A Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock
[Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; James1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23]
In 1994, I was given a three-month sabbatical; and a big part of that step-back experience was spent as a resident of Canterbury Cathedral. Joining with 16 other international Anglican Christians (both lay and clerical), I had the distinct gift of learning both from the daily classes the program’s faculty offered and (as you might imagine) from my fellow residents. (For instance, one classmate was from Nigeria, another from Japan, and another from South Africa.) Moreover, this transforming experience was encapsulated visibly by the fact that we had access to the cathedral itself in ways that no tourist would imagine. I will never forget what I learned from the silent, steady witness of the cathedral building itself. But one of the side benefits of this sabbatical time was that Canterbury is only a 45-minute bus ride to London.
In light of this fact, a number of our class started to talk about going to London, specifically to take in a show in the theater district. When the talk morphed into serious planning and the focus of the planning zeroed in on attending “Fiddler on the Roof”, we were all in. That the world-famous Israeli actor, Chaim Topol, was starring as the central character “Tevia,” and that this would be Topol’s last offering as “Tevia” – well, that sealed the deal. As you may know, when aficionados of “Fiddler on the Roof” think of the Russian-Jewish peasant “Tevia”, it is Topol who incarnates him. Seeing Topol’s swan song characterization as “Tevia”? You bet I got on that London-bound bus!
With a handful of Canterbury migrants, we entered the magnificently enchanting world of Topol’s theater. I already knew the play and its music. Its Jewish cultural setting, its historical context of persecution of faith, and its conveyance of resilient spirit had always drawn me to the story. Yet, sitting in the London theater (how cool!), with the lights dimming and the stage curtain opening, what I saw took my breath away.
The curtain opened to reveal a darkened stage scene that contained nine, large-framed boxes (three wide, three boxes tall). Each box contained the scene of a small number of people, gathered around a humble table. The action in each box was gentle and quiet, bespeaking a respectful reverence that hinted at holiness. In each box, one of the characters leaned over the table to light the Shabbot candle. It was Friday night sabbath prayers in the play. Coincidentally, it was also Friday night in the theater. My heart was pulled into the scene by the sabbath prayers, the simple fellowship, and the holy table song.
I was gobsmacked at the sight and the power of the Shabbot experience; and I did everything in my power to swallow the growing lump in my throat, At that moment, I knew in a deeper, non-head way how important liturgy is and can be for conveying how the reality of God’s holy presence can permeate our sense of time and space and change us – if we allow it.
All this reminded me of my first Old Testament professor who said something that deepened my understanding of following Jesus. He said he believed that you couldn’t be a good Christian unless you were also a good Jew. I am mindful of that statement in light of today’s gospel lesson along with my experience that came from “Tevia”.
In this day’s gospel lesson and in light of the tension Mark portrays between the Pharisees and Jesus, a tension between the Pharisee’s focus on “the tradition of the elders” and Jesus’ apparent looseness with the tradition’s practice of washing hands, the issue is this: Can we go deeper, beyond the surface of what appears to be an intramural, Jewish conflict and grasp an insight that might help us follow God’s Christ more fully? In other words, what does this issue over handwashing mean for us Christians? What was the Jewish Jesus trying to say to all of God’s people? Was it that because of him, the Law of Moses didn’t matter anymore?
Unfortunately, some Christians think that Jesus replaced the Law and the Prophets. That is a false and potentially dangerous interpretation that has throughout the ages frequently fueled “replacement” conspiracy theories. No, the gospel truth is that Jesus completed the Law and the Prophets. As God’s own Son, he fulfilled them, and this understanding proposes a completely different trajectory to faith – to the Bible and to the “tradition”. And here, I gladly return to “Tevia” and his famous answer to the dilemma about “Tradition!” and its place with God’s Word and Life.
First, without getting into the weeds about such things, the scene that the gospel lesson portrays is rooted in the Jewish issue of “purity” and “defilement”. In Jewish law and tradition, they are not the same, and that is important for Christians to realize and to consider to what extent issues of “purity” and “defilement” may or may not apply.
The issue of “purity” (as prescribed in the Law of Moses) provided guardrails for Jews, concerning their ability to sacrifice in the Temple. In short order the Law identified what made a person “impure” (that is, what precluded a person from being able to be in the holy presence of God for the purpose of offering Temple sacrifice as a sign of belonging and gratitude. Yet, what made a person “impure” was not related to morality or to obedience to the Law. Issues of “purity” were about acknowledging the conscious readiness to be in the Holy One’s presence and to give expression to the reality of the Covenant and its gifts. To go to the festivals in order to offer sacrifice, ritual purity (ritual readiness) was required.1 The “heart” needed to be made ready, something no ritual or tradition could accomplish, save with God.
This notion and practice strike me as very similar to the Christian practice of fasting prior to receiving Communion or making one’s confession prior to “keeping the feast”. These are practices and attitudes that fly in the face of our time’s practice of “come as you are” “liturgical dining”, where we seem to assume that being present at the Lord’s Table is simply a convenient matter of us merely showing up.
Yet, as I mentioned, in Jewish spirituality “defilement” is not the same as issues of “purity”. For their parts, the Pharisees were “religious populists” who formulated the radical notion (in that context that everyone could attain the ritual purity (specifically of the priests) all the time and, therefore, be closer to God. In the footsteps of democratizing populists (both religious and political), the Pharisees started out as reformers in the Hebrew context but ended up (as so many reformers tragically do) relishing the political power that can and often does come from such pot-stirring. (The same thing happened to the Massachusetts Puritans in the 17th century.)
In a sense, the Pharisee’s move to “democratize” the Hebrew covenant faith was an attempt to open the doors to God’s living presence.2 This was traditionally an issue of “purity”; but the Pharisees (at least functionally) equated “purity” and “defilement”. Clearly, (as I say) they are related but not the same. In Jewish Temple tradition, “purity” had to do with being prepared to be in God’s presence and to make sacrifices. “Defilement” is something else, something much more usual.
In my own mind, I see the issue of “defilement” in the Jewish context as being similar to a Christian notion of “sin”. While “sin” is clearly related to what we do or don’t do in obedience to God, the essential reality of “sin” is much more significant than the moral issues of “right” and “wrong”. This is to say, as I believe Jesus is pointing out in today’s gospel, “sin” (at its essential reality) speaks to the state of our relationship both with God and our neighbor. At this primary level, “sin” means “separation”, a breaking of the covenantal connection that God provides and we are to receive as a life-giving gift.
One thing this means (certainly for us Christians) is that when we confess our sins, rather than struggle with trying to list the things that we did “wrong”, our focus needs first to be on the fact that we have separated ourselves from God and the God-life, that is, how we have “erred and strayed from [God’s] ways like lost sheep … [following] too much the devices and desires of our own hearts…”3
Is this similar to allowing ourselves to be “impure”, not prepared by God for God? Is “defilement” the result of what happens to us and what we do because we have lost sight of what the traditions’ purpose – to desire God’s presence in our lives?
Ok, enough with the weeds, but maybe the issue is this: How do we take seriously our readiness to be in God’s presence? And what do we do if and when we realize that we have lost our way as a result?
To refocus: I submit that what Jesus is doing in this lesson has to do with how we seriously take God’s presence into our lives and in turn have our lives reflect that life-giving presence. So, here is what I think Jesus is driving at. Yes, it is important to wash your hands. (Lord God of hosts, haven’t we learned that in the pandemic years? I can sense my mother nodding her head in vindication!) But in keeping our hands clean and recognizing the mundane things that sully our lives, are we risking missing how this obedience like handwashing attempts to point us to God's presence and what God gives? The great and well-worn temptation is to play the morality game and to portray to ourselves and to others to what extent we are “good enough” – good enough for God or good enough not to be the last one chosen for the team? Are we so wrapped up in this form of spiritual Olympics that we fail to allow God to reside in our hearts, in our minds, and in our souls? – and thereby have what we need and cannot provide for ourselves.
So it is that Jesus pulls no punches in saying: Listen now, all of you – take this to heart. It is not what you swallow that pollutes your life; it’s what you vomit – that’s the real pollution.4
The sense of what Jesus is saying when he proclaims rather vehemently and graphically is that it is not what comes in from the outside of a person that defiles. That, he says, goes into the sewer. Rather, it is what comes out from the heart, the mind, and the soul that defiles – what we allow at the center of who we are, what touches our soul.
Contemporary computer scientists intuitively understand this truth. They say, “Garbage in; garbage out”. Or from the realm of eating and drinking and the “Communion” issues we have faced for the last six weeks in John’s gospel, “we are what we eat”.
If we take in the God-life that Jesus makes known and available to us, then our hearts, and minds, and souls will be able to express this “Real Presence” in what we outwardly do and say. Again I point out, is this not what our Eucharistic prayer says, as we pray that (like the presented bread and wine on the altar), we also may be “sanctified and enabled faithfully to receive” Christ’s “purity” and life that defilement cannot tarnish: That’s what the “tradition” is about. That is what the “tradition” says to us. And it is in worship (where two or three of us gather in Christ’s Name) that scripture and tradition are put into action. And we are the actors who bring the great drama known as the Paschal Mystery – the Good News -- into the world. That’s how tradition works. Which is to say that everyone is religious; the problem is what we put at our center; and that the “statues and ordinances” exist not so much that we might “make good grades” but to know how to live what these “rules” point to. Germs aside, the washing of hands speaks to a larger remembrance and reality: namely, God and the God-life. Amen.
1. Andrew McGowan. “Andrew’s Version”, 8/27/24
2. McGowan
3. Book of Common Prayer. “Confession of Sin: Rite I" (1928 alternate), p. 320
4. Mark 7:14-15 – The Message
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