(Mark 7.1-13)
A sermon preached by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The First Sunday after Epiphany: January 10, 2010
When you really want to do something, and you want to convince others to support you, what do you do? And, if you’re a person of faith, and you want to believe that what you want to do is God’s will, what do you do?
That’s what the Pharisees and the religion scholars are dealing with in this morning reading from the Gospel of Mark. The Pharisees are one of a number of “denominations” within Judaism in Jesus’ day. They and the religion scholars believe it’s time for the Jews to be free from control by Rome. So they’ve decided to support a movement to use violence to overthrow Rome. They need money for this. And they decide one way they can increase donations to the temple is to create a counterfeit God. They don’t admit what they’re doing. When we’re trying to get God to bless something that we know breaks God’s heart we never admit what we’re doing. Instead, we try to convince even ourselves that we’re doing God’s will. That’s what’s happening in this morning’s reading.
Listen for a word from God.
The Pharisees, along with some of the religion scholars who had come from Jerusalem, gathered around Jesus. They noticed that some of his disciples weren’t being careful with ritual washings before meals. The Pharisees – Jews in general, in fact – would never eat a meal without going through the motions of a ritual hand-washing, with an especially vigorous scrubbing if they had just come from the market (to say nothing of the scourings they’d give jugs and pots and pans).
The Pharisees and religion scholars asked, “Why do your disciples flout the rules, showing up at meals without washing their hands?”
Jesus answered, “Isaiah was right about frauds like you, hit the bull’s-eye in fact:
‘These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn’t in it.
They act like they are worshiping me, but they don’t mean it.
They just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits their fancy,
ditching God’s command and taking up the latest fads.’”
He went on, “Well, good for you. You get rid of God’s command so you won’t be inconvenienced in following the religious fashions! Moses said, ‘Respect your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone denouncing father or mother should be killed.’ But you weasel out of that by saying that it’s perfectly acceptable to say to father or mother, ‘Gift! What I owed you I’ve given as a gift to God,’ thus relieving yourselves of obligation to father or mother. You scratch out God’s Word and scrawl a whim in its place. You do a lot of things like this” (The Message Remix).
It’s a perfect defensive tactic. The Pharisees and religion scholars know that trying to overthrow Rome violently is not something that will be pleasing to God. They know Jesus is probably going to criticize them in some way for what they’re up to. So they beat him to the punch by criticizing the behaviour of his disciples. Jesus will not be dissuaded.
How is it that the disciples are trying to make God say something God never says to support their efforts to overthrow Rome?
We know one of the ten commandments is Honor your father and your mother. For those of you who keep score of such things, it’s the fifth. This commandment didn’t just mean to respect your parents and treat them well. In the days before Social Security and pensions, the commandment also required children to support their parents financially. Without the support of their children, as soon as most parents could no longer work, they would sink into poverty. So this commandment guaranteed that parents would have some support in their old age.
Everyone in Jesus’ day knows that’s what honor your father and your mother means. Especially the Pharisees and religious scholars. But because they need money, they tell people, “Look. If you give money to the temple, and say you’re giving it to God, then no one can tell you you need to spend that money on your parents. God needs that money, and you’re doing God’s will by giving it to the temple.”
Jesus knows these people are creating a counterfeit God who blesses violence and greed. When he knows the real God he embodies refuses to respond to violence with violence. They have an agenda and they’re trying to twist God’s word to justify what they want to do. And Jesus will have nothing to do with that. So he tells the Pharisees and religion scholars that the real God sees right through what they’re trying to do. And the real God is not pleased.
When I think of someone who was a master and trying to get the Bible to support his prejudices, I think of Archie Bunker from the 1970s TV show All in the Family. Once Sammy Davis, Jr., leaves something in the taxi cab Archie is driving. So the African-American entertainer comes by the house to pick it up. They inevitably get into a conversation about race. Archie tries to say it’s God’s will that the races stay separate. He says to Sammy Davis, Jr., “Now, no prejudice intended, but I always check with the Bible on these here things. I think that, I mean if God had meant for us to be together he'd a put us together. But look what he done. He put you over in Africa, and put the rest of us in all the white countries.” To which Sammy Davis, Jr., responds, “Well, [God] must've told 'em where we were because somebody came and got us.”
And I know I’ve done the same thing. As a Christian, I want to believe my life and my beliefs reflect central teachings of the Bible. And when I’ve struggled with that, I’ve tried to get the Bible to say things I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say. But I’ve tried to get it to say that anyway. To justify myself.
An example: for many years, I really tried to get the Bible to say something positive about homosexuality. As a gay pastor who loved the Bible, I needed to believe the Bible had something positive to say about my relationship with Peter. So I found scholars who studied the Hebrew and Greek words English Bibles translate as homosexual. And I was excited when they said these words don’t describe same-gender committed relationships. But instead they’re words for boys and men who were used sexually by other men in various religious ceremonies. So I’d point to these word studies, and I’d say, “See! The writers of the Bible aren’t condemning same-sex committed relationships. So that means Peter’s and my relationship can be pleasing to God.”
Several years ago, I decided to stop doing that. Not because I believe God is displeased with same-gender committed relationships. Hardly. I stopped looking for the Bible to say something positive about gay relationships, because when I did that, I was misusing the Bible. I was starting with my agenda, and then looking for something in the Bible to justify to myself why my agenda is God’s agenda. When, if I wanted to be faithful, I would go to the Bible with an open mind and heart, to listen for what the Holy Spirit was trying to say to me through that story.
A wise person once told me, “You can’t expect the Bible to answer questions no one at the time was asking.” When the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament were being put together, no one was asking how people with different sexual orientations should be treated. The concept of sexual orientation didn’t even exist until the mid-1800s. Before then, it was assumed men went with women and women went with men. Nobody was questioning that. So I can’t expect the Bible to speak positively about a concept that hadn’t even been discovered. It’s like searching the pages of the Bible to try to find specific statements in it about genetic engineering or invitro-fertilization or Facebook.
Let me quickly add that there are central themes in the Bible and in the teachings of Jesus to guide us as we seek to live faithfully. In my search for a way to feel like God could look at Peter’s and my relationship with each other and smile upon it, I find many stories in both Testaments about commitment, covenant, honor, and kindness. And I find again the words I so often use here – God’s words to Jesus at his baptism. Which I believe are God’s words to all of us at our baptisms: You are chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life. I haven’t come across any translations of the Bible that have an asterisk at the end of these words that says, sexual minorities are not included in this blessing.
All I’m trying to say is I can hear a story like Dan just read. And I can get pretty self-righteous. I can point at all the nasty ways my very conservative Christian sisters and brothers use the Bible to support their agendas. Without remembering that when I point a finger at them, three other fingers are pointing back at me. And so I have to confess the ways I do the same things. Sometimes, I start with things I believe are true. I start with the ways I believe the world should work. Sometimes, I start with the kind of life I want to live, and what justifies that way of life. And then I look through the Bible and through Christian tradition to prove to myself that how I want to live is how God wants everybody to live. I look through the Bible and through Christian teachings to prove there’s no tension at all between how I want to live and how Jesus wants his followers to live.
And so Jesus isn’t just saying to those nasty Pharisees or those nasty right-wing Christians that they’re just pretending to want to do God’s will. He looks at the ways I try to persuade myself that the ways I live are totally consistent with God’s will. At such times, Jesus says to me, [You] just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits [your] fancy, ditching God’s command and taking up the latest fads.
I don’t know why I do this. Because I know Jesus doesn’t demand perfection from his followers. He’s not looking at the ways I fall short of his hopes for me, and giving me a failing grade. Grace is the opposite of that. Grace is Jesus leading me into communities of people who care about me … and who help each other live our lives like he would live our lives. But at times I still try to slide by … At times, I still try to avoid what I know he wants me to do.
Derek Webb, a modern Christian songwriter, talks about how we try to shield ourselves from how Jesus is really calling us to live: [Jesus] had a car that's bullet proof / that way everyone is safe from the man who tells the truth.
I believe we need God’s love and grace to fill us if we hope to show the world healing. But for God’s love to fill us, we need to open ourselves to that love. We need to open ourselves to all the ways God wants to say, “I’m here! I love you!” Which includes being open to what the Holy Spirit wants to say to us in the Bible and in our prayer time. We close ourselves off from the love the Spirit wants to fill us with when we come to the Bible with our own agendas, looking for proof that my way is God’s way. Coming to the Bible and to prayer with open hands and open spirits, we let God’s Spirit fill us with love. Because we start by asking, “What is your desire for me?”
It’s what the first verse of the song the choir just sang is all about:
Lord, I need your grace to help me see
that a “yes” to you is what I need to do
if I want to know the love you have for me (Tom Booth, “I Give You Permission”).
With open hands and open spirits, we come to God. And let ourselves be filled with the love that heals. Amen.
* - The title is based on a phrase by John Neafsey, A Sacred Voice is Calling, Orbis Press, 2006, p. 36.
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