Just Do It

9-2-18 (Proper 17/Ordinary 22 B, Semi-Continous)

James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-23

Just Do It

How many things are there in our lives that we do just because “it’s the way we’ve always done it?”  or because “that’s how I was taught to do it?”  How many of these things do we even stop for a moment to think about why we do them the way we do?  And how often have we used that same reasoning to explain why any other method of doing something is just simply wrong?

One of the best examples of this is sitting right in front of us right now - just about every time we celebrate communion in this church, the bread is nicely, carefully wrapped up in a linen napkin.  You’ll see this setup in many churches, though it sometimes has some variations - for example, some churches cover the whole table in a white cloth - but the general idea is the same.  Have you ever stopped and asked yourselves why that cloth is there?  Why do we cover the communion bread or the communion table?

In one of our seminary classes, we had this conversation at length - the professor let us all take a crack at giving our most thought-out theological explanations, and boy did we have a bunch.  We figured it was to mark the communion table as set apart, or to represent the shroud that covered Jesus’ body in the tomb, or that it was like the veil that covered Moses’ face after he came down from the mountain… and the professor sat there, listening to us all patiently before he gave us the real, historical answer: the cloth kept the flies away.

And still, here we are - cloth over our bread, keeping the flies away whether we have any to worry about or not.  In this case, sure - it’s a tradition whose explanation doesn’t really take anything away from the sacrament and doesn’t do anyone any harm.  And as we also often like to say in the church and in other places… if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

This is the kind of situation into which Jesus has entered in our passage today from Mark - As Jesus and the disciples are gathering together for a meal, some Pharisees who have gathered around him and his disciples notice that the group does not go through the ritual process that Mark describes of “thoroughly washing” before their meal.  So, naturally, they’re confused - perhaps upset.  They challenge Jesus - “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”  Why would this man, who some think is the long-awaited Messiah, not follow the laws that are so important to the daily life of an Israelite?

Jesus’ response to the Pharisees is just as curious - he calls the Pharisees “hypocrites,” and uses them as a fulfillment of Isaiah’s condemnation of those who honor God with their lips, but whose hearts are far from God.  And it’s here that the passage takes a confusing turn.  I mean… what’s wrong with hand-washing, after all?  Even centuries later, far removed from the purity laws and rituals that marked the Hebrew identity, we still ask our kids if they’ve washed their hands before supper, and we still go through that process of “Did you wash your hands?  With soap?  And water?”  As another familiar saying goes… cleanliness is next to Godliness.  So why, of all things, does Jesus bristle at the Pharisees calling him and his disciples out for not washing their hands?

It turns out that the problem isn’t so much with the what as much as it’s with the why and the how in this circumstance.  The Pharisees come at Jesus and his disciples for not living according to the “tradition of the elders,” but their concern is about the disciples eating with “defiled hands” and not with actual cleanliness.  For the Pharisees, it’s all about “doing it the way we’ve always done it” - and that’s as far as it ever seems to go for them.  Jesus is more interested in the process, the why that lies behind that tradition, and it’s when he digs into that “why” question that he sees the hypocrisy and becomes so angry.  The law passed down from Moses was a good thing, meant to guide and shape the people of Israel so that they could be a shining light to the rest of the world - it was designed to protect them in their wandering through the wilderness and therefore to mark them as a holy people when they entered the Promised Land, but it had been taken and turned into something completely other than what it was meant to be.  The Pharisees had spent so much time digging into those laws and trying to interpret them as fully as possible that they’d forgotten why those laws had been established in the first place.  Moreover, they had even started abusing those laws, manipulating the letter of the law in order to avoid following its spirit.  The laws that were meant to ensure that people had a place at the table, to provide care and well-being for those most in need of it, were now being used to bar those very people from even entering the house.

Now - before I get any complaints from parents whose kids happen to be paying attention this morning and decide that it’s now OK to not wash their hands before supper… it’s important to realize that Jesus doesn’t come into this situation just to deliberately upset the apple cart and throw traditions to the wind.  He’s not demonizing or vilifying the practice of hand-washing, nor is he saying that traditions are meant to be broken.  Instead, he’s more interested in what’s at the heart of the Pharisee’s insistence on following those traditions in the first place.

It’s important for us to explore the history behind our traditions, to understand the why of what we do, and to examine it, both in the light of the tradition itself and in the light of what God calls us to do in the Scriptures.  As James puts it in his letter, it’s important for us to not just hear the Word, but to genuinely do what it calls us to be doing, to understand what God is getting at when God tells us through Scripture to act in particular ways, to care for particular people, or to avoid particular actions and attitudes.  These days, it’s so easy for us to simply be “hearers of the word,” to be the people that James describes as those who look at themselves in the mirror and then immediately forget what we look like.  It’s easy for us to get swept up in so much of the divisiveness, the tribalism, and the vicious anger that has marked so much of our culture and conversation these days - the constant barrage of “breaking news” and the ease with which we can access information these days without having or taking the time to formulate our own opinions, to even check to see if what is being said is even true.

Perhaps it’s for this reason that James’ admonishment spoke so strongly to me this week about being slow to anger and ridding ourselves of those things that do not help produce God’s righteousness.  More than ever, we need to hear James’ words of encouragement to the church - his imperative that we practice a living faith, a faith that is one of doing, of living out the experience we have of God, and not just set of rules to follow because “it’s the way we’ve always done it.”  We are to be the ones who demonstrate the transformative power of Jesus Christ by being transformed ourselves.

It’s easy to be confronted with God’s word, to look into the mirror and see ourselves for who we are, and to be shown by God what we are meant to be - what’s hard is for us to actually let that confrontation transform us, to let it challenge those things that we think are so central to our identity just because “it’s the way we’ve always done it.”  And yet, day by day, we continue to experience that transformation, and I can see the Spirit at work in the midst of all of it, even in the smaller things - perhaps even especially in those smaller things.  Take a look at our own church, for example - not just First Presbyterian Church of Vandalia, but the Presbyterian Church, USA - we’re coming to new understandings of what it means to live out our faith in this community, and while those transitions aren’t always the easiest, we can see the potential that they have to transform the church into a more faithful expression of Christ’s love.  We’ve gone from a church and a culture that has so firmly believed that “children are to be seen and not heard” to a congregation that is exploring more and more ways to incorporate our children into our worship experiences, to a denomination that is more fully embodying that invitation of Christ that all should be welcome to the table.  We are engaging in new explorations of what it means to live into our baptismal covenant as we try new methods for Christian Education and explore the ways in which we can expand that mission into our greater community.  Even in our worship - while the hymns may not always be the ones we’ve “always sung” and some of them don’t always end up being the easiest ones to sing… but how many times have we come away from a worship service still humming the tune of a new hymn we would never have otherwise discovered?

We call ourselves a “church reformed and always reforming according to the Word of God.”  What that transformation looks like, how the Spirit continues to work within us and change us… it’s not always the most comfortable thing, and it can challenge us in ways we had never expected.  But as we gather together at this table, we remember that we are ourselves gathered as outcasts and unclean sinners whom God has nevertheless welcomed to the table through the sheer grace of Christ - and we remember that this is because that’s how God has always done it.  And that’s something that, thanks be to God, we know will never change.  To God be the Glory.  Amen.