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S. Pentecost 14.24 Mark 7:1-13

‘You’re… making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.’

And you know, he’s talking to you and me when he says this, right? He is! It’s tough talk! To accuse us—his biggest fans!—of making the word of God void by our humans traditions?! Outrageous! What in the world is he talking about? OK, yeah; I can see those Pharisees were bad guys, but we’re Lutherans, for Christ’s sake! We’ve never voided a tradition in our lives!

I think such tough talk is the reason Jesus has so few disciples, then as now. Just one stood by his mom at the foot of the cross. Only 120 dared gather together for his worship on the Day of Pentecost, not even 50 days after more than 500! saw him risen from the dead (!!!) .Where were the 380?!?

OK; strictly speaking, the tough talk is not the reason so few follow hot on Jesus’ heels. Paraphrasing Monty Python: among the many reasons Jesus has so few disciples we must include such diverse elements as 1) his blunt accusations of sin and tradition-voiding among his peeps, 2) the difficulty of the way of the cross, generally, 3) the opprobrium of the masses, and the souring of your prospects in a greedy materialist world if you live like a Xn, and 4) the apparent absurdity in believing God really became man and died and rose again to forgive all our sins… I could give more reasons, but you get the idea?

Now, I probably need to demonstrate my argument that he’s talking to you and to me when he says we’re making void the word of God by our tradition. OK. Let’s start with the hand-washing thing, the accusation the Pharisees threw at Jesus—that because he didn’t wash his hands properly before eating he was breaking The LAW, endangering public health…

I think it’s quite clear most of us are on the Pharisee-side on this one. I am frequently assailed for being agnostic about the ritual Purell and hand-washing routine that is required these days to show proper germ-a-phobia and modern ritual purity. During the “pandemic” I saw huge vats of Purell in the narthex. I kept throwing them away and they kept coming back faster than I could pitch them. I won’t get started on wearing masks in church—except to say when you start treating your fellow man mainly as a source of contagion instead of as a child of God something is going seriously awry. Did Jesus mask and retreat 6 feet when lepers approached him? Did they? Do you think he’s not really present in the Word and Sacraments, here? OK!

We lost 50 members right off the bat (none of whom have returned) when I continued to hold services as usual (quite legally, BTW) in the spring of 2020 because (according to the 50 and the whole neighborhood) I was endangering public health and safety by insisting (with Luther!) that the public worship of Jesus is the best remedy for any plague. But, thanks to WRAL’s “news” coverage of us, I was treated like a lunatic and got massive hate mail and several death threats—even though not one single person attending our services then died, or came close to it. I mean, who looks like a lunatic, now?

Here’s a test. If Jesus hugged a leper suffering with bubonic plague, then came over straight to you and put out his hand for you to shake—a hand dirty (and very slightly spitty) from his habit of picking heads of wheat from the field, rubbing them between his hands, and popping them into his mouth when he was hungry—would you not even pause, slightly? Really? OK, then! He’s not talking to you, at all, I concede! How many of you stop me, though, when the vicar drops the host on the floor and I scoop it up to pop it in my mouth and go “Hey, wait, Pastor: that one’s for me. Hand it over!”? OK.

Hey; I can be a wuss on this, too. A few years ago, someone coughed up a mostly chewed-up host onto the floor. I scooped it, and paused; couldn’t just pop it in my mouth as I usually do. Because, I couldn’t help noticing it was really… soggy, surprisingly chilly, too. I wrapped it in a purificator, burned it afterwards, feeling chagrined. And the trouble was that I thought too much about the… the mouth-feel, and the probable gag-reflex from said eating, instead of just seeing it’s Jesus’ body and blood!!!

It would seem we’re all Pharisees, now—on the hand-washing thing.

And here’s the thing about that little tiny Pharisee that lives in every sinner’s heart (which is to say in yours and mine ;-)—a thing that Dr. Luther sees so clearly but the world is quite blind to: it’s the nature of sin itself which is, quite simply: being in curvatus se ‘turned in on ourselves’ whereas faith is just the opposite. “Faith is extra nos” that is, “outside of us”. Faith has eyes only for Jesus and his gifts, whereas sin focuses us inward on… me!

Faith doesn’t SEE the dirt under Jesus’ fingernails, or think about what coodies he might have picked up from all those lepers and lunatics he was always rubbing shoulders with. Faith doesn’t see the sogginess of the bread, but only hears the words of Jesus telling us exactly what the bread and wine he’s good-worded are: his very body and blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins. Faith doesn’t see how brave we were, how stalwart in the faith when we put the worship of Christ above the rules of the world. Nah. Faith only sees Jesus and his love, his mercy, and grace….

Whereas sin can only see me and my needs… Interestingly, what Jesus most often accuses the Pharisees of is blindness. They aren’t Bond villains with visions of world domination. They’re just… lost sheep.

On the hand-washing thing: the Greek isn’t “wash properly” but “wash with a fist”. Not sure exactly what that means. But a closed fist, hanging on for dear life to what it’s got, cannot open wide to receive gifts… 😉

Another thing Luther says (perceptively!), regarding faith, is that it’s pure passiva—purely passive, the non-rejection of Jesus. Faith isn’t doing something, grasping something, holding on to some ideology or system of philosophy or ethics. It’s being gob-smacked by something so much greater than ourselves, something so awesome we FORGET about ourselves and fall into something very like adoration, hero-worship, the quite disinterested self-abandonment to Something (or Someone) who securely claims this just by being what he necessarily is…

Which is to say: faith has eyes only for Jesus, yearns only to be with him—even if it kills us! (which he says it will in order to raise us up… new 😉

By the washing of Baptism (not the removal of dirt from the body but the clearing of sin from our conscience), by his Word in our ears, his Body and Blood in our mouths, Jesus turns our gaze from Pharisaical worries and self-seeking, and grants us faith to see, to enjoy the Peace surpassing all understanding that guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.