Nicole E. Partin
Mark 7: 1-8, 14-23
Discipleship: More than Lip Service
Mahatma Gandhi believed there were seven deadly sins. Gandhi’s version looks slightly different from the ones written about over the centuries and which form the basis of such blockbuster hits like the movie “Seven”. Gandhi outlined the seven deadly sins as follows:
1. Wealth without work.
2. Pleasure without conscience.
3. Knowledge without character.
4. Business without ethics.
5. Science without humanity.
6. Religion without sacrifice.
7. Politics without principle.
In light of the conflict that arises between Jesus and the Pharisees in this morning’s text and the harsh scolding that both the Pharisees and the disciples receive I think if we were to expand the list of deadly sins then number eight would read something like: Tradition without Wisdom. Wisdom is at its core a fear of God.
One aspect of Mark’s gospel that is most appealing to many readers is the human side of Jesus that is found within it and that can get lost (or at the least isn’t lifted up) in the other gospels. What is more human than frustration and an immediate snap when you feel as though people are backing you into a corner? There is a crowd (Pharisees, scribes, Jesus and the disciples), gathered together and eating. You can picture it, all of the chaos and commotion that surrounds the preparation and sitting down to a meal. Well, in the midst of all the hustle that is going around the Pharisees notice that the disciples are eating with unclean hands, and so they ask Jesus why he lets them go against the tradition of the elders and eat with defiled hands. Saying that Jesus is asked a question seems rather innocent, but we know from the larger narrative that the question is loaded and has hidden meaning embedded with it. Mainly, if you are such a fantastic leader and all that why is it that your people are not following this law? Can you picture the scene in your mind? I imagine that all of the hustle of the meal suddenly stops and all eyes turn to see how Jesus is going to respond.
Jesus has one of those moments we all wish we could have when someone criticizes us, offering up a perfect comeback without hesitating. Jesus begins, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites…” He takes those gathered and those judging to task for upholding a tradition of men. Jesus even goes so far as to charge the Pharisees and scribes with disobeying the Law of God due to their extreme reverence for the tradition. Here we have tradition without wisdom. The text then continues in a section which we did not read in which Jesus further illustrates and compounds his point, and in this illustration he selects one that not only applies to the Pharisees and the scribes, but one that applies to the disciples and what would become the church as well. Then we reentered the story in time for us to hear that the disciples aren’t getting the point either. Jesus’ frustration comes out again, and Eugene Peterson in his translation and interpretation of the text in the Message is wonderfully descriptive. He writes: 17When he was back home after being with the crowd, his disciples said, "We don't get it. Put it in plain language."
18-19Jesus said, "Are you being willfully stupid? Don't you see that what you swallow can't contaminate you?
Jesus then goes on to describe all those things that do contaminate. It is not what enters the body that contaminates it, but rather it is what comes out that defiles. Jesus, using the words of the prophet Isaiah, is tired of all the lip service. A faithful response to God isn’t apparent when the only thing moving is your lips, but indeed your heart must be transformed. Tradition without wisdom achieves nothing but separation from each other (because it allows us to cast judgment and judge one another’s righteousness and purity which isn’t what God calls us to do) and it separates us from God because our focus shifts from our relationship with God.
Devotion to God in one’s heart is what matters, not this outward piety which allows us to judge another and prevents us from looking at ourselves and our own relationship with God. It separates us from and distances us from one another. It provides stumbling blocks for us to be in community with one another.
Jesus isn’t presenting a new idea into scripture here. What is new is that Jesus is questioning the authority and practice of how scripture and the law had been interpreted up until this point. Hosea 6:6 reads: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea was not calling for the sacrificial system to be abolished, but that ritual be subordinated to ethics. Put another way that tradition be subordinate to wisdom.
Tradition need not be abolished, the law need not be abolished it just must remain subordinate to God’s rule. You may not know this but that is how the Presbyterian system works. There are three books that Presbyterians hold dear: the Book of Order, the Book of Confessions, and the Bible. The Book of Order contains the Form of Government, Directory of Worship, and Rules of Discipline. It helps guide us in carrying out the work of the church. The Book of Confessions is the compilation of creeds and statements which declares to its members and the world who and what it is, what it believes, and what it resolves to do. The Bible is God’s self-revelation. Through the Bible we gain knowledge of God that is unique and authoritative.
Candidates for ordination (be it for the office of church elder or as minister of word and sacrament) are asked constitutional questions which address these three books. In a nutshell candidates are asked if they accept the teachings which they offer and will they be guided by them. Although it may not seem this way it is important to understand that the Book of Order and the Book of Confessions, while holding authority, are subordinate to Scripture. Our tradition is subordinate to wisdom. Even though the tradition is our way of faithfully interpreting God’s law and God’s intent for us and for the church, the church recognizes that it is fallible humans who do the interpreting and that sometimes we don’t get things quite right. Or that what is right in one instance isn’t necessarily right in another.
One of the things clearly outlined in the Book of Order is how ministers and churches are to carry out the sacrament of baptism. The tradition of the church, which as ministers we vow to uphold, states that baptisms are to take place within the context of worship and within the presence of the worshiping community. Thankfully, that tradition is subordinate to wisdom. So that if extenuating circumstances present themselves minister’s are able to respond to situations compassionately and are not forced to be legalistic about the traditions of the church. For once we become legalistic about the traditions of the church we move away from the grace and mercy God has gifted to us. Although the church believes that there is a proper way to carry out the sacrament it also recognizes that holding fast to that way can actually go against the meaning that is carried out in the sacrament.
A professor at the seminary was trying to illustrate the importance of maintaining intentionality in our worship services and cautioned against allowing certain aspects of the worship service to become rote and without meaning. To illustrate he shared his experience as a guest preacher in a local congregation. He had finished the sermon and asked the congregation to please stand and join together affirming their faith using the words of the Apostle’s Creed – something done in virtually every Presbyterian Church on most Sundays. The congregation stood and then startled their guest preacher by turning and facing the back of the congregation, then facing the back of the church they affirmed what they believed by saying the Apostle’s Creed. By the end of the service the professor still had not figured out what had happened or why it had happened, so as he was greeting people he asked: “Why did everyone turn around and face the back of the sanctuary during the Apostle’s Creed?” The first young couple he asked had grown up in the congregation, and they answered: “I’m not sure, that is just what we have always done.” The next person he asked responded that they were a newer member and thought that was what you were supposed to do. Finally he asked a long-time member of the church. The reason the congregation turned around and faced the back of the church is that the words of the Apostle’s Creed used to be printed on the back wall. According to the members memories the words hadn’t been there for about 25 years.
Traditions are not inherently bad or evil, that is not what I am trying to say nor is it what Jesus was saying. But if we hold traditions so tightly – even those traditions of the church which were developed as people sought to be faithful in their discipleship – then we risk not allowing God’s law and God’s message to transform us. We do not allow God’s law and God’s message to touch us and by being touched our hearts are transformed.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that, “Christ did not, like a moralist, love a theory of good, but he loved the real man. He was not, like a philosopher, interested in the universally valid, but rather in that which is of help to the real and concrete human being. What worried him was not, like Kant, whether the maxim of an action can become a principle of general legislation, but whether my action is at this moment helping my neighbor to become a man before God.”
That’s what is at the core of this text. For if we live our life according to God’s law it doesn’t require only our lips or our hands. Rather our hearts are needed and transformed so that when we are speaking and doing it is not out of judgment but rather it’s communicating a message that shares God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness. God’s law has been given to us so that we might have life. In that life we seek with God’s mercy to live according to God’s law, knowing that we will always fall short but that God is still present and will lift us back up with unending grace and forgiveness.
