September 1, 2024 Sermon
Sermon title: “Don't be a Hypocrite!”
Scripture: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, and 21-23
(Other lectionary suggestions include Song of Solomon 2:8-13, Psalm 45:1-2 and 6-9, and James 1:17-27.)
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15 and 21-23
The Tradition of the Elders
1Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4and 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.) 5So 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?” 6He 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; 7in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ 8You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
14Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”
21For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
The sermon title actually comes from the Greek. In Greek theater actors would hold masks in front of their faces, thus disguising who they really were. So, the idea here is, Don’t be something that you are not!
What Jesus is getting at is that the Pharisees, with all their rules, had ignored scripture. They were play-acting at being religious. What they were doing was following man-made rules and not what GOD says in the Bible. Washing one’s hands, for example, before eating may be a good idea, but the Pharisees’ rules were only human custom and not divine revelation. Jesus is accusing them of hypocrisy, or play-acting, because they claim to be teachers of God’s truth and law, but they are only teaching human traditions.
That can happen to anyone, even you and me! We do something for so long that we assume it’s God’s Will, but actually it turns out to be something that we have simply always done. Have you heard that before? “But we’ve always done it this way!” It may be a good idea - but just because you have always done it that way doesn’t mean that it’s God’s Will. That was Jesus’s argument in today’s Scripture. The purity rules may have been a good idea, but they were developed by HUMANS and not God.
Jesus was actually getting at something quite deeper than washing one’s hands before he/she eats. Some of his listeners had found a way to declare that their property belonged to God - so they are now free from any responsibility toward their parents! Isn’t that awful? Remember the commandment, Honor thy father and mother? That was a God-given commandment, and now claiming that you are “giving my money to God” makes a mockery of the God the Pharisees are claiming to honor.
And you thought dodging taxes was a modern invention! To quote N. T. Wright, “Jesus....wasn’t simply supporting an abstract idea.... He was challenging, by his whole kingdom- movement, the very basis on which the Pharisees had built up their edifice. If the kingdom was indeed coming in the work he was doing - by healing, by feasting with outcasts, by rolling back the kingdom of darkness - then the way that the layers of Pharisaic tradition had been pointing for long enough was quite simply ruled out from the start.”
People have asked me before who the Pharisees were. The word “Pharisee” means “separated one.” They thought they had to separate themselves from society in order to observe the rules of Judaism. They were not bad people, but as they realized that David’s kingdom was not coming back, at least as it had been before, they thought they needed to preserve their Jewishness by keeping all the rules that had developed. And there were over 600 of those rules! Jesus didn’t think the rules were bad, but if ever a rule got in the way of compassion, he would choose compassion. The same with the handwashing: it’s generally a good idea. But if people are hungry, it’s more important to get the food into people than to worry about whether they did the required number of washings.
Once again, Jesus was not against the dietary regulations, but he was smart enough and had common sense enough to say that what is REALLY important isn’t what goes into your body but what comes out of a person. So, what if you eat a pig’s knuckle sandwich! It isn’t what goes into your mouth that’s important, but what comes out of your mouth!
Harlane’s Uncle Aaron was a great guy and would even make Jewish jokes! Once when we were eating at a restaurant on a Saturday, he asked me if I’d pay the bill because he didn’t like to touch money on the Sabbath! He was of course joking - and let me say that this Jewish man would order extra food so he could give something to a homeless guy he’d see on the way home. Uncle Aaron also said he wanted to order ham hocks and lima beans, but I never saw him order that! Again, he joked a lot! But he always comes to mind whenever I read about or preach about the purity laws that Jesus had to deal with in his day.
There’s a minister named Ned Lenhart, and his Lutheran church is in Cameron, Wisconsin. He preached on today’s Scripture selection, and he called his sermon “Do the Right Thing.” He says the Pharisees wanted to sanctify all of life. “The problem was they got so focused on the rules and rituals and traditions they forgot the reasons for them in the first place: to make people feel closer to God.” Jesus, on the other hand, wanted people to do the right thing for the right reason. We should do good things not so we can look good, but so that God can look good.
Says Pastor Ned, “Our worship and our lives are meant to be open doors so that those on the outside looking in feel drawn toward something bigger and better: the living God whose name we bear and whose mark we wear. Because it’s all about the relationship. You and I sometimes forget that relationships are more important than rules, rituals, and traditions. But the good news is God does not forget, ever. Because it is all about the relationship, God remembers that we belong to God and promises to hold us tightly in his arms and never let us go.”
That’s kind of nice, isn’t it? Pastor Ned says to do the right thing, and Jesus says, “Don’t be a hypocrite!” And Pastor Ned would say, “Do the right thing for the right reason.” I do not disagree! Amen.
Pastor Skip
