Scripture:                                                        Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.)

So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, '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.' You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."

For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

Sermon:                                                             Getting our Hands Dirty

“Remember to wash your hands.” We heard this over and over as children. We remind our children to do the same. “Remember to wash your hands.” Some say that our American fixation on cleanliness borders on the obsessive compulsive, a la Adrian Monk if you know that popular TV show. Yet, even when our hands look clean, we know germs can be hanging out there, just waiting to make us sick, so we use hand sanitizer and antibacterial soap and we always remember to wash our hands, or almost always.

This is why the scene that unfolds in our Gospel lesson is somewhat shocking. The Pharisees catch some of Jesus’ disciples eating without first washing their hands. Now we know that we should wash before dinner, no one would argue with that. Out there in the dessert, I imagine the disciples would pick up all sorts of dirt and grime along the way. But the Pharisees weren’t just a bunch of ‘Adrian Monks,’ concerned with cleanliness. They ask Jesus, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” What the disciples did was more than just unsanitary, they were defying the law that the Pharisees and all Jews were called to live by.

Now I don’t know if this was a deliberate act on the part of the disciples or not. Maybe they were just really hungry. They had been rather busy, what with feeding the 5,000, witnessing Jesus walk on water and ministering to the sick. Maybe they saw the food spread out before them and just dove in. I’ve done that, acted before thinking. But whether their actions were deliberate or not, the Pharisees were there to call them on it and we know the Pharisees were never ones to keep quiet.

Yet, in order to appreciate the importance the Pharisees placed on lapses of this sort, we have to understand a bit about the Pharisees themselves. We think of the Pharisees as the bad guys, legalists and sticklers, out to frustrate Jesus’ mission and put a stop to it. This was probably true, yet from the Pharisee’s perspective, they were doing what God had called them to do. The term Pharisee means, ‘separate one.’ They essentially set themselves apart as keepers of God’s law. By building stricter and more detailed rules around the laws of the Torah, they were being faithful to the law and ensuring that none of God’s laws would ever be transgressed. Certainly this made the laws more cumbersome, not to mention burdensome to the average Joe and Jane. Yet, from the Pharisees perspective, they were sincere in their faith and actions.

So they turn to Jesus with an accusing tone, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” Jesus counters this with words from their shared tradition. He quotes the prophet Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrine.” Jesus then calls the crowds to gather close so they can all understand. He tells them that nothing that goes in the body can make a person unclean, but only what comes out. It is our actions and attitudes, coming from our heart, that makes us unclean before God.

So much for that old proverb, cleanliness is next to godliness! While the Pharisees placed their emphasis on stricter standards of adherence, Jesus taught that the tradition was worthless without a transformation of the human heart. (That sounds pretty Wesleyan to me.) While the Pharisees followed the law for the sake of the law, Jesus infuses the law with the spirit of God.

But what does this mean for us? To wash hands or not to wash hands. Is that the question? If it were that easy we could all pack up and head for our Labor Day picnics early. The point that Jesus is getting at is not ‘to wash or not to wash,’ but one of kingdom living. How do we live as faithful followers of God in the world?

Good question. How do we live as faithful followers of God in the world? It would be easy if all we had to do was wash our hands and show up at church and pay our pledge, wouldn’t it? In the Pharisees way of thinking a person is judged by how well they conform to the rule rather than on the type of person they are. Yet, as Kathryn Turner suggests in Weekly Wellsprings, “(Jesus) had come to take people beyond external practices and lead them to a deeper understanding of what they meant for the inner person.” This makes things a little trickier. When we start delving into the heart, you never know what might happen. We might even end up getting our hands a little bit dirty.

In his Epistle, James gives us some instruction in this kind of kingdom living, kingdom living that goes beyond the external and reaches into the heart. As we read earlier, James suggests, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” Being faithful followers of God means being willing to get out hands dirty, meeting the needs of the world face to face, and reaching out to those who are least able to meet those needs for themselves.

And there are plenty of needs out there to be met. On this Labor Day we remember those who work long hours, only to struggle to support their families. We remember those without health insurance, those who’ve lost their pensions and security, those who are facing layoffs, those who can’t find work. And on this anniversary of Hurricane Katrina we remember a city devastated and lives uprooted. To this James says, “…be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” As the New Testament professor William Loader explains, “Keeping oneself un-dirtied from the world is not about avoiding engagement where we get our hands dirty.”

As I have shared with you before, I can sometimes identify with the Pharisees. I like rules and order and clean hands. Yet, we are like the Pharisees when hold up tradition for the sake of tradition and fail to let it transform our hearts. This includes our worship. The United Methodist Bishop William Willimon suggests that, “The test for good worship, the mark of a good church, is not what we do here, during this hour of worship; it is what we do outside those doors for the rest of the week.” Are we going to be like the Pharisees, keeping our hands clean and staying within our comfortable boundaries, or are we going to allow the spirit to work through our hearts, living into the kingdom, even if it challenges us or makes us uncomfortable, or we get a bit dirty?

One Sunday a preacher was greeting at the door after the service. “Pastor that was a wonderful sermon,” said the parishioner. The preacher smiled, “That remains to be seen.”

Let us pray: Transform our hearts, Lord, that we may live into your kingdom. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.