God's Ways, Not Ours
Posted on Sep 02, 2018 by David Whetter
It is important that we begin today with a little lesson on what is not happening in our text. Jesus is not condemning the faithfulness of the Pharisaic system of Judaism. Unfortunately, for those of us who have been raised in the Christian tradition, most of us have been taught to view the Pharisees and scribes as self-righteous hypocrites and that somehow we are better, and passages like this one tend to reinforce that perception. That notion is wrong! The religious leaders of the Jewish tradition in Jesus’ day did not believe that they were somehow earning salvation by their obedience to the law. No, like us today, they believed that God’s choosing and calling of Israel was a gift and they believed and taught that the law God had given to them to follow was a gift that God gave God’s people to help them live healthy and abundant lives. The observance of the law and their insistence that all people follow the law was meant to be a witness to other nations and peoples to the greatness of God and to give thanks and glory to God.
So what was Jesus saying in our text today? Well, keep in mind who Jesus was talking to in this scene. He wasn’t scolding the tax collectors or prostitutes or other known sinners; no, he was addressing those who should knew better. He was scolding the religious leaders not because they were trying to be faithful, but because in their attempt to be faithful to God’s law and God’s ways, they had developed a system of traditions and practices that was preventing others from participating in God’s community. As I have shared with you many times, God gave us the law, not so that we had list of do’s and don’ts, but instead so that we might live life as God intended it to be lived, and God intended that we live lives in communities where we were safe, accepted, and loved as we have been created. And so, when we humans take the laws God has given us and use them as a means to exclude others, or to condemn others, then in the words of Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines” (Isaiah 29:13) apply to us, as Jesus noted that they applied to the religious leaders who were confronting him that day. We humans have a habit of taking God’s law/words and creating doctrine and traditions that become tools of judgment and condemnation and stagnation.
In our story today, we are told that when some of the Pharisees and scribes had gathered with Jesus that they “noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them” (Mark 7:2). Now, first and foremost, the religious leadership is not complaining about the hygiene of the disciples. The issue was not about using soap and water to wash their hands before eating. No, this was a “holiness” issue. You see, when God gave the law to the people, he also gave other laws, and in this case, God gave some specific laws to those who would be the priests. God instructed them that before they could come into the tabernacle, the place God resided, they would need to be made ritually clean, and so they were provided instructions as to how they should use water to “wash.” Again this was not about hygiene; it was an act to remind them that they were not holy, like God, and they were only in the presence of God because God wanted them to be. The water was most likely not clean/pure water like we think of today and it most likely contained all kinds of germs and bacteria. This was a ritual act. Over the millennia, Jewish traditions began to teach that the priestly laws should apply to the people as well, and so they began to practice ritual washing before meals, before entering homes, and before entering the synagogues. This was not God’s law; it was a doctrine that was originally intended to give glory and thanks to God for calling us to be God’s people. But now, millennia later, it was being used as a way to judge others’ faithfulness and not as a means of giving glory to God, and so, Jesus says, you hypocrites.
Instead of recognizing these disciples as men and women who were healing God’s people, offering hope to God’s people, or instead of seeing them as faithful servants of God who were attempting to share the good news that God was the God of all nations, these leaders could only see that they were not following some “human-made” rules, and so they were judging them as unclean.
The problem with the Pharisees and scribes, according to Jesus, was that they had become so focused on the externals of faithfulness that they neglected to be able to “see” faithfulness at work and they had failed to examine their own hearts. Their efforts to live faithfully were putting up walls of alienation instead of drawing them closer to God and to their neighbors. The rituals they observed created a spiritual hierarchy between the “clean" and the "unclean." Instead of expressing the holiness of God, ritual purity became a means of excluding people considered dirty or contaminated.
Now, we can look at this story and say, well at least we don’t do that! But the truth is, we still have our holiness rules, we just don’t call them that. In churches all over the world we worry about things like what order must the acolyte light the candles — left to right or right to left? What version of the Lord’s Prayer should we use? Is our praise service as valid as the traditional service we offer at our 8:00 service? How is the kitchen organized, and who is in charge of it? Are red poinsettias allowed as part of Christmas decorations even though the color of the season is white? Can you serve both wine and grape juice or only wine for Eucharist? Should we use clay pottery or silver for our Eucharist meal? We still have our “holiness” codes today, and we all too often use these “traditions” as a means to condemn or judge others.
We use language that says one thing, but our actions say another. Like the religious leaders of 2,000 years ago, the church today all too often confuses our human-made rules, or personal likes and dislikes, with the commands of God. I mean, think about it; do you really believe God prefers a hymn be sung with the organ accompanying your words over words being sung with a guitar and drums accompanying the words? Personally we might like them better, but God says “Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing. Know that the LORD is God” (Psalm 100). God says, worship with gladness and sing, but God really doesn’t care whether it is with a guitar or an organ. Do we really think God cares whether we use the word “trespasses” or “sins” in the Lord’s Prayer? No, what matters is that you know what you are saying and you put those words into action. God cares about what comes out of us!
We don’t just have these “holiness laws” in our church lives, we have them in all areas of our lives. When we say we are a welcoming community, do those words create actions within us that say all are truly welcome, not just in this place, but in our personal lives, as well? Do we say we welcome everyone, but in private, or when we are with our closest friends, when we think no one else is listening, we put down other nationalities or groups? What God cares about is what is in our hearts! And, what is in our hearts is what will come out.
Brothers and sisters, our faithfulness begins in our hearts. God’s law, God’s word, is life-giving and always ought to be used to give life. May we each look into our hearts on this Labor Day weekend and may we each ask God to open our hearts to those who are different from us. May we see that in our difference, we are all God’s children, and regardless of religious practices, nationality, race, sexual preference, or any other difference, God has created all of us to be God’s, and we all have been created that all we do and all we say might truly be to the Glory of God. You see, it’s not about us, it is truly always about God. Amen.