August 31, 2003
Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-8 + James 1:17-18,21-27 + Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
What we hear today is not so much Jesus speaking to Pharisees as it is the first- and second-generation church reflecting upon it’s internal problems. We hear them seeking in their memory of the words of Jesus a resolution that leads them to fidelity, unity, and holiness in the context of Gospel Morality.
Early Christians of gentile background would have not understood Jewish customs and law. Probably some teachers among that early church insisted on continuing the legalism and rituals of Judaism;
and into that conflict steps Mark with the authority of Jesus, who is for him the Risen One.
Their faith in the Son of Man liberated them from anything that would keep them from the table fellowship.
That was the essential.
So if someone said you may not come to this table because you do not wash your hands exactly as prescribed in the details of the law, that custom had to go.
It is a serious issue that has not been resolved even to this day.
It may not be hand washing that causes dispute over this table and who may come here; but it is always something to do with human behavior. Then it was mostly about washing pots, pans, and hands.
Now it seems to be sexual behavior, and in our recent past it has been a matter of race, language, and ethnic origins that have excluded some from the table.
The point Mark makes is that there is nothing wrong with hand washing, in fact it is probably a good thing for the control of disease,
but it can do nothing to prevent the contamination of human sin.
That contamination is only avoided by sincere soul-searching in the presence of a merciful and forgiving God.
Goodness, uprightness, and lawful behavior begin with being good and loving what is good.
Goodness or “Morality”
come from being personally and profoundly convinced
that goodness and holiness are the only appropriate response
to the God who is goodness personified
and in whose good image we have been made.
Their trouble was simply that they had turned a ritual into a religion. Instead of leading them to purity of heart, it simply gave clean hands.
The point Mark is making is that goodness and morality are not just a matter of keeping the rules.
We run the constant risk of thinking that way.
Without understanding this Markan insight into Gospel Morality,
we begin to think that if no one gets hurt,
or if everyone is doing it, it’s just fine.
The consequences of behavior like that are only considered when one gets caught.
Until then there is no thought about whether or not something is right or wrong, or whether or not our behavior has been good or bad.
We are living with those consequences right now with that kind of morality, and it is just as much a problem for us as the hand washing was for those earliest of Christians.
There is just as much immoral behavior in offices and classrooms as there is in bedrooms. We are living these days with the consequences of lies from the White House to classrooms of this city where cheating and dishonesty is now the way to get what you want, and if you don’t get caught it’s the way to go.
Mark calls all of this thinking into question today. The church formed in the Markan tradition thinks of morality in terms of the good we have failed to do just as much as in terms of what we have done wrong.
Morality is not just avoiding sin.
To be “moral” means to answer the call of God
in all we are, in all we say, in all we do.
Morality is concerned not only with what,
but also with why and with who.
At the center of our lives,
the difference between right and wrong, good and bad
begins to be perceived by those
who choose to be shaped in the way of God’s own image,
who choose to live in the freedom of God’s presence,
a people whose lives, like God, are turned to the needs of others
and are then growing in the way of salvation.
Recognizing, affirming, and joyfully living
in the immediate and loving presence of God-incarnate within us
is what makes us good,
and it makes us holy and blameless in God’s sight.