15th Sunday after Pentecost
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
Psalm 15
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the one who lives what he teaches. Amen
Today the lectionary takes us into a time
of considering how to live lives of faith
in the midst of the realities of life in the world.
It’s an age-old dilemma,
how do we put our faith into action?
How do our values translate into the way we live our lives?
How will we respond when others disagree with our interpretation?
Even Jesus has to consider these questions.
When we join Jesus today in the gospel of Mark
we find him at a point in his ministry
where the rubber is starting to hit the road as it were,
Jesus has been teaching and healing,
casting out demons and gathering disciples,
he has even sent the twelve apostles out on their own
to proclaim and heal,
and word about Jesus is spreading.
King Herod hears about Jesus
and fears that he is John the Baptist
whom Herod had beheaded.
John is a vivid example
of where proclaiming the word of God may lead.
John stuck to his message even though it displeased the political ruler
who had the power to behead him,
and did just that.
Even in death John prepares the way for Jesus.
So word is spreading about Jesus with the help of his apostles,
and they return to Jesus
excited about all they had done and taught
and they are so busy
they don’t even have time to eat,
so Jesus takes them out to a deserted place to rest
but the crowds follow them
even to the deserted place
away from food and accommodations
and knowing they need to eat
Jesus feeds them with five loaves and two fish
and then he and the disciples continue on
busy, busy, busy
with the proclamation of the kingdom of God
and they draw the attention of some Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem
who come to witness this Jesus
who is causing such a stir
and when they do
the first thing they notice
is that his disciples don’t wash their hands before they eat.
And they point it out,
not because it’s poor hygiene
but because it places the disciples in violation
of the tradition of the elders.
What a contrast,
when Jesus sees hungry crowds
he feeds them,
when the Pharisees and scribes see hungry disciples
they critique them.
And this sets Jesus off
quoting from the prophet Isaiah he tells them
“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.”
and then goes on to say “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” and turns the focus from outward ritual
to inward intention,
teaching that it doesn’t matter how clean your hands are
if your heart is in the wrong place
leading to much worse things than dirty hands.
Now it’s not that the Pharisees are bad or even unfaithful,
in fact the main concern of the pharisees
is living faithfully in the midst of the realities of life,
and they have sought to put their faith into action
by following the law gifted by God to the people
for just such a reason.
We heard this in our reading from Deuteronomy,
“So 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…”
The pharisees are trying to diligently observe the law,
which is a gift,
but even this takes discernment,
it’s not as cut and dry,
black and white as we might think,
take the ten commandments for example,
the first commandment is you shall have no other gods
- well what counts as a god?
Little statues like the neighbor people have?
Or can it be more ambiguous,
can wealth or power or other things that we start to trust more than God be idols?
Is breaking the commandment You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain,
simply using God’s name as a swearword?
or is it more complex?
like using God to manipulate people to advance your own personal agenda?
Even seemingly straightforward commandments get complicated quickly
like the fifth commandment “you shall not murder”
what about self-defense we ask?
And immediately we are in murky waters,
following the law takes careful discernment,
looking at the context of what is going on in the world
before deciding how to best live out the law in the world
and in the years since God gave the people the law through Moses,
people have struggled with following it
and to help them they have created traditions,
actions that work as a shortcut for discernment,
if you do this… fill in the blank
you are following the law,
if you don’t do it you are breaking the law.
The problem is that over time
we can place more emphasis on these shortcuts
these traditions,
than the original intent behind them.
This is Jesus’ critique of the Pharisees,
that they have come to value the actions of the traditions
over the intent behind them
such that they are more offended
by the disciples’ dirty hands
than they are by their hunger.
Or they are more offended by Jesus healing on the sabbath
than they are the illness that Jesus heals.
Jesus is not trying to abolish the law,
the gift from God,
but he is teaching people to reevaluate what it means to follow the law
and with Jesus it starts with love,
love of God and neighbor.
And yes sometimes it is difficult to figure out exactly what that means,
making it nearly impossible to follow the law perfectly,
which if that is the goal
will lead to frustration and failure,
especially so if we believe the only way to be in relationship with God,
to be saved,
is through perfection.
But with Jesus we are not saved by the law,
even the law of love,
we are saved by Jesus,
his actions on the cross
the empty tomb three days later,
this is the good news, the gospel.
We do not have to be perfect
because Jesus is perfect
and he has joined us to him
so that in the eyes of God we too are perfect.
Does this mean that we don’t have to pay attention to the law,
to how we live?
By no means,
remember the gospel doesn’t get rid of the law,
it frees us from worry over perfectly keeping the law,
thereby freeing us to focus on love as the motivation for our actions
rather than our own salvation or relationship with God.
We still have to figure out how we’re going to live in the world,
James in our second reading is addressing those
who have gone to the other extreme
thinking that the gospel is an excuse to do nothing,
rather the good news becomes the foundation for our actions,
our faith, relationship with God
is reflected in how we choose to live.
For Jesus this means that when he is confronted with hungry people
he feeds them,
and when he is faced with those in need of healing,
he heals them
regardless of what day it is.
When Jesus is faced with a choice
between following a rule for the sake of following a rule
or doing the loving thing,
Jesus always chooses the loving
thing and calls us to do the same,
to live out the teachings of Jesus,
teaching which include forgiveness
for when we fall short,
forgiveness and a fresh start
to seek to live the law of love. Amen
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