Mark 7:1-23

I want to briefly explain what’s going on in the beginning of this text, and then talk about where Jesus takes this conversation in the second half of the passage. So, turn with me to Mark 7, beginning in verse 1.

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.)

Now, here’s what we need to know regarding the context of this passage. We never want to read something from this story without first knowing the context, so what’s going on in Mark 7? So here’s what’s happening. There is a group of Pharisees and scribes - these are deeply religious Jews - and they have come from Jerusalem because they have heard about this rabbi named Jesus, who has been doing incredibly things among the people in the region of Galilee. So, they want to check out this Jesus and see what he is about.

Now, at the top of their agenda is this: they’ve come to closely watch Jesus and his followers, so that they can find something that they are doing that is wrong. They want to catch these disciples doing something wrong or scandalous, so they can then discredit their teacher - Jesus - and therefore undermine his message, so no one will listen to him any more and all of this Jesus stuff can be put to an end.

So they are watching Christ’s disciples, looking for something to discredit the ministry of Jesus, and as they are watching these disciples, they notice that some of them are eating food without having gone through the ritual washing of their hands. Now, let’s be very clear about this, because we are in the midst of a pandemic and if there is one thing that we have heard for a year and a half it’s been the importance of washing our hands. This passage is not about the hygienic washing of hands. The disciples are not being charged with being unsanitary, they are being charged with not washing “properly,” that is not following the ceremonial standard of ritually cleansing their hands before saying the table blessing and eating a meal.

This was of particular concern given where the disciples had just been. They had just come from the marketplace, where they may have touched someone who was deemed unclean. In fact, in the passage just before this one, Jesus and the disciples are in the marketplace, surrounded by a throng of sick people - presumably Jew and Gentile - who were wanting to be healed by Jesus. So especially because they were just in an environment where they likely would have touched something that was ritually unclean, the disciples would have been expected to go through a ritual of washing their hands before eating food - the danger being, if they ate with defiled hands, they themselves would become defiled!

So the Pharisees see that this is what is happening, and they call them out on it in the hopes of discrediting Jesus, because any rabbi worth his salt would have taught his disciples about cleansing their hands before they ate.

But here’s the thing. This standard that the Pharisees are holding the disciples to, it is not the biblical standard. If you go back and look at the ceremonial laws - you know, the part of the Bible where you always stop when you’re trying to read it front to back. Leviticus, Numbers. Yeah, it’s a slog. But if you read it, you’ll see that what the Pharisees were obligating the disciples to do, it went beyond what God required in his law. The Pharisees had built a standard that went above and beyond the biblical standard.

And before you sneer and jeer at those bad, bad Pharisees, please recognize that they did this with the best of intentions. Here’s what they saw: The Pharisees saw a population of people who were the chosen people of God, gifted with this privileged status by their gracious God, but who were falling into complacency with what God had commanded. God had instructed his people how to live as his people, and the Pharisees saw that they had become complacent. So they built a hedge around the law. They built a new standard that was beyond the commands of God, a standard that was more extreme, more rigid than the law. And they taught that standard to the people, so that as the people tried to live according to this new standard, they wouldn’t come close to violating God’s standard.

We did this growing up. My family was always running late to everything. We could never get out of the door on time, so what did my mother do? She built a hedge around the law. She said, if we need to leave at 5:30 to make it to the restaurant on time, then I’m going to tell the family that we need to leave by 5pm. It may be more extreme, it may require more of everyone, it may make everyone panic and rush just a tad more, but we won’t be late. She built a hedge around the law.

That’s what the Pharisees did. They built a hedge around the law, in the hopes that people, in trying to keep their standard, they would not violate God’s. Sounds harmless, right? Maybe, but a problem developed, and we see it in this passage. Jesus sees it right away.

The Pharisee were obligating and compelling the disciples to follow not what God had said, but what they had said according to the tradition of the elders. It was not a message from God, but it was the imposed message of these men, but it was done in God’s name. And so there developed this consistent means by which men could identify the failures of a person in areas where God was actually fine with what they were doing. In doing so, the hedge that was built around the law, would become the law. And so the hedge became a stumbling block.

Now again, the Pharisees had good intentions. They wanted to protect the commandments of God. They wanted people to follow the ways of God. But if you do this over generations, you create a standard that, in an attempt to honor God, is now dishonoring God. And now you are compelling people to follow this standard, that dishonors God.

This is what Jesus says, as he responds to the Pharisees and scribes. Verse 5.

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

Jesus looks at these Pharisees and he says, you are teaching the commandments of men as if they were the doctrines of God, and in so doing you are honoring me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. You are hypocrites, Jesus says.

And he goes on to give an example of how they’ve done this. In the way of life that God desires for his people to live, there is a command to honor your father and mother. As a reflection of the steadfast kindness of God, you are to care for your parents in their old age. This is how God’s people are to live. Now the Pharisees decided that it is possible to identify your wealth and resources as consecrated for God - they are set aside for God, and cannot be used for ordinary purposes. And if you do this, you are no longer compelled to use those resources to care for your parents in their old age. So, in effect, this tradition of the Pharisees, which was meant to honor God, is allowing people to avoid their God-given responsibility to care for their parents. The ways of God are being discarded in favor of the ways of men.

And Jesus says, this is not how it should be! You should not compel the people to adhere to your standards. You should not compel people to follow your tradition, no matter how helpful you think they are, no matter how important you think the hedge is.

And then Jesus continues, and he says, “Let me tell you why. Let me tell you why you must not fix your eyes on the hedges that you build!” He goes on to say, verse 15:

“There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a persons are what defile him… 21) For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Jesus is a master communicator. The best the world has ever known. Do you see how he brings the conversation full circle. The Pharisees were appalled that the disciples were not following their tradition of cleansing their hands before eating. They were appalled, because the disciples had jumped the hedge, which in their minds had disqualified them from belonging to God.

Because for the Pharisees, this idea of being washed and cleansed was wrapped up in a person’s relationship with God. If you were clean, you could enter the presence of God. You were worthy to stand before God. You belonged with his people. Why? Because you were clean.

But look at what Jesus says. No amount of hand washing will make you worthy to stand before God. The Pharisees believed that what made you unclean was your proximity to the sinful world. Sin was like a virus that could be passed from one person to another, if you’re not careful. So before, you approached God, you needed to be sure that none of that sin was on you.

But what does Jesus say? He says, my dear Pharisees, sin doesn’t invade you, it comes out of you. It comes out of you all the time and invades my good world. Your dirty hands aren’t the problem, it’s your heart! Your heart it bad. Your heart is unclean. It’s defiled. And because of that, working on the externals will never make you worthy to be counted among God’s people.

So don’t fix your eyes on that hedge. And I tell you what, we need to hear that this morning, because there are so many of us who spend our lives trying to wash our hands. We spend our lives trying to stand before God, be loved by God, approved and accepted by God - and we’re going about it by washing our hands, by fixing our eyes on the hedge that we’ve built around God, the line in the sand that we’ve drawn with our own finger - this thing that we’ve said is the thing we have to do or the the thing that we have to stop doing, in order to be worthy of a relationship with God.

That is not how this works. I don’t know what your hedge is, but I know that it won’t do what you hope it will do for you, because no amount of hand washing, no amount of window dressing, no amount of external work or behavior modification can do what needs to be done. It’s not our hands that need cleansing, it’s our hearts. And there’s only one power in heaven and on earth that can resurrect our dead hearts, and it’s the power of Christ. And the moment you put a hedge around that, the moment you place before yourself or others any other requirement for being counted worthy before God, to use Christ’s words, “you leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

Let us not fix our eyes of the hedge, but let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The one who alone can make us clean.