Practice Makes Perfect or Pretentious

Introduction

Our Scripture readings present us a challenge this morning, at least at face value.

I wonder if you feel it.

In Deuteronomy 4:1-9, Moses exhorts the people to do the commandments of God.

Deuteronomy 4:2 (NRSV) says

...keep the commandments of the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 4:5-6 continues

See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe... You must observe them diligently,

Finally, Deuteronomy 4:9 adds

make them known to your children and your children’s children—

Wait a minute, pass them on to your children, and children’s children?

This sounds a lot like the “tradition of the elders” in Mark 7. Right?

Isn’t tradition is what you pass on from one generation to another.

In Ps 15 we chanted that those who may dwell with God are those who

do right,

speak truth,

do not charge interest to those they loan to,

reject bribes

All of this emphasis on doing makes the Evangelical in us squirm, am I right?

The typical interpretation of Mark 7 generally sees Jesus going in the opposite direction as it is focused on what he is not doing.

Here, Jesus overturns the Food Laws of the Mosaic Law, after all, his disciples don’t wash their hands as the Law of Moses requires, right?

Here, Jesus fights against the works based religion of the Jewish people by declaring all foods clean and calls out the Pharisees for being hypocrites … for obeying Moses?!?

But if Deut 4 says that obedience to God’s commands will demonstrate to unbelievers his nearness and the people’s wisdom, then shouldn’t the Pharisees be praised?

And why would the Jewish Messiah, who was born and raised as a law observant Jew (see the Gospel of Luke), overturn God’s very commandments?

Jesus himself said

he did not come to abolish the Law,

that not a jot or tittle would pass away,

and the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven would be the one who does them (Matt 5:17-20)

And, if Jesus’s intent here is to actually declare all foods clean, overturning Leviticus, then what are we to make of Peter’s ignorance of this when he is invited to eat prohibited animals in Acts 10:11-16?

Do you feel the tension between these texts?

Well, there is no doubt that Jesus is upset with the Pharisees, but it is critical for us to discover why.

Otherwise, we are apt to toss this text into the bin of “those hypocritical Pharisees” and move on, not realizing that Jesus could very well have something to say to us this morning.

That perhaps we are like the Pharisees he is speaking to.

So, in the next few minutes, let’s explore this tension together and discover the good news that God invites us to live into.

Shall we?

The Issue

Let’s first put our finger on what is really going on in Mark 7.

Practices or behavior are at the heart of all of our passages today.

The Western evangelical tradition privileges belief over practice and this stems in part from our protestant heritage.

But it also stems from a gross misunderstanding of the people of Israel and the Old Testament, and intensified with the assumption that Jesus is somehow against Judaism.

We tend to see outward practice as symbolic and unessential because what really matters is what we believe.

The problem is, we cannot separate belief from practice and our scripture readings bear this out.

We don’t choose between belief or practice, they are two sides of the same coin.

The key here is, what we believe is expressed or demonstrated by our practices.

There is not tension between internal vs. external, but rather what internal belief is driving external behavior.

Are you tracking with me so far?

So an important take away is that behavior does not merely exist on its own, it is always connected to a system of belief.

Why do you brush your teeth?

Why do you work?

Why do you eat that extra cookie?

Why do you wear, or not wear a mask?

Practices are strategic ways of behaving in the world, and the strategy motivating the behavior is what guides us to make the choices we do.

What we do reveals how we understand ourselves and the world, just as it also shapes us and our world.

This is on full display every day on the evening news as the preexisting beliefs of commentators and news channels guide the questions they ask and how they present and interpret the events of the day, and their comments are aimed at affecting what tomorrow will look like.

We either argue back at the TV or cheer in agreement.

So let’s take this and go back to Mark 7.

What is really the issue in this passage?

It’s about hand washing, right?

You probably noticed that Jesus does not directly answer the question about why his disciples eat with unwashed hands.

Instead, he oddly turns to a prophecy in Isaiah 29:13 that he applies to the Pharisees.

He then appears to take a rabbit trail citing one of the 10 Commandments against them (Exodus 20:12/Deut 5:16), which incidentally demonstrates that Jesus upholds the relevance and authority of the Torah.

How are we to understand this?

Look again at the question that the Pharisees pose. They ask in Mark 7:5,

“Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders?”

The real issue relates to the source of authority that is guiding the behavior of the disciples.

Why do you do that and not this? They want to know about the why underneath their behavior.

Not performing a hand washing simply reveals that his disciples are motivated by some other authority besides the tradition of the elders.

Do you see here the relationship between belief and action? They are inseparable.

So, Jesus does directly answer the question, because it is about the underlying authority that guides behavior, not the behavior itself.

Let’s see how this plays out in the text.

In Mark 7:5-13 there is a repeated flipping back and forth between the commandments of God vs. the elders, or human tradition.

The Pharisees start with the question about following the tradition of the elders (Mark 7:5).

Jesus answers from Isaiah that the commandments of God are abandoned to hold to human tradition (Mark 7:8).

Jesus repeats in the next verse that the commandments of God are rejected to observe human tradition (Mark 7:9).

Finally, the word of God is nullified by the tradition of the elders (Mark 7:13).

There are two important observations to make at this point.

First, the Pharisees and the tradition of the elders are never fairly treated.

The Pharisees are neither all evil nor all good, just like us.

They were navigating complicated political, social, religious, and financial challenges that were not always clear cut.

Because the OT does not spell out how to live in every possible context, one has to fill in the gaps by interpreting scripture.

The Pharisees were just one group among many that did this.

The “tradition of the elders” was built upon the OT just like say a Christian college will turn to the Bible to justify its “extrabiblical” rules about how to live and behave in community.

E.g., when I went to Moody Bible Institute many years ago, we were not allowed to go see movies even when on break!

One of the goals of the “tradition of the elders” was to help people know how to best live lives that were pleasing to God and they had liturgical practices incorporated into this way of life.

The “tradition of the elders” also served as a way to slow the influence of the ungodly culture around them, which again mimics the contemporary purity rules of Christian organizations.

To be clear, I’m not criticizing these guidelines, I’m just saying that we are a lot closer to Pharisees than we’d like to think.

So this text is an invitation for us to do some reflection.

Second, and ironically, the commandments of God depend on transmission by tradition as Deut 4:9 makes clear and even Paul refers to traditions he handed down (1 Cor 11:2; 2 Thess 2:15; 3:16).

All denominations, including our own beloved ACNA do the same.

The tradition of the elders, just like our various community standards serve as a practical way that we live what we believe.

*** This means that we are subject to the same blindness that befell the Pharisees! ***

We like to think, just like the Pharisees, that we are simply following the pure and unadulterated word of God in our practices, and we are unwilling to self-evaluate because we assume we are in the right from the outset.

Can you see why the Pharisees might have been shocked by Jesus?

I think this in part relates to why we are so divided as a country.

So let’s recap a couple of points before moving further.

Belief and action are two sides of the same coin

Jesus and the Pharisees had different practices that led to conflict over authority

Jesus was very comfortable with the authority of the Law

The Problem

The tradition of the elders as taught by the Pharisees led to a situation in which certain commands of God were broken to follow less important ones.

This happens to use as well. As an example, is it illegal to run a red light?

Of course.

Is it still illegal to run a red light if you are sitting at one with no traffic around and a loved one in the seat next to you needs to get to the hospital ASAP or they might die?

Of course, but you still “safely” run the red light! Saving a life is far more important than obeying a traffic law.

The example Jesus gives is related to “Corban,” a Hebrew word for “offering.”

Jesus calls out the practice of declaring one’s property as “Corban,” meaning “dedicated to God,” so that one could still benefit from the property until it is finally given to the Temple authorities.

This was a spiritual way to say, “Oh bummer mom and dad, I’d love to help you but I just happened to dedicate it to God. Aren’t you proud of how spiritual I am?”

The dilemma is that Corban was a vow and the Law prohibited breaking one’s vow (Num 30:2; Deut 23:21-23).

Yet, the 10 commandments require the honoring of one’s parents, which in antiquity often involved money, and in Jesus’s interpretation of things, the Pharisees were using one Law to their advantage to break a more important Law.

Jesus basically says here what I say to my kids from time to time, “busted!”

So, you may now be wondering, if Jesus doesn’t have an issue with the food laws or purity rules of the OT, then what’s going on?

Nowhere does the OT require the washing of hands before eating in an everyday context. So, Jesus and his disciples are not breaking any Laws or living a “law free” life here.

Priests are required to wash hands and feet when serving in the Tabernacle/Temple (Ex. 30:17-21), so some interpreters think that the Pharisees were trying to live extra holy, priestlike lives.

According to the Mishnah, other Jewish rabbis of Jesus’s time agreed with him that eating with unclean hands was just fine, so Mark’s comment about “all the Jews” refers to those living in the region of Judea, and by extension anyone who followed those customs in another geographical location, not that every Jewish person followed these practices.

A modern analogy is found in those who are Anglican. We are Anglican because we observe the practices of those who historically derive from England even though we live elsewhere.

And note, the Pharisees do not ask, “Why do you eat prohibited food?” but “Why do you eat with unwashed hands?” So, the Food Laws are not being questioned.

The Legal Debate

Ok, but what about Jesus declaring all foods clean?

When Jesus finally addresses the crowds about whether one should eat with clean or unclean hands, he provides his ruling or interpretation of the Law in a way that agrees with Leviticus.

Becoming ritually impure was not sinful, so eating while unclean in everyday contexts was also no problem.

Moreover, according to Leviticus, ritual impurity moves outward from the body, it does not move inward.

It was the Pharisees, not Jesus, who were innovating by their concern of the inward movement of impurity.

In fact, Jesus appears to poke fun at the Pharisees because they are concerned about what goes into the body not what comes out.

Their food goes out of the body into the latrine as waste, which is not ritually unclean according to the OT, and certain passages in the Mishnah.

But since the Pharisees were concerned about what comes out of the body, Jesus notes that evil behavior comes out of an evil heart.

Both ritual and moral impurity come out of the body, but their over concern about ritual purity led to moral impurity multiplying everywhere and they were blind to it.

As my professor Ben Witherington would say, the have the emPHAsis on the wrong syllABle.

So whatever is meant by “all foods clean” it does not mean overturning Lev 11 but relates to eating with unwashed hands.

If you read carefully, Mark 7:18 notes that the disciples asked him further about this “parable,” which means, “hard saying.”

While they ate with unwashed hands, they weren’t quite sure why the Pharisees were wrong.

So, Jesus takes the time to explain it to them privately.

The Good News, friends, is that Jesus invites us to examine the heart motivation of our obedience, repent, and to align it with God’s.

Are we willing to examine ourselves?

We face the same tragedy of the Pharisees.

We have a hard time seeing the ways our own “tradition of the elders” leads us to harm others.

In reflecting on my own life, an easy example came to mind of how I sometimes place ”doing God’s work” above loving him and my neighbor.

Often in preparing for Sunday service, I find myself getting more and more stressed as I wrestle with my homily or other details of the service.

This doesn’t mix very well with loud and energetic kids so I might treat them harshly or get angry with them.

Maybe you can relate with your journey to church while waiting for your spouse or trying to get the kids out the door, or driving slowly behind the car in front of you.

The Good News, friends, is that Jesus invites us to examine the heart motivation of our obedience, repent, and to align it with God’s.

But there’s also the positive side of practices that we shouldn’t lose sight of.

Corban, or dedicating something to God, was a positive practice that helped a person put in perspective his or her physical belongings. Jesus wasn’t against Corban, he was against its misuse.

Insofar as our practices are rightly ordered, let us continue them to God’s glory and for his Kingdom coming here on earth as it is in heaven.

Indeed, this is Ordinary Time, or Trinitytide, where we are invited to experience the fullness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in our lives.

May he have his way in our lives this day. Amen.