First Reading: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
1So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. 2You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you.
6You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” 7For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? 8And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?
9But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children.
Psalm: Psalm 15. Lord, who may dwell in your tabernacle? (Ps. 15:1)
1Lord, who may dwell in your tabernacle? Who may abide upon your holy hill?
2Those who lead a blameless life and do what is right, who speak the truth from their heart;
3they do not slander with the tongue, they do no evil to their friends; they do not cast discredit upon a neighbor.
4In their sight the wicked are rejected, but they honor those who fear the Lord. They have sworn upon their health and do not take back their word.
5They do not give their money in hope of gain, nor do they take bribes against the innocent. Those who do these things shall never be overthrown.
Second Reading: James 1:17-27
17Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
19You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. 21Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.
22But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 24for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.
26If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. 27Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
1Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around [Jesus], 2they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’
8You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
14Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.
21“For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
CHILDREN’S SERMON. 2021
Share with your neighbor a tradition that has been passed down through your family that is important to you.
Let us pray: Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Sermon: Dirty Hands!
Can you hear your mother’s voice in the background of our text today, “Make sure you wash your hands before you come to the table!” If you look closely Pastor Paul will use sanitizing gel on his hands before communion. When we use public restrooms, there is often a sign reminding employees that they must wash their hands before returning to work. In Kenya the hostess would go around the room of people to be fed with a tea kettle of warm water, a bar of soap and a hand towel over her arm so the guests could wash their hands before eating. Washing our hands before we eat, before medical procedures, and after coming inside from gardening are unwritten laws we live by. These “traditions” came to be like laws during Covid. Jesus has just talked about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The eager beaver Scribes and Pharisees, guardians of the law, notice that the disciples do not even wash their hands before eating as required by tradition. His disciples don’t even wash their hands for ordinary food. Houston we have a problem. How can defiled hands touch holy food? The Pharisees object.
“Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
When I checked, I found in Leviticus verses indicating that the priests were to wash hands before handling sacrifices and also people with a discharge, people considered unclean, were to wash anything they touched or those who encountered them had to wash. Washing hands was not part of the Ten Commandments. The Law, the Ten Commandments, had grown into a whole legal system through the years as the Jews sought to please Jehovah. They did not want to be sent into exile in Babylonia or Assyria again and go through all that humiliation, death, and disruption. They wanted to please Jehovah. They wanted to do it right and had pondered and had legalized the implications of each of the ten commandments. We want to please God too and so we try to do the “right thing” and hope the other guy will too. The problem is we are sinners and “good” is often seen as how we do things and “bad” is seen as the way a stranger does things. Even we live in this tension and disagreement about how laws are lived out. We wear masks, wash hands and fear covid—but today, three years later, we sometimes get a bit sloppy.
Most of you have seen “Fiddler on the Roof.” It opens with a Russian Jew, Tevya, pointing to a fiddler playing a tune on the top of a roof and compares the precariousness of the fiddler to the life of the Jews living in small groups throughout Europe. Tevya opens the movie with a question, “How do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word. Tradition.” “Because of our traditions every one of us knows who he is and what God expects him to do.”
Our traditions like washing our hands, opening the door for a lady, or praying before we eat express who we are and what we believe. Traditions express parts of our identity. Laws are like our principles or rules but traditions are how we obey these laws. Baptism and communion are traditions that identify Christians. As Lutherans we would even go so far as to call them sacraments. Many parents who have no intention of becoming a regular member of a church will want their baby baptized. The sponsors promise to teach the infant to be Christians and yet we seldom see them being involved. That is to point to how deeply even we defend and participate in our traditions. Other examples are like a dot on the forehead that identifies a Hindu. A turban identifies a Sikh. Muslim women wear hijabs. Muslims go to mosque on Fridays, Christians go to church on Sunday and Jews attend synagogue on Saturday. We know Nike by the logo on the shoe and it sets expectations of what that shoe will be like. We see the Golden Arches and look for a Big Mac. Traditions and symbols identify us and help us navigate life successfully. So what was Jesus confronting the Pharisees about? The Pharisees ask a question and Jesus turns on them,
“…you hypocrites…”
Jesus responds by calling them “hypocrites.” That’s a bit harsh, or is it? Mark explains that the Pharisees and Jews washed hands before eating. Jesus turns around and draws a line in the sand between the “law” and tradition. Jesus calls the Pharisees “white washed tombs.” The outside of the container has been spiffed up to look great but that does not change the fact that it holds death. The Pharisees are asking their question, I suspect, not because they are concerned about eating and drinking the body of Christ but because they are pointing out the discrepancy between the spiritual implication and the physical disconnect with what they have made into law. People with dirty hands should not be allowed to eat and sinners cannot partake of that which is holy – communion.
Tevya asks, “How do we keep our balance” on the roof? Our traditions are not an end but a means to an end, to help us keep our balance. The law is like a mirror that shows us we are sinners. The law can define us as dirty but it cannot fix the problem. It does not help us keep our balance in life. It accuses and leads us to agree that we are sinners. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explains that the Law says “do not kill” BUT if we do not kill with our hands but if we kill in our hearts, we are still murderers and have broken the law. Keeping our balance is a matter of actions but also a matter of intentions. If we are here in church on Sunday because it is a tradition or if we are coming to church like a good luck charm for the week, then our hearts are in the wrong place. Faith does not work like a bank where I deposit money or good works and then I can draw out a miracle or protection later. We loose the blessing and are off balance when our traditions become white washed tombs.
The Jewish body of laws like washing hands was a body of interpretations of the law but had become “musts” in the minds of the Pharisees and Scribes. It is possible for our traditions to become “laws” themselves and cease to be guidelines for our lives. If someone doesn’t show for Thanksgiving, we wonder if something tragic has happened or if we are being snubbed. My husband suggested we read the Christmas story in Swahili before opening presents. We had a family riot. NO DAD, that is not how Christmas morning is done!
Jesus turns to the critics and points to the problem. They are talking about the traditions, but they have lost focus on its purpose. He refers back to Isaiah 29:13 where God is talking to Jerusalem about their hollow lip service and superficial adherence to God while all the time their hearts are far away. God will humble them so their hearts seek God and then he will restore them and bless them. Laws can become traditions that help us express ourselves but if we live into those traditions with false hearts, we have gained nothing and probably lost our balance on that rooftop. We become hypocrites. We are people full of hot air. We go through the motions but we get no results. We fail to embrace the purpose of the tradition.
Jesus continues and clarifies,
“15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.
Food is eaten to strengthen our bodies. We eat, our body uses what it needs, and we poop out the unneeded. If we eat poison then we die. If we get diarrhea or cramps then we know we have done something wrong. Pain tells us something is wrong. Hives and rashes also alert us. Likewise if we look at what is coming out of our lives—gossip, jealousy, bitterness, and hate then we know something is wrong.
The problem is not the food, our life experiences. The problem is not the tradition. The problem is the heart. Over eating at Thanksgiving makes us sick. Gossiping about who’s at the meal creates tension. Not going to church causes loneliness. Our “rules” for achieving the good life and being in sync with God impact our experiences. We might almost say that the heart, the soul and our actions are very closely tied together. It is not just a cognitive, mental understanding of God but how we interpret, absorb, and decide to respond to events that is important. When the heart is blind, we loose balance. The Pharisees are not pointing out dirty hands because they are concerned about spirituality. What has come out of their mouths and hence their hearts is criticism and not a desire to know God more.
Their question raises a valid question though. We, his disciples come to him as sinners. We come to church with dirty hands. We know the secret grumps and areas where we are struggling to forgive another. We know the argument we had with our spouse or kids in the car before entering church. We come to eat with defiled hands. When we kneel at the altar, we as Lutherans believe we are doing spiritual business with God. We open our service with confession and the absolution – the proclamation of the forgiveness of our sins, not because of the depth of our repentance but because of the depth of God’s grace in Jesus on the cross. We are forgiven, not because our hands are clean, but because our hearts are seeking God and God has made forgiveness available in Christ.
So let us retrace our pondering on this text that is placed before us today. Jesus is responding to the exodus of the people who were offended by his teaching about eating his body and drinking his blood. The Scribes and Pharisees are asking questions about followers of Jesus eating with defiled hands, breaking dietary rules. Many had stopped following Jesus because he was talking about something that offended their dietary “rules.” When we seek to appease rules of religion rather than seek relationship with God, we become hypocrites, white washed tombs but inside is death. It is not the dietary rules when broken that defile us. Eating with dirty hands, drinking blood or eventually a new tradition of communion that will develop, that is not what defiles our lives. The core of faith is what happens in our hearts and then how we live that out. What is important is our relationship with God.
Do we come to the communion table to get our card ticked, to fulfill tradition demands, or do we come for a genuine encounter with the God we believe is present and active? That does not mean each communion is a big emotional experience but it does mean we are bowing at the altar of God and meeting with him personally about our lives. He knows who we are and how desperately we are trying to keep our balance on the roofs of our lives and through our traditions that express us. Ultimately we are that person created by God and interacting with him in the experiences of our life.
I like to say that in the mysterious handshake between us and the unseen God who is known through Jesus, in those times when we don’t remember who we are, can’t express who we are, may even be ashamed of who we are and may fear who we are — God is there holding on to us just as we are. Communion reminds us that he will build us with bread of his body so our bodies can go through tough times. His blood will be nourishing and life giving so we have the strength to be more than we thought we could be, to be our better selves. He is here today, that close to us and that involved with us. As our traditions are challenged and we feel wobbly on the roof of our lives, God will be there helping us keep our balance and helping us play our violin. That is something for which to rejoice!
Let the people of God say, “Amen!” And “Thank you, Lord.”
On the Way to Wonder 