jews back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city, the city walls, the Temple and Jewish life.
While all of this was going on a major spiritual search got under way. People began to wonder why God had been so angry with His People? Why had God allowed His Holy City, His Temple and the Jewish way of life to be destroyed? What had their forefather and foremothers done to make God so angry that He would allow the Babylonians to destroy their nation?
They also wanted to know what they needed to do to make things right with God? What did they need to do so that this would never ever happen again? What safe guards could they put up so that this never happened again?
Two main spiritual groups (philosophies) arose from this search. One could be called the Isaiah group while the other could be called the Ezra group. Both groups were dedicated to living out a life of holiness. However each group approached that goal a little differently.
The group that focused on the readings of the Prophet Isaiah believed that the reason for all the trouble God's People had endured was because it had lost it's true love for God and for mankind. They believe that the nation had forgotten to take care of the poor, the needy and the down trodden. That they had turned away from God and had embraced idolatry, greed and materialism. That they had focused only on themselves. That they had not been God's light to the nations. That they had not reached out to others with God's mercy, grace and love. That they had isolated themselves and had mistakenly come to believe that they no one else except them could be God's People and that the rest of humanity could not be redeemed nor should be redeemed.
The group that followed the teachings of Ezra believed that all the trouble had happened because they had not followed the strict letter of the law as it had been handed down to them through the Prophet Moses. They believed that they had to go back to the very beginning and recapture every jot and tittle of the Torah and the Law of Moses. They believed if they obeyed every rule, every regulation and every precept of the Law that God would accept them, bless them and watch over them.
By the time of Jesus some 500 plus years later the Ezra group had pretty much won the hearts and minds of most people especially the scribes and Pharisees. Over time this group had developed what they thought was a spiritual fail safe system that included some 613 laws, regulations and requirements that all true Jews should obey without question.
These laws would dictate what a person should eat, how they should eat it, what they should wear, how they should wear it, what to do on this day and that day, how to treat family members and how not to treat certain family members. Each of these laws they believed would help them discover God, enjoy His forgiveness and favor and live out a life that reflected His Holiness.
Now, some of these laws were rather good while others were rather unusual to say the least. For example some of these laws stated that:
+One is to recite the Shema (Dt. 6:4 - 6) every morning as you wake up and every night before you go to sleep
+One is to offer a prayer of thanksgiving after a meal
+One is not to seek revenge - at least not on a law abiding orthodox Jew
+If you see a neighbor suffering under a heavy load you are stop what you are doing and help him as long as it is not on the Sabbath day
+Farmers are to leave the corners of their fields unharvested so that the poor can come and freely harvest some food
Those are some of the good ones. Here are some others that are either not so good or at least a little unusual:
+You are to as much as possible avoid Gentiles and absolutely never marry one
+You may allow a Gentile to borrow money but only at a sizeable interest and they must repay you even if it means that they have to go into slavery
+You are to never touch a leper or an unclean woman
+You are to never eat a worm found in fruit
+You are to never wear a garment made of wool with another garment made of linen at the same time
+It is morally acceptable kill anyone who is from the seven ancient Canaanite nations especially anyone who is from the Amalekite bloodline.
What happened is that over time these rules became to be more important than one's personal relationship with God. In fact, the rules became the very way that a person expressed their relationship with God. They also became a way to "spiritually" exclude others. True Jews were those who did their best to live their lives by the 613 rules and those who broke them or did not abide by these rules were considered backslidden and/or apostate. People began using the rules as ways to judge and exclude other people instead of as a way to make sure their own spiritual houses were in order.
The focus had shifted from a religion of the heart to a religion which ticked off the boxes. If you broke a rule then you were in trouble and depending on the rule you could even be excommunicated forever. The rules allowed a person to treat other people differently. You were to treat orthodox Jews well, disobedient Jews with contempt and could on occasion treat Gentiles as unredeemable non-human beings.
Is should not surprise us that one of Jesus' favorite books to quote and to use in His teaching was the book of Isaiah. Jesus wanted everyone to go back and pick up the words of the Prophet who talked more about the Spirit of the Law rather than the Letter of the Law. Jesus wanted everyone to focus more on having a personal relationship with His Heavenly Father than on focusing on some set of strict rules and regulations.
Jesus wanted his disciples to focus more on the idea of reaching out to the poor, to the captive and to those who were suffering from sickness and disease. Jesus wanted to declare that the Year of God's Forgiveness was Open to Everyone who would allow God to rescue them and redeem them (Luke 4; Isaiah 61). Jesus wanted people to follow God with their hearts, their minds and their souls. He could care less about ticking off all the boxes of manmade rules, regulations and traditions.
Ezra's original focus on the law had not been wrong. It is important to have certain rules and regulations - like the 10 Commandments. The 10 Commandments are part of the Bedrock of a Holiness Community. However, Jesus took those 10 Commandments and both REDUCED them and ENLARGED them with the Two Great Commandments:
+Loving God - You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
+ Loving Others - You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
In our passage this morning of course the Pharisees were all hung up on the hand washing thing. They knew that Jesus had recently feed over 5,000 and of course they hadn't all ceremonially washed their hands. That was a major no-no. It also appears that every time the disciples got together they didn't ceremonially wash their hands either.
Now, it is was not a hygiene thing. The rule was not that you should take some soap and water and carefully wash your hands. That actually would have been a good thing. Listen to how William Barclay describes this ceremonial washing of the hands:
" There were definite and rigid rules for the washing of hands. Note that this hand-washing was not in the interests of hygienic purity; it was ceremonial cleanness which was at stake. Before every meal, and between each of the courses, the hands had to be washed, and they had to be washed in a certain way. The hands, to begin with, had to be free of any coating of sand or mortar or gravel or any such substance. The water for washing had to be kept in special large stone jars, so that it itself was clean in the ceremonial sense and so that it might be certain that it had been used for no other purpose, and that nothing had fallen into it or had been mixed with it. First, the hands were held with finger tips pointing upwards; water was poured over them and had to run at least down to the wrist; the minimum amount of water was one quarter of a log, which is equal to one and a half egg-shells full of water. While the hands were still wet each hand had to be cleansed with the fist of the other. That is what the phrase about using the fist means; the fist of one hand was rubbed into the palm and against the surface of the other. This meant that at this stage the hands were wet with water; but that water was now unclean because it had touched unclean hands. So, next, the hands had to be held with finger tips pointing downwards and water had to be poured over them in such a way that it began at the wrists and ran off at the finger tips. After all that had been done the hands were clean.
To fail to do this was in Jewish eyes, not to be guilty of bad manners, not to be dirty in the health sense, but to be unclean in the sight of God. The man who ate with unclean hands was subject to the attacks of a demon called Shibta. To omit so to wash the hands was to become liable to poverty and destruction. Bread eaten with unclean hands was not better than excrement. A Rabbi who once omitted the ceremony was buried in excommunication. Another Rabbi, imprisoned by the Romans, used the water given to him for handwashing rather than for drinking and in the end nearly perished of thirst, because he was determined to observe the rules of cleanliness rather than satisfy his thirst." (Barcaly, The Daily Study Bible Series - pages 164 - 165)
We may want to express amusement at all of this but when we look around the Church today we have some rather odd rules, regulations and traditions as well. Certain groups do not accept "Christian baptism" unless it is by a believer (no infant baptism) and it is to be done by immersion only in running water - no sprinkling or pouring will suffice. Others believe that only their "baptism" will suffice so if you join their church then you have to be rebaptized. Others strictly forbid anyone to be baptized a second time; even threatening clergy dismissal.
Some hold to the rule that only real wine be used in communion while others believe that it can only be grape juice and Welsh's pure grape juice at that. In fact, one denomination has forbidden anything else but Welch's pure grape juice stating that "Welch’s is well worth the extra expense".
Others state that that only unleavened bread can be used while others use only glutton free bread, pita bread, rice cakes, matzo or even leavened bread. Some believe that the bread can only be used if it has been made by a believing Orthodox Christian in good standing—having preferably been recently to Confession, and is accompanied by prayer and fasting.
Some believe only in an educated professional clergy while others will not allow anyone to call them Reverend, Pastor or Father but only brother and sister. Some believe that once you say a certain prayer then for the rest of your life you are spiritual sealed no matter how you live the rest of your life. Others believe that you can fall back into the pit of Hell every second of the rest of your life. Some believe that you must speak in tongues while others believe that tongues are from the Devil. Some believe in pre-trib while others are mid or post trib and if you want to argue with them they will gladly take the time to not only disagree with you but tell you that when the Rapture comes you will be one of those left behind and then you will know that they were right.
So, just about the time we think that these Pharisees are a little crazy we have to agree that we in the Church today may be a little crazy as well. Some think that those that sing songs off the wall (using monitors/screens) are out of their minds while others think that only the old fogies and those who don't have an up to date faith in Jesus use hymnals/song books today.
Whew! No wonder people are so confused today. They were in Jesus' day as well.
The truth is Jesus was making waves. He was healing all kinds of people - unclean people, orthodox Jews, unorthodox Jews and even Gentiles. He was working with people who were seen as deeply devoted as well as those that the "religious right" had labeled sinners. He was teaching and preaching both in the Temple and in the Red Light District of towns. Jesus ate with everyone, talked to everyone and reached out to everyone.
All of this upset the religious order; especially the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus wasn't helping them make sure that people ticked off the right spiritual boxes. Jesus wasn't making sure that the people followed all 613 rules and regulations. The scribes and Pharisees believed that Jesus was undercutting their authority and they believed that He was paving the way for another Exile - another time when God's People would be destroyed. They were ready to do anything and everything to stop Him.
This was important stuff. Jesus and his disciples were to obey all 613 rules and regulations. They were to know that there were boundaries. They were to know that there were people that you didn't talk to and that you didn't reach out to. They were to know that there were certain rules and regulations that you had to do to make sure you didn't make God mad. After all, if God got mad again what would happen to the nation? The Romans were bad enough but if they made God mad who knew what could happen. They could all become another Sodom and Gomorrah.
We may not think that any of this passage is really serious but for this group of Jews it was extremely important and it still has a message for us today. If there were no ceremonial water around then people just couldn't eat. Even if they were hungry and starving they couldn't eat.
This actually happen to an ancient Rabbi named Akiba. He was confined to a prison-house by the Romans. Every day a small quantity of water was brought to him. After a period of time the amount of water was cut in half. Now, there was just enough for him to ceremonially wash his hands. Rabbi Akiba almost died due to a lack of water because he would use all of it to wash his hands and would not have enough water to drink.
We may think such an idea is crazy but to Rabbi Akiba to disobey the rules meant that God would reject him. And if God rejected him then what would his physical life mean anyway. That is what happens when we put manmade rules and regulations over having a true relationship with God.
The same type of rules applied if a person needed a healing and it was the Sabbath day. They would just have to wait until the Sabbath was over so that they wouldn't offend God. At least that is what the rules and regulations said. If a person was a sinner then you could leave them alone and allow them to die in their sins. If a person was a leper than you were allowed to let them die all alone.
Now, again a great many of these rules were not from God. They were rules and regulations that so called "spiritual experts" had put together to make sure that God's People always do the right thing with the idea to not allow God to get mad again. A lot of the rules and regulations originated from a spirit of fear and a great misunderstanding of who God is.
It has always been easy for humans to get together a bunch of rules and make sure we tick off the right boxes and feel good. In fact, we can even use ticking off the right spiritual boxes to keep us from doing the real things that God wants us to do. For example:
+ We can give money to charity (tick off the charity box) and at the same time have contempt for those homeless people that our outside our doors.
+We can tick off the box for being generous and excuse ourselves from having to actually go down to where they live and make sure that we share the Gospel with the homeless and involve our lives in their lives.
+We can pray for peace but at the same time hope that those "enemy nations" are completely obliterated the next time we decide to attack them.
+We can tick off the box for praying for others but at the same time allow our prejudice, hatred and fear get the best of us.
+We can send monies across the waters to help those poor pitiful people living over there but then be upset if some minorities or disenfranchised people decide to move into our neighborhoods which of course would bring down the value of our homes.
Again, there is nothing wrong with having a set of rituals. It's okay to uphold certain traditions. The only problem becomes when we allow those rituals and traditions to take the place of Scripture. Rituals and traditions will not save us nor will they in and of themselves make us more like Jesus.
Being baptized as an infant, as an adult, by immersion, pouring or sprinkling is not what rescues us or redeems us. Taking communion with pita bread, those little square bits of wheat bread, with real wine or with Welch's Grape Juice will not save us. Standing and singing, singing off the wall or singing out of a hymnal will not save us. Wearing a wedding ring or not wearing a wedding ring will not save us. Calvinistic theology, Wesleyan theology or any other kind of theology in and of itself will not save us. Having a tattoo or not having a tattoo will neither get us in the Kingdom of Heaven or keep us from the Kingdom of Heaven.
I remember as a child back in Eastern Kentucky when the first group of men started wearing their hair long what people in some of our local churches said. They told us younger ones that if we did that we would not make it into heaven; especially if we grew a beard one day. And so, we took it for gospel. If the Church said to be clean shaven and have shorter hair then that was what we were going to do. We weren't going to get God mad or miss heaven.
Imagine our surprise and disappointment when we grew up and saw some of the pictures of those Early Nazarenes and other saints with their long hair and long beards. We had been misled. The Bible never said such a thing but in Eastern Kentucky if Bro and Sister So and So said it so we took their word - their tradition and rule to be Gospel.
This morning the only thing that will save us is Jesus Christ. We must be born again from above. We must allow the Lord to rescue us, redeem us and begin that wonderful process of being transformed into His image. We must allow the Holy Spirit to lead us, guide us, cleanse us and infill us.
That is why over and over again the LORD comes back to those two great commandments - Love the LORD Your God and Love One Another.
A life of holiness is not something you can simply get through a Manual or Rule Book. It might be nice to have a long list of do's and don'ts but just doing all the things we are suppose to do will not save us. It takes us loving God ultimately, fully and passionately. It takes us loving others ultimately, fully and passionately.
For thousands of years all kinds of religions have done their best to save people by their own individual rule books - Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and at times even Christianity. They have all promoted the idea that if we just do this and don't do that then we will be okay.
But it isn't true. Adam and Eve could have made up a bunch of rules and handed them down to their children and their children to their children. They could have written them on granite pillars and place them all over the world. Noah could have done the same after he left the Ark.
We could do the same today. But the fact is no ritual, no set of rules and no set of regulations is going to fix us humans or create a perfect society.
The only thing that does that is Love - God's Agape Love. When God's Agape Love is ruling - real love - not made up love or selfish love or I want my way love or I am going to use you love - Real Love - Agape Love - God Given Love - when it is the bedrock of our relationship with God and with Others we no longer have to worry about a lot of things.
As a pastor I cringe every time that someone asks me what I think about this or that. And I cringe every time someone asks me what a Wesleyan or Nazarene believes. What do we believe about this or that? Are we allowed to do this or that? What version of the Bible do we use? Do we immerse, pour or sprinkle? Do we believe in tongues or not. Do we believe in miracles or not? Do we believe in Eternal Security or not? Are we pre, mid or post trib? Do we believe in the Rapture? Can women preach? On and on and on ....
I cringe because I know every time someone asks one of those questions they begin to tick off certain spiritual boxes in their heads. They have this idea of what is right and wrong and if we can tick off enough boxes with one another then we can have fellowship. However, if we can't tick off enough boxes with one another then we pretty much leave one another alone. They go their way and I am suppose to go mine.
Whether we know it or not we have formed our own little list of rules, traditions and regulations. We have fixed our own "washing of the hands" rituals so to speak.
Jesus could have given us His own 613 laws but He didn't.
Jesus could have brought down a whole new list of laws from the Mountain of Transfiguration but He didn't.
Again - Jesus says it over and over again in so many ways -
+LOVE GOD - Above all things - Put God #1 - in your heart, in your mind and in your body (soul). Surrender everything over to the LORD. Commit everything to God. Open yourself up to the LORD. Don't worry about anything but putting your all in His hands.
+Love Others - All Others - Everyone - Reach Out to Others and Do for them what you would do for yourself. Treat others like you would treat yourself. See others as who they are - people made by God Himself. People that God came to our earth to die for and to help make it possible one day to be resurrected, given a new body and live forever on the New Heaven and New Earth.
Do your best not to create divisions, barriers or things that will separate you from others. Allow the Holy Spirit to renew your mind and think like Jesus.
It sounds so simple and yet in reality it is challenging to say the least. It is easier to live by a set of rules and regulations; especially those we already agree with or are already doing. We can control them. If we need to we can then vote on them and change them if we want to, but to allow God to come in and change our hearts towards others - that takes dying out to self and allowing God to renew our hearts, minds and souls.
For when we love one another like we love God then we:
+Share with one another - our time, our resources and our lives - we live more like the little boy who gave his lunch to Jesus. We do what we can to invest in one another's lives.
+Pray for one another - actually spend time in prayer, fasting - interceding for our friends, our neighbors and those who are both like us and unlike us
+Accept one another - just as we are at the moment
+Value one another as real human beings - knowing that the person you meet is just a little lower than the angels and has the ability to be infilled with God's Holy Spirit
+Reach out to one another - allowing the Holy Spirit to lead and direct us
None of this is easy. It is far more easy to put together a list of rules and then we can feel good about not doing something for someone, putting them outside our doors and not thinking about them as long as they are not obeying or following our rules. It is far easier to dismiss people and believe that we are right to feel that we are better than they are because we are following all the rituals, traditions and rules and they are not. It is far easier to feel that we are okay because we are doing our best to follow the rules than to be totally committed to God and allow His Holy Spirit to be in control of our lives.
This morning we are invited to come to His Table. We are invited even though we have not earned a right to share. We are invited even though we do not deserve it. I imagine if it were up to us humans very few people could take communion - we would have all these rules, regulations and rituals. We would fuss with one another how we should take it, when we should take it and what it does for us. Actually, we already do that don't we?
But this is not our Table. It is the LORD's Table and He invites us all. It is His gift to Us. We come because we want to be transformed by Jesus. We come because we experience His love, forgiveness and mercy. We come to be filled with His Holy Spirit. We come to be joined one to another. We come to be a part of one another. We come asking the LORD to:
+Take our hearts and melt them with His and with Others
+Take our hearts and seal them with His Power and Presence - The Holy Spirit
+We come to tell the LORD that we want to love Him with all our heart, mind and soul (body)
This morning, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit invites us to Their Table. You don't need to wash your hands in advance - all you need to do is open your heart, mind and your soul to Him today!
SHARING THE LORD SUPPER/EUCHARIST/COMMUNION
Closing Hymn/Invitation to the LORD's Table/Prayer/Blessing
