Pentecost 15B
September 2, 2018
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
INTRODUCTION
The theme
that tied all of last week’s readings together was maintaining faithfulness
even in the midst of the various struggles and temptations we face. Today’s
readings show us a little more about what that faithfulness looks like. In
Deuteronomy, we see that this is laid out in God’s law, which is wise, just and
righteous. James elaborates on that, laying out exactly the sorts of acts of
faith one would expect to see from a follower of Christ. And in Mark, Jesus
totally upsets the apple cart of what faithfulness looks like as he faces up
against the scribes and Pharisees.
Mark is what
I’d like to talk a bit more about during this time. Because we’ve just come off
a month and a half in the Gospel of John, and these two Gospels could scarcely
be more different. In John, Jesus is prone to these long, beautiful discourses,
where he makes no secret of the fact that he and God the Father are one. Mark’s
presentation of Jesus is down-and-dirty, abrupt, almost rushed, like he can’t
get this story out fast enough, and throughout the Gospel Jesus tries to keep
his true identity a big secret, to be revealed later.
But here is
one thing that the two Gospel accounts share: in both of them, and really in
all four Gospels, Jesus is offensive. Last week in John, some people turned
away because they are so offended by Jesus’ teaching. Today, in Mark, Jesus
seems to be undermining the very laws that the Pharisees and scribes work so
hard to teach and uphold! No one wants to be told, “You’re doing this wrong,
and so did your elders,” and yet that’s exactly what Jesus does. Yet the way
that Jesus offers, as always, is one that sheds our human propensities, and
leads us into a way of life. Let’s see what we can learn.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
This week, in a conversation with someone I
hardly know, I let something slip…. I said, “dude.” Yes, I admit it, I spend a
little time in my native Northern California, and it is easy enough to slip
right back into the vernacular of my hometown. I’ve mostly given up calling
things “rad,” but every now and again, “dude” slips back in there. But here’s
my real confession: I liked it. I like when I slip back into my NorCal drawl,
because it reminds me of who I am and where I came from. I always come back from California more
resolute in my efforts to live a greener lifestyle, I come back with a higher
standard for great wine, I’m more interested in going out for a hike, and yes, I
am more likely to call people I just met, “dude.” This is who I am, people.
Take it or leave it!
The reason I don’t mind slipping back
into these things is that, silly as they may seem, these sorts of things are
identity markers, things that let people know, “I belong to this group.” We all have them. People
from Rochester say “EL-ementary” instead of “ele-MEN-tary,” like the rest of
the English-speaking world. We take pride in our winter hardiness, we have a
strange yet insistent love for a concoction called a Garbage Plate, and we will
never, ever give up on the Buffalo Bills.
Identity markers are an important
part of any people or culture, because they not only make you feel like you
belong to that group, but they also let everyone else know who you are and to
whom you belong. For the Israelites, their most important identity marker was…
what, according to our reading from Deuteronomy? God’s law! This, God told
them, was what would set them apart from the other nations, what would make
everyone look at Israel and say, “This is a wise and discerning nation!” It
would provide far more than, say, an affinity for the Buffalo Bills – this law
would guide them, show them how God wanted them to live, and bring them into
closer relationship with God. This law would be what was a constant for them
through years in the wilderness, through centuries of bad kings, and enemy
attacks, and exile and diaspora, and rebuilding and Roman occupation and
oppression. This law was the very lifeblood of the Jewish people.
That’s why the Pharisees took it so
seriously. You know, Pharisees often get a pretty bad wrap, and maybe it is
well-deserved, but really, they and many others saw them as the good guys. They
were trying to help the Jewish people live holy lives, by keeping God’s law, so
that their identity would not be quashed by the oppressive Roman government.
This law was their identity, and it
must not be compromised. And the Pharisees would make sure of that!
No wonder they felt so threatened by
Jesus. Here comes this rabbi, with his twelve… dudes… and they are not keeping
the law to which the Pharisees have dedicated their lives to upholding. This
dispute about hand-washing isn’t just about hygiene. For the Pharisees, this is
a threat to their identity, to their very existence. “Why are you doing that??”
they ask, incredulously and with a tone of fear in their voices. “Why are you
not taking seriously the law of God that is our life and our essence? Here we
are, living as a religious minority under Roman occupation – now more than ever
we need to remember who we are, and resist this foreign power! Why are you not
living according to the tradition of our elders?” And the subtext: “Who are
you, who are we, if not people of
God’s law? How can you so easily dismiss that?”
I just want to stop and dwell here
for a moment, and feel the Pharisees’ anxiety, because the anxiety they are
feeling is not unfamiliar to us. We today know a bit about what it is like to
feel our values and so also our identity are being threatened. In a country more
divided than ever in my lifetime, at least, I think we are sometimes
hyper-aware of who is with us, who is one of us, and who is not. And it is so
easy to jump to judging one another, because isn’t the other side (whoever is
the other side for you), isn’t it just so short-sighted, and uncaring, and
easily duped, and ill-informed? I’m amazed how often I am called these things
by someone about whom I was thinking the same thing! It is so easy to fall into
that trap of self-righteousness, isn’t it? That same trap the Pharisees so
often fall into. And like the Pharisees, all of us have some good in mind. We
all think we believe and are doing and fighting for what is best for our people,
for those who share our identity. We are all trying to uphold what are our most
valued American or Christian ideals, which we feel are being threatened by… you
fill in the blank. In that sense, we are all on the same side. We all want to
maintain our cherished identity. Just like the Pharisees did.
In both cases, the Pharisees’ and
ours, the response to that fear and anxiety, that feeling of something
important to us being threatened, comes out as judgment and self-righteousness.
And so, we quickly jump to drawing lines in the sand and saying, “You are in,
you are one of us, and you are not. You are other. You need either to become like us, or stay away. You must not tarnish our identity.”
Someone once said, if you start
drawing lines in the sand between you and others, you can be pretty sure Jesus
is on the other side of the line. And for all the Pharisees’ efforts to
maintain their identity and live the holy lives they believe God commands,
drawing lines in the sand, I think, is exactly what they are allowing their
alleged piety to do. The “fence” they so carefully “built around God’s law”[1] is
not serving to keep them or the law safe, but rather, to keep others away from
God’s grace and mercy. Because that, in the end, is the purpose of God’s law:
to guide people toward living lives reflective of God’s love, grace, justice,
and mercy. If the law leads to exclusion, rather than love and mercy, then it
is not God’s law.
And that is what Jesus comes to say,
what he frequently says to the Pharisees in various ways. Basically, he says, “You’ve
missed the point of God’s law. The point is to love and care for one another,
to devote yourself to God and God’s mission. You think you are honoring God by
this, but it is all a farce. Keeping the law just for the sake of keeping the
law only serves to keep people out. Instead of being so concerned about who is
washing their hands and how, take a look at your own heart, and see if you are
driven by legalism, or by love of God and neighbor. If you aren’t driven by
love, then you’re missing the point. And if you’re engaging in all manner of
sin, even as you preach upholding the law, then I’ll tell you what, your heart
and your motives need some work.”
You see in
this way, Jesus isn’t dismissing the law, and he is certainly not advocating
giving up that essential identity marker of God’s faithful people. God’s law is
a very good thing, that does show us
how to live holy lives, how to love God and neighbor – all neighbors, not just the ones who also follow God’s law. God’s
law shows us how that love should look.
But we also know this: that as important
as the law is, as something that shows us what a godly life looks like, it is
no longer the key identity marker for Christians. What matters more than our
efforts to follow the law, more than our opinions on the hottest political or
social issues of our day, more than how you look or what you do for a living or
how you sinned this week… what matters more than all of that is this essential
identity: that you are a beloved child of God. That you were sealed with the
Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. That you are, every
day, forgiven for the myriad ways you have already fallen short of fulfilling
God’s law, and the numerous ways you will still yet do so. Yes, despite all
that, God forgives you, and God still loves you. That, my friends, is your
identity.
I’m still gonna say “dude” now and
then, and you might even still hear a “rad” slip out. I will never stop
preaching the gospel of bringing your own bags to the grocery store, refusing
plastic straws, and cutting as many dangerous chemicals from our lives as we
can. I will love the San Francisco Giants and the 49ers until the day I die. And,
though I will never learn to love a Garbage Plate, I can now shovel snow with
the best of them. But the identity marker that matters way more than all of
that, is this cross on my forehead, the one my grandfather put there at the
baptismal font, 35 years ago. Because I am
a beloved child of God. And so are you. And that’s what matters the most.
Let us pray… Loving
God, you have given us your law to show us a holy way to live. Thank you for
loving us, so that we might strive to live according to yoru law, not in order
to make you love us, but because you already do. Help us erase lines in the
sand, and guide us into a way of love, grace, mercy and justice for all your
children. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1]
“Build a fence around the law” is a famous rabbinical maxim, and refers to the
oral laws and rabbinical practices passed down to keep God’s law entirely safe
from being broken. https://www.bible-history.com/Scribes/THE_SCRIBESA_Fence_Around_the_Law.htm
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