You might think Jesus and his disciples would roll out the red carpet for the VIPs.  You might think they would do all they could to impress and win over the Pharisees and teachers of the law.  These were elite and powerful religious men from Jerusalem, where all the important things in Judaism happened in Jesus’ day.  They had the authority to endorse or suppress anyone and anything within the Jewish religion.

So it would behoove Jesus and his disciples to please these special guests.  We could totally picture them saying, “You know, when it’s just us, we don’t do the ceremonial hand washing, but since we have these special guests, let’s be sure to do that tonight.”  This is not necessarily hypocrisy; it could be considered good manners.  We all try to accommodate our guests and do the things that will make them feel most comfortable and welcome.

Just to be clear, what we’re talking about here is truly ceremonial, and not hand washing for hygiene purposes.  One commentary I read said that the amount of water required for the ceremonial hand washing is only one and a half eggshells full—not anywhere near enough to make a difference if your hands are really dirty.  The issue in this scripture passage isn’t that the disciples might have germs!  The issue is that the disciples were not following the traditions of their day.  They were not observing the oral law that had been handed down through the generations amongst Jewish people.

When the Pharisees ask Jesus why they didn’t follow the tradition of the elders, Jesus answers very harshly.  He calls them hypocrites.  He says Isaiah described them to a T when he said, “these people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.”  Instead of trying to make a good impression on them, Jesus lambasted them! And then, he accused them of the worst possible thing in their eyes.  “You have let go of the commandments of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law—these men LIVED for the commandments of God!  They believed that only by scrupulously following the law would the Messiah ever come.  They had dedicated their lives to following the commandments of God, so that through their obedience, the world would become a better place.

But what Jesus is trying to tell them is, their obedience is NOT making the world a better place.  In fact, it is at times destroying people’s character and their relationship with God.  He goes on to cite an example of how legalistic adherence to the letter of the law can be used to justify people neglecting one of the Ten Commandments.  And then he drops the big bomb.  “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.  Nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him.  Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.”

This year I have been trying very hard to look at each scripture passage and ask, “So what?  What difference does this passage make in our lives?” Sometimes the takeaways are not so obvious.  But this passage, this has led to major changes for all of us!  Jesus’ teaching in Mark chapter 7 is at the heart of why Christians do not follow Jewish dietary laws.  Jesus has essentially declared that no food is unclean.  Yay!  We can eat pepperoni pizza, and ham and sausage, and shrimp!

But think how distressing this must have been for those who were listening that day!  Jesus is criticizing the very things that made Judaism distinctive.  He is telling them that they are completely off base.  He is calling in to question traditions and teachings that the Jewish people have been holding sacred for hundreds of years.  Think for a minute how much courage that must have taken!

It’s been a long time since I told a joke in a sermon, and I’m afraid my joke telling skills are pretty rusty.  But let me tell you this one, about a man who appeared before St. Peter at the pearly gates. St. Peter asked him, “Have you ever done anything of particular merit?”

“Well, I can think of one thing,” the man offers. “On a trip to the Black Hills, out in South Dakota, I came upon a gang of macho bikers who were threatening a young woman. I directed them to leave her alone, but they wouldn’t listen. So I approached the largest and most heavily tattooed biker and smacked him on the head, kicked his bike over, ripped out his nose ring and threw it on the ground, and told him, ‘Leave her alone now or you’ll answer to me.'”

St. Peter was impressed. “Wow!  When did this happen?”

“Just a couple minutes ago.”

 

Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees and teachers of the law about clean and unclean started a reformation that in the long run helped Christianity spread far beyond Israel.  But in the short run, Jesus made a lot of people angry.  This took a lot of guts!  Challenging the powerful, religious men of his day set him on the road to the cross.  Legendary management guru Peter Drucker says, “In every success story, you find someone who has made a courageous decision.”

You might be interested to know that the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, was known to ruffle a few feathers, too.  He was an ordained Anglican priest, who became disenchanted with the church in England in his day.  He saw people of faith being very careful about following rules regarding worship and the sacraments.  But they were neglecting the poor. They were not spreading the gospel.  They were more focused on the 99 sheep in church on Sunday morning than the 1 lost sheep working in the mines or in the fields.  So John Wesley started taking the gospel to working people, preaching to crowds gathered before and after their shifts at work.  This was revolutionary at the time.  How dare he take the sacred practices of reading and preaching on scripture out of the sacred space of the church and into fields and factories?  John Wesley was not afraid to follow the Holy Spirit, even if that meant challenging the religious authorities.  More than once, John Wesley was invited to guest preach at a church, only to be thrown out for his confrontational teaching style.  We think of ourselves as very “mainstream”, being United Methodist.  But we stand on the shoulders of courageous people who were willing to listen to the Spirit of God above all other voices.  We are living the legacy of courageous reformers who were willing to challenge the status quo.

And we are called to, in our time and place, do the same. To be a Christian is to be a reformer.  To be continually working to be formed into the likeness of Christ.  Jesus found fault with the religious practices of his day because they led to a false sense of piety.  People were obsessed with outer rituals to make the “clean” or holy.  But no amount of outer ritual can take away the sin in our hearts.  Jesus would go on in this passage to point out that it is what is inside of us—evil thoughts, greed, arrogance, folly, deceit—inner problems that lead to outer sins—this is heart of the issue.  To ignore that is to miss the main point of religion, which is to cultivate greater love for God and all that God has created.

Today is Transfiguration Sunday, which means Lent is almost upon us.  In Mark chapter 9, we can read about how Jesus took Peter, James and John with him up a high mountain, and he was transfigured before them into a form of dazzling white.  A cloud appeared and enveloped them, and God’s voice spoke, “This is my Son, whom I love.  Listen to him.”  I can only imagine what that must have been like for the three disciples, to have now seen Jesus heal the sick, calm the storm, feed the masses, and challenge the most powerful people of his day, and hear God telling them, this is who I want you to listen to.  This Jesus, the Reformer.  Listen to him!

Lent begins in just a few days, on Ash Wednesday.  It is a season of the church year dedicated to reformation.  It is a time we set aside to look inside ourselves, and ask Jesus to show us where we need to make changes.  We use this time to die to our sins so we can be raised to new life with Christ on Easter.  You may choose to add some outer rituals to your life, to help you observe the season of Lent.  Many Christians adopt some type of fasting for Lent, or commit to service projects, or spend increased time in prayer or scripture reading.  None of these are bad things!  But unless we do them with the desire to become clean on the inside, they miss the mark.

Max Lucado, in his book, “The Applause of Heaven” tells a cute story to illustrate this.  Once when he was leaving for a week of vacation, he remembered that he hadn’t unplugged the ham radio.  He ran back inside, pulled the plug, and went away on his trip.  But when he came home, it was immediately obvious that he pulled the wrong plug.  For seven days, a freezer full of food sat in a sweltering apartment with the power off.

His wife said, you unplugged it, you clean it.  So he got to work.  He got a rag and a bucket of water and began cleaning the outside of the appliance.  He was sure that the odor would disappear with a good shine.  But of course, it didn’t.  So he decided what his freezer needed to help it clean up its act was some friends.  So he threw a party and invited all the appliances from the neighborhood to his kitchen.  The blenders were a big hit—they really mixed things up well!  But the social interaction did not fix the problem.  After the party, he opened up the freezer, and the stink was even worse.

He decided, maybe what his freezer needed was some status. So he bought a Mercedes sticker and put it on the door.  He painted a paisley tie down the front.  He affixed a cell phone to the side.  His freezer looked stylish and important, but the inside was more repulsive than ever.

He could think of only one other option:  his freezer needed pleasure!  So he bought some copies of Playfridge magazine—the publication that displays freezers with their doors open.  He rented some movies about foxy appliances.  After a few days of supercharged entertainment, he was sure his freezer would be in better shape.  But he opened the door and almost got sick.

After telling this admittedly ridiculous story, Max Lucado asks the question, “Who would concentrate on the outside when the problem is on the inside?”  I think we all know the answer to that question, and the answer is, everyone!  We are experts at concentrating on the problems we see all around us, problems with the government, or vaccine distribution, or grocery prices, or whatever, rather than address the problems within us.  We are very creative in finding ways to make ourselves feel better and distract ourselves from what is really wrong.  But all Christians are called to be reformers.  And the first and most important reformation has to occur inside of us.

Our scripture lesson today is a very sobering passage.  I looked long and hard, and frankly, did not find much grace in it.  Thankfully we can find words of grace in many other places, like in Matthew 11:28 where Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  And in Matthew 5:3 where Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  The grace comes—meaning, the change comes, the reformation comes—when we remember we are deeply loved by God, and we open up the doors of our freezer and let Jesus get in there with a bucket of warm soapy water and a rag.

As Peter Drucker says, “In every success story, you find someone who has made a courageous decision.”  The Christian Church exists because of Jesus’ courageous decision to confront the powerful people in his day.  The Methodist Church exists because of John Wesley’s courageous decision to challenge the status quo in his day.  The church of the future will be shaped by our courageous decisions today.  During this upcoming season of Lent, will you make the courageous decision to be a reformer?  Will you find ways to tune into the voice of God, and challenge yourself to change and grow?  We’re not talking about ceremonial handwashing here, but a deep clean of our hearts.  If only the outside is altered, the inside will falter.  Instead, let’s seek first Christ’s kingdom and righteousness, so we can live authentically, abundantly, and eternally.  Amen.