"Living our Love" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

September 2, 2018

Scripture:  Mark 7:1-8, 14-23 (with reference to James 1:22-25)

I want to invite you to take a look at your own hands.  Hold them up and really look at them.  Have you ever noticed how no two hands are alike?  Right down to your fingerprints, your hands are unique.  Your hands could tell your story.  When was the last time that your hands hugged someone?  When was the last time that your hands gave someone a pat on the back?  Who was the last person you shook hands with?  When was the last time you used your hands to cook a meal for someone that you love?  Who was the last baby that your hands held?  When was the last time that you waved to someone with your hands?  We use our hands almost every day to express love.

Now take another look at your hands.  Have your hands ever hit another person?  Have you ever used your hands to keep something away from another person?  Have your hands ever closed the door to someone, shutting them out?  Have you ever used your hands to choose a product off the shelf that was made by a person who was not earning a fair wage?  Have you ever used skin care products on your hands that destroy the earth?  Our hands tell our story.  Our hands express what is in our hearts.

The Pharisees in the reading from Mark’s gospel that we heard this morning are very focused on hands.  They were concerned that some of the followers of Jesus hadn’t completed the ritual hand washing that their tradition required before eating.

Maybe you, like me, had some issues with this.  “But Jesus,” we might say, “don’t you know that our hands are covered in germs that could make us sick if we don’t wash our hands before we eat.  I know that you lived 2000 years ago, but you were God, so surely you knew about germ theory even though it hadn’t been discovered yet!”

But this isn’t the type of hand washing in question here.  Don’t worry – Jesus is not telling us that we don’t have to wash our hands before we eat!

Instead, the Pharisees were concerned about a ritual hand washing – something that had originated through the tradition of their elders rather than in scripture.  This tradition was concerned with holiness.  At its most basic sense, holiness is a separation.  It is being different than or separate from.  God is holy because God is totally other – totally different than humans.  The various traditions of the Pharisees were concerned with holiness – rituals that were meant to separate the person who performed the ritual from the every-day things and the every-day places and the every-day behaviours.  Rituals that were meant to set aside or consecrate the person for God.  You could become holy through rituals.  And ritual hand washing before eating was one of these rituals.  If you washed your hands, if you washed your food from the market, if you washed your cooking utensils, always following the proper ritual, you could separate yourself and them from the every-day, and dedicate yourself and them for God.  You could make yourself and them holy.

And this, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing.  Taking your every day life, and making it holy or set aside for God is a good thing.  The problem arises when the rituals become exclusionary; when they are used to exclude others.  You aren’t one of us and you aren’t as good as us because you did this or because you didn’t do that.  If you are living on the margins of society, if you are focused on survival from one day to the next, then it is hard to make space for added rituals.

The Pharisees complained to Jesus that his followers hadn’t performed the required ritual, therefore their eating wasn’t made holy, wasn’t set apart for God.  Jesus’ reply has three parts.

First of all we have Angry Jesus as he addresses the Pharisees and the scribes who had complained to him..  He calls them hypocrites, he quotes scripture at them, and he tells them that they have forgotten the important things in life.  In trying to set them selves apart for God through rituals, they have forgotten the important things – loving God and loving their neighbours.  They were pushing those who were already outside of their inner circle even further into the margins.

The next part of Jesus’ reply is addressed to the crowd who was following him, and here we have Logical Jesus.  He tells the crowd that there is nothing that comes from outside of a person that can make that person un-holy or unfit to serve God; but rather it is things that come from inside of a person that can make that person un-holy.  In other words, skipping the ritual of cleaning your hands before you eat may make you sick, but it won’t prevent you from entering into a relationship with God.

And then in the final part of Jesus’ reply, he addresses his disciples – those who were closest to him; those who had been with him since the beginning of his ministry.  They ask Jesus for further clarification, here we have Blunt Jesus, who uses a bit of potty-humour to make his point.  Whatever comes from the outside, whatever goes into your body through your mouth – whether it is food or dirt or germs from unwashed hands – goes into your stomach, and eventually, one way or another, ends up in the sewer system.  This is not the part of you that impacts your relationship with God.

The bigger concern is with what originates from within a person – “for it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”  He then gives a long list of things that might make a person un-holy – things that might break the relationship between a person and God – and most of them are drawn straight from the Torah, the 10 commandments, the instructions given to the people by God.  Theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, lying, envy, slander, pride.  These are the things that separate a person from God.

What if we were to flip this list around?  Jesus gives us a list of things that separate a person from God, so if we flip it around, we might get a list of things that bring us closer to God.  Generosity.  Love.  Kindness.  Openness.  Patience.  Humbleness.  Truthfulness.  Faithfulness.

James gives us a good summary of what Jesus is teaching when he says, “be doers of the word, and not merely hearers.”  In other words, don’t just listen to the teachings of Jesus, but take them into your heart, into your very being.  Then, once they are there, they will shape us, they will transform us, they will guide the things that come out of our hearts.

Jesus told his listeners that it was what came out of people’s hearts that makes them either un-holy or holy.  It is the actions that originate with the intentions of our hearts that can make us holy, that can set apart our lives for God.

I’m going to invite you to look at your hands again.  How are the intentions of your heart going to be shown through your hands this week?  How are you going to use these hands this week?  How are you going to uses these hands to be doers of God’s word?  Are you holding on to any empty traditions or hurts that you need to let go of?  Will you share your gifts and talents with the world?  Will you welcome a person who would normally be excluded?  Will you share with another?  Will you reflect the image of Jesus to the world around you?  How will you love God and love your neighbour with these hands?

May all of us be not only hearers of God’s word, but also doers of God’s word.

Amen.