Mark
7:1-8,14-15,21-23 & James 1:17-27
The church is
full of hypocrites. Have you ever heard
that before? One former church member
boasted to his priest one day, “I never go to church anymore." To which the priest calmly replied. “Yes, I’ve noticed that.” “Well, just so you know,” the ex-parishioner
continued, “it’s because there are so many hypocrites there.” "Oh, don't let that keep you away,"
replied the priest with a smile, "there's always room for one more."
It’s good for the
soul to be able to poke fun at ourselves once in a while. Sadly, though, it’s not a joke that the
Church as a whole and those of us who attend have a reputation of being
hypocritical - saying one thing but doing another. Now for Jesus this is no laughing
matter. In fact, Jesus reserves his
sharpest criticism and most pointed words for hypocrites - who turn out to be
the most “religious” people of his time, the Pharisees and the scribes. And it’s all too easy for us to point
fingers, distancing ourselves from those types of people saying, “Yeah Jesus,
we’re with you, those Pharisees and scribes are rotten people.” But really were they so bad? And are we really so different?
Here’s the
presenting problem - some of Jesus’ disciples are not properly washing their
hands before eating which raised the collective eyebrow of the Pharisees and
the scribes. This has nothing to do with
hygiene, but everything to do with faithfulness. For you see in God’s law priests serving in
the temple were supposed to wash their hands before entering the holy place or
offering sacrifices. The Pharisees, who
by the way were on the liberal side of the religious spectrum, taught a more
inclusive even democratic approach to the practice of their faith. It was not right, they said, that cherished
and special rituals be monopolized by the priests. Every Jew could (and should) honor God in
their daily life. So it goes to reason
that the Pharisees taught that it wasn’t just God’s priests who needed to wash
their hands before doing holy work, but all of God’s people should wash their hands
before meals as a way of making mealtime sacred and to serve as a reminder that
every aspect of life is under God.
Which all sounds good in theory, yes?
But these efforts
to live faithful lives and to guide others to do so as well ended up backfiring. The presenting problem - to wash or not to
wash - was not the real problem here.
The real problem was that the “tradition of the elders” (like ritual
hand washing) had ceased to be a means of drawing people closer to God but
instead had become an instrument used to divide, judge, and separate God’s
people from God and from each other. The
Pharisees and the scribes were saying they were serving God yet their actions
were working against God’s purposes. No
surprise that Jesus called them hypocrites and said, “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.
[They] abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
The commandment
of God - that’s what matters most to Jesus above all else - following,
honoring, living the commandment of God.
And what is this command? Well,
when Jesus is asked that question his answer is very clear: Love. Love God with all that you are in all that
you do. Love your neighbor. Love yourself. Love always seeks connection and
communion. Love is always about the good
of the other. If handwashing serves love
- promotes connection, communion, another’s good - then by all means do
it. But if it works against love then it
needs to go.
So as the modern-day
Christian equivalents to the Pharisees and the scribes, we - and I mean ALL of
us who go to church - we need to ask ourselves what is it that we get hung up
on - the need to be right, the fear of change, the politics of the day - that
it gets in the way of love? When do we
honor God with our lips but keep our hearts distant? And what ways do we divide, judge, and
separate and simply forget God’s commandment?
Acknowledging our hypocrisy is not an easy thing to do, but Jesus
doesn’t challenge us in this way to hurt but to heal.
Because God’s
people are intended to be the kind of people who everyone is drawn to and wants
to be around. Yet whether we are
talking about Pharisees and scribes or Christian church members, many in the
world feel just the opposite. We are the
ones to avoid. Which means we’ve got
some work to do. And our reading from
the book of James today provides some very good guidance on where to
start. “My beloved,” James says, “ let
everyone be quick to listen [and] slow to speak.” If we seek to live out more fully God’s
commandment to love then people probably don’t need to hear more from us. We need to listen better to them. A wise person once put it this way: You never
really love someone until you get to know them, and once you get to know them,
it’s really hard not to love them. But
to get to know them, you need to be with them and hear what they have to
say.
This universal
need that all people have to be heard and known and loved was highlighted to me
this week when I learned about a global social project called Urban
Confessional. It’s people from all walks
of life who volunteer their time to stand in public places holding a sign that
reads, “Free Listening.” The primary
goal of these volunteers is to listen to anyone who wants to talk - without
passing judgement or even offering advice.
And you know what? People stop to
talk. Some even stand in line just for
the chance to share their story with someone who will really listen. It may not be labeled as such but these Free
Listening moments are encounters with love.
Love that is quick to listen and slow to speak. It is God’s love and when it’s offered,
people can’t help but be drawn.
Now contrary to
popular opinion, I say that the church is not full of hypocrites. What the church is full of is people doing
the best they can as they seek to know the love of God and share it with
others. It’s not an easy task. We all do it imperfectly - sometimes that
even takes the form of saying one thing and doing another. Jesus sees it all, yet loves us still. That’s the Good News that we - whether we are
in church or not - need to hear and know.
We are loved. There are no
exceptions, even the hypocrites are included which means that we need make sure
there’s always room for one more.
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