Now when the
Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed
that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without
washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they
thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and
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). So 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?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about hypocrites,
as it is written, ‘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.’
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Then he called
the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand:
there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things
the come out are what defile.”
Mark 7:1-8; 14-15
"What Defiles Us"
“This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are
far from me…you abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition…there
is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that
come out are what defile.” Some pretty tough and harsh words, some pretty
telling words from Jesus to the Pharisees here. You know, the Pharisees often
get a bad rap—they get blamed, discounted for being self-righteous, rigid, and
unyielding, for being unfaithful. They cling to the laws of the temple, wanting
everyone to be clean before they can worship, calling out folks when they
disobey the laws they think keep them from God. I don’t think they are
unfaithful, but just the opposite—they are incredibly faithful folks, leaders
who have spent much time studying, leaders who know the law backwards and
forwards, leaders who want folks to spend their time worshiping God in the best
way possible. I don’t think they’re unfaithful, but I do sometimes think their
religious fervor for God shields them from seeing the bigger point—that God has
created each one of us, that we are all called to worship God no matter who we
are or what is happening in our lives, no matter whether we have time to stop
and wash our hands first. Because of their fervor, they miss the idea that
their words and actions can sometimes be so harsh that they keep wanderers and
non-believers and people who have been hurt by the church from seeing God
through each one of them. Their words and actions turn people away from God
instead of welcoming them to God, and Jesus rightly calls them out on it. It is
not what goes into us that defiles and keeps us from God, but instead what
comes out—our harsh words and horrible actions towards each other, our
judgments about our neighbors. Indeed, what comes out of us is what defiles.
If you’ve been paying attention to the news in our country
this week, you’ve seen much that defiles, much that hurts, much that keeps us
from God. You’ve seen defilement through internet and body shaming—an
intelligent, beautiful weather reporter in Philadelphia, a woman who is healthy
and 38 weeks pregnant with twin girls (and somehow still on air when I would be
in bed)—called fat, called a sausage in a casing, told online that her pregnant
abdomen sticking out is disgusting. Horrible. Internet shaming. Body shaming.
It is what defiles us.
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve seen a fraternity at
Old Dominion University
And even if you weren’t watching the news this week, you still
know about the tragedy in Virginia .
A 24 year old reporter shot to death on air while her 27 year old cameraman
dropped his camera as he also died from the gun. Both in love, both happy, both
remembered in pictures with great big smiles on their faces. A gunman who was
disturbed. A gunman who was able to buy 2 handguns at the same time. A gunman
who was too angry to seek healthy help, angry enough to attach a Go Pro to
himself and record the whole thing as it played out. Anger, and the inability
to find healthy ways to deal with it. Violence. Weapons strong enough to kill
someone in one shot. It is what defiles us.
I don’t confess to know whether the gunman was a Christian,
or the folks who said and say horrible, shaming things to others on the
internet, or the guys in the fraternity who actually thought it was ok to say
sexist things to their classmates. I
don’t know anything about their faith journeys, but my hunch is that some of
them proclaim themselves to be followers of Christ. I don’t know. But what I do
know is that there is so much out there to defile, so many ways in which we,
ourselves, defile our world and each other. And I also know that we, who call
ourselves Christians in Christ’s name, need to do something about it.
We are angry—there is so much anger out there right now that
we can’t handle it. We no longer know how to listen in love, or to disagree in
love. We say horrible sexist, racist, homophobic, unwelcoming, senseless,
unloving things to each other without even thinking about the person on the
other end of our vitriol. We say these things without ever giving a second
thought to how they defile. And, sadly, the church is the often the entity on the
front lines, holding signs up, screaming at people, banning folks from Christ’s
table, telling them they are unclaimed and unloved. It’s pretty clear that we
who are Christians need to change that. It’s pretty clear that we have more
work to do in undefiling the world—in proclaiming a loving, welcoming, caring, reconciling
Christ to the world, in proclaiming a saving Christ to the world.
Friends, younger folks are leaving the church in droves for
many reasons, chief among them because they see the church, US, as folks who
talk and say nice, fancy words about Christ, about his love and grace and forgiveness,
but do nothing to mirror his actions through our own. As many friends as I have
in the church, I have many others who won’t darken the doors of a sanctuary
because they have been left behind, hurt, crushed by condemning words said, by judgmental
things done to them by folks who call themselves followers of Christ. This is
how we defile. This has to change.
It’s no accident that there are so many stories about tables
and food and parties and dinners in our Biblical story. It’s no accident that
the table, Christ’s table, sits before us every time we worship together. Food
is part of our story together, part of Christ’s story with us. As we look at
the table every time we worship, we are reminded that the invitation to the
table is always given to us by Christ. We are reminded, every time we gather
together, that Christ gave his life for us and was resurrected for us to offer
grace and forgiveness and new life for us all. This table is a sacrament for
us—the word sacrament comes from the Latin, “sacramentum,” meaning that we are
consecrated through this sacrament, meaning that we are hallowed, that we are
made holy through what is celebrated and remembered at this table. And because
we are consecrated, because we are made holy through Christ’s grace and forgiveness,
we are called and commanded to show that holiness in the world, even through,
even in spit of everything that defiles it.
I’ve spent the last week reading a book called Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held
Evans. Rachel grew up in Alabama and Tennessee , spending her
teenage years in the town where the Scopes monkey (evolution) trial was held.
She describes her church as very evangelical, very legalistic and rigid, known
more for what it was against than what it was for. I can imagine the Pharisees
might’ve loved a church like that. Although she was very dedicated to her
church (and they to her), and although her faith is a vital part of her soul,
she eventually left the church because of its fight against women’s ordination
and gay rights. She is still working
through her faith journey, thinking and writing and blogging about faith.
Although she often shares her frustrations about the church and the ways its
members can defile, she also shares the joy of the table:
This is the purpose of the
sacraments, of the church—to help us see, to point to the bread and wine, the
orchids and the food pantries, the post-funeral potlucks and the post-communion
dance parties (maybe she’s not talking about Presbyterians per se), and say:
pay attention, this stuff matters; these things are holy…At its best, the
church administers the sacraments by feeding, healing, forgiving, comforting,
and welcoming home the people God loves. At its worst, the church withholds the
sacraments in an attempt to lock God in a theology, a list of rules, a doctrinal
statement, a building. But our God is in the business of transforming ordinary
things into holy things, scraps of food into feasts and empty purification
vessels into fountains of fine wine. This God knows his way around the world,
so there’s no need to fear, no need to withhold, no need to stake a claim.
There’s always enough—just taste and see. There’s always and ever enough.
I love her words here. Our God is indeed in the business of
transforming ordinary things into holy things, of transforming us into holy
things. And because God is in the business of transforming us, we are called to
go out and be God’s people in the world. Instead of defiling our neighbors and
our world, we are created and forgiven and made holy so that may transform
them. There’s always and ever enough. Thanks be to God.
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