Pentecost 15-St. Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son,+ and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

‘And the Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered together around Him when they had come from Jerusalem, and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.)’ (Vv. 1-4)

How many of you wash your hands on a regular basis? Most of us do, though some do not. Some of us wash at every opportunity we see. Others, only wash when their hands get really dirty. In other words, some wash more, some less.

This is something we can all relate to. Yet, for us, it is not an issue of law. Instead, the washing of our hands is simply how we were raised. This is the case, generally speaking, across the North American continent these days. Our mothers taught us to always be washing our hands. It is a cleanliness issue, an issue of, “you should do this” rather than an issue of law, “you must do this or else”. In this country, the only ones who would find themselves subject to this as a law, are health care workers and those who work with our food.

Of this, we are much appreciative. This is especially the case with the recent E. Coli and Salmonella scares we have seen with a variety of different foods.

This was not the case in Jesus’ day for the Jews. Even for Jesus’ disciples, the Jews were expected to do certain cleanliness rituals. So, as far as it goes, the Pharisees are correct to raise this issue. Jesus’ disciples were not doing, as they were required. The problem with all of this is that this was the traditions of the elders and not the law of God. The only washing required by the Lord was for the priests who were to enter the temple precincts (Ex. 30:19, 21; cf. Lev.15:11). Yet, the Pharisees at least, tried to pass off this requirement of ritual washing, as a requirement demanded by God.

Jesus is here indicting the Pharisees for their errors. Yet, it is not their way of life that Jesus is criticizing them for. In fact, these would have been the people we all would look up to. After all, the word Pharisee means, “those who are set apart”. In other words, these men viewed what they were engaging in as a way of life most perfect. These men affirmed the resurrection of the dead, the Sadducees did not. They held to the existence of angels and holiness of life (Acts 23:8), some other Jewish groups of the time did not. These men practiced extreme self-discipline and fasted twice a week (St. Lk. 18:12). They ceremonially cleansed their pots and plates and cups (St. Mk. 7:4) and paid tithes (St. Mt. 23:23; St. Lk. 11:42) offering at that time their first fruits, and they recited many prayers (St. Lk. 5:33). This is to say these men were very devoted in their outward life to the way of the Law of Moses. These men were doing the things that they were supposed to do! We all know people like this.[1]

We all know people like these who are truly devoted to the Word of God. We also know many that are like these Pharisees were. Jesus skewers them with the sarcasm of His words by the way in which the Savior points out their hypocrisy.

As Jesus states, ‘“Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.”’ (V. 6) In other words, theirs was a verbal religion. These men were more devoted to these words of men, the “traditions of the elders”, than they were to the words of God in the Law. Granted, the words of the Pharisees attacking the disciples for not washing their hands is right on from a sanitary perspective. However, the Pharisees did not care about such things. They were concerned about the ceremonial washing, washing that did not even necessarily involve water[2].

What the Pharisees, and those of us who behave like them, for the behavior here of the Pharisees is a continuing temptation for you and me as well. What we all forget is our own inborn sinfulness and that God sees what is in the inward parts. This is actually what God is more concerned with. As Jesus states later, what is inside us is what matters and effects our eternal salvation, not whether we follow some man-made ceremonial invention. We see this also in the example of Lot’s wife from the book of Genesis (19:26). All she did was choose to look back at worldly corruption. As she did so, she was left a senseless mass, a pillar of salt![3]

It is not so dramatic for either you or me but the effect is the same in the end. If we choose to look at worldly things, even if they seem most holy to the exclusion of our devotion to the word of God, we become a senseless mass! We can only be revived, and brought back to life, by the working of the Holy Spirit.

The problem for the Pharisees and us is that we tend to think of ourselves as pretty good. This thought is made even easier by our modern culture. Our American culture is constantly telling us, “Do it yourself”. Change or fix or add on a part of your house or your car or even yourself. Just go to any big-box hardware store, or listen to television ads, and they are constantly offering us classes we can take to learn how to fix that sagging belly or build a bathroom or whatever we would like. We can now learn to do it ourselves. This example, as all of us know, is the same throughout our culture.

This sort of thinking falls apart even in our daily life. Many of us rely on the “traditions of the elders” of our individual professions. Even doctors fall into this trap being too busy in their daily life to be able to go look at the current research after visiting with each patient. Like each of us in our own jobs, we know we cannot do this, but it happens anyway[4]. Due to their business, or ours, we fall back on our assumptions about certain things.

This thinking even creeps into our religion.

Jesus breaks into this cycle of our sin to save us from ourselves. Jesus tells us here: ‘He began saying to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside the man which going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.”’ (Vv. 14, 15) So, what are we to do? We are to listen to our Savior. Scripture tells us time and again, it is Christ’s merit, which brings us the forgiveness of our sins, outside of our own work, or merit.

That is the problem with the work the Pharisees were devoting themselves to in our lesson. As I said, the works of the Pharisee were not bad on their own. They were trying to live a good life and protect their God’s Law. These are not bad things. The men were very well intentioned. The problem that Christ is attacking here is that they had devoted themselves to the traditions of the elders to the exclusion even of the Divine Law.

These men, the Pharisees, had obscured that which they believed to be the most important. They had obscured the chief part of the Gospel. In our Christian life the Gospel should stand out as the most important thing. This is so that the world around us should know that we believe that we are forgiven for Christ’s sake above all works (Rom. 3; Eph. 2:8-10). That is our faith, not the faith in our own good works or our keeping of either the traditions of our own elders or even the Law of God. As St. Paul writes, ‘For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit’ (Rom. 14:17)[5]. This shows others, and us that our faith is not in this but rather that Christian righteousness is the faith that believes that sins are freely forgiven for Christ’s sake.

So, because this is our faith and our trust we can now break the cycle of bitterness by the power of Christ living in us (see also, Prov. 25:22). We allow ourselves to be the receiver of some bitter or evil remark and take it with patience. If I return it, I then become bitter myself. Instead, if I take it with patience I am blessed in Christ. For as Jesus states here, it is not some ceremonially unclean cup or plate or even the washing of our hands which makes us unclean. Instead, what is sinful and makes us unclean are the thoughts, words, and deeds, which proceed from within us (Vv. 21-23).

We can do this, not because we are any better than others are. We can do this rather because each of us here, and around the world in the Christian Church, have been redeemed by Jesus. As Jesus stated in Luke, ‘“Blessed are those who hear the word of God, and observe it.”’ (11:28)
‘All our knowledge, sense, and sight
Lie in deepest darkness shrouded
Till Thy Spirit breaks our night
With the beams of truth unclouded.
Thou alone to God canst win us;
Thou must work all good within us.’
(TLH 16:2)

In Jesus’+ Name. Amen.

[1] ACCS NT vol. II p. 97. St. John of Damascus On Heresies 15.
[2] Word Pictures in the New Testament, Robertson, 1930 Harper and Brothers Publisher. P. 321, verse 3.
[3] Ibid, p. 98. Clement of Alexandria Stromata, or Miscellanies 2.
[4] Minnesota Public Radio, Midmorning: discussion on the book Hypocrites’ Shadow: Secrets from the Halls of Medicine, September 12, 2009.
[5] Augsburg Confession XXVI: 4-7. Concordia the Lutheran Confessions, 2nd Ed.