Tradition! Tradition!

Of all the movies that were released in 1971, I would contend that the one that is best remembered and most beloved is Norman Jewison’s Fiddler on the Roof. A musical, based off of the Tony award winning play, Fiddler tells the story of Teyve, a man who lives in a Jewish settlement in Russia in 1905. Being Jewish, he is deeply rooted in Traditions. In fact, the opening to the movie is a song that is called, Tradition and some of you are thinking of that song and humming the melody in your head right now, aren’t you?

In this song, Teyve tells us, the audience about the importance of traditions. Of how they keep us grounded and help us know who we are and what God expects from us. Teyve values his traditions immensely and that leads to the main conflict in the story. His traditions are challenged by his daughters and he finds he either has to bend his tradition or it will break the relationships.

This past week, the church around the world began the season of Lent, in which we, for 6 weeks, spiritually prepare ourselves to commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus at Easter. On Wednesday of this past week, many Christians observed the tradition of Ash Wednesday, where people mark their heads with ash in the shape of a small cross in order to signify repentance. It’s a tradition that goes back centuries in the Christian faith with the council of Nicea mentioning Lent in 325 C.E.

In many ways, when we take communion, as we did last week we are participating in a tradition. When we baptize people, like we will on Easter Sunday, we participate in a tradition. Even when we choose to come to a church worship service, like this one we participate in tradition. And many of you have traditions at home and when you miss that tradition, something feels off about it, doesn’t it? Traditions can be wonderful tools to help us feel a sense of security, of a sense of being a part of something bigger than ourselves. They help define who we are and in that way, traditions can be great things.

But traditions have a downside as well. They can become legalistic rules that if they are not followed exactly, can lead to judgmentalism, shame, disillusionment, argumentation and strife.

I read an anecdote about a pastor who found the roads blocked one Sunday morning, so he grabbed his skates, laced them up and skated on the river to get to church, which he did. When he arrived the elders of the church were horrified that their preacher had skated on the Lord's day. After the service they held a meeting where the pastor explained that it was either skate to church or not go at all. Finally one elder asked, "Did you enjoy it?" When the preacher answered, "No," the board decided it was all right!

How many generations have watched the church and have seen us be adamant about our traditions and our legalism, thinking that’s what it means to be saved and act unloving to each other, or uncaring to the poor and generally not resemble Jesus in how we live?

In our passage for today, as we go through the life of Jesus in the gospel of Mark, Jesus is going to address that very issue for us.

Mark 7:1–23 NLT

One day some Pharisees and teachers of religious law arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They noticed that some of his disciples failed to follow the Jewish ritual of hand washing before eating. (The Jews, especially the Pharisees, do not eat until they have poured water over their cupped hands, as required by their ancient traditions. Similarly, they don’t eat anything from the market until they immerse their hands in water. This is but one of many traditions they have clung to—such as their ceremonial washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles.) So the Pharisees and teachers of religious law asked him, “Why don’t your disciples follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony.” Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.” Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition. For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents. And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.” Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand. It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.” Then Jesus went into a house to get away from the crowd, and his disciples asked him what he meant by the parable he had just used. “Don’t you understand either?” he asked. “Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.) And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”

Pray.

Understanding the Passage

Once again, our story happens around a meal. Jesus and the disciples are about to sit down and enjoy their burgers and fries when some Pharisees show up and start some trouble. They notice that the disciples didn’t wash their hands beforehand. But this isn’t like when as a parent, you tell your kids to wash up before dinner because you watched them pick their nose and wipe it on the dog after they played in mud. This isn’t about being washed. It’s about being pure. It’s a religious thing, not a hygiene thing.

Describe and demonstrate how to wash hands

According to renowned pastor and Bible commentator William Barclay, the Pharisees believed that to eat with ceremonially unclean hands was to open yourself to attacks from a demon named Shibta. It was also to become liable to poverty and destruction. They took it so far as to say that bread eaten with unclean hands was not better than excrement. Which is a really crappy theology, if you ask me.

The Pharisees had been the religious gatekeepers for years and had defined Judaism as a strict set of traditions and rules but Jesus taught his disciples a new way to follow God. Instead of following the thousands and thousands of rules set by the Pharisees, Jesus taught his disciples to love one another as God has loved them. He taught them to care for the cultural outsiders and how to care for their own souls. Jesus freed them from the laws of the Pharisees in order to help his disciples reclaim an authentic faith.

And I believe God desires for you and I to have an authentic faith as well. A faith that gives life to your soul and gives life to the community that you are a part of.

John 10:10 NLT

The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

What does Authentic Faith look like?

Authentic faith combines faith and action (Mark 7:6-7)

The Pharisees had a narrow and strict sense of what religion is about. They took God’s commands and then added thousands of sub-commands to them so that they always new what God expected of them in any given situation. There was no sense of personal discernment about how to honour God. They made the rules and the only way to honour him is to follow them - all of them.

Let me give you some examples. Just like people could become spiritually unclean, so could dishes. “Okay”, you might say. “That could make sense. If an unclean person touches something, I see how it could become unclean.” Let me mess with your mind here:

A pottery item, if it was hollow, like a vase, could be unclean on the inside, but not the outside. It didn’t matter who or what touched the outside, only the inside. And if it became unclean, it had to be broken and no unbroken piece could be big enough to hold enough oil to anoint the little toe.

A flat plate without a rim could not become unclean. A flat plate with a rim, could.

If something made had bone, leather or glass in it, and it was flat, it could not become unclean. But if it was hollow, it could be unclean inside and outside. If it’s hollow and becomes unclean it must be broken and the break must be a hole at least big enough for a medium-sized pomegranate to pass through.

Anything made of metal could become unclean, except, a door, a bolt, a lock, a hinge, a knocker and a gutter.

Wood used in metal utensils could become unclean; but metal used in wood utensils could not. Therefore a wooden key with metal teeth could become unclean but a metal key with wooden teeth could not.

This is the type of thinking that Jesus is up against here in our passage. That is why Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah to the when he says in Mark 7:6-7 “...You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’”

Jesus sees the type of religion that the pharisees have and knows that it is heartless following of rules, not heartfelt passion born out of intimacy with God. But authentic faith is more than just going through the motions and doing the things; it is something that comes from within us, from our hearts.

You can come to our worship service and sing all the songs perfectly, but that doesn’t mean you are worshipping because worship comes not from skill but from our hearts. You can listen to every sermon, but miss out on hearing God in them if you aren’t listening for God in your heart. You can donate money and time to the church and it won’t bless God one iota if it doesn’t come from the heart, but has some other motive attached to it.

But there is another side to this coin. In this passage, Jesus talks about how fake the worship of the Pharisees is with their slavish adherence to their traditions. But Jesus’ brother, James, helps us to see another aspect of authentic faith.

James 2:14–18 NLT

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.”

Part of our history as Protestants is that we have rejected the idea that doing good things will be the reason God saves you. We aren’t saved by our good works, but by God’s grace enacted through our faith. The temptation we may face though, is that because we are saved by grace, we think we don’t have to do anything. And it’s true. You don’t have to anything to be saved except believe. But an authentic faith is lived out - it has actions that accompany it. Without actions, our faith is dead.

So when we put these two things together, we get a complete picture of authentic faith. An authentic faith combines faith and action. It comes from the heart and flows out of our hands.

An authentic faith doesn’t read the bible so God will love them. An authentic faith loves God so much they can’t wait to get into his Word.

An authentic faith doesn’t sing songs on Sunday. An authentic faith uses the music to lift their hearts and hands to Jesus.

An authentic faith doesn’t donate to the church to get a tax receipt. An authentic faith exercises fiscal responsibility and gives generously as the Lord as the Lord has been generous to you.

An authentic faith doesn’t contain faith to Sunday but lives it out everyday.

An authentic faith sees the poor and the hurting and does something about it.

Jesus teaches us that faith is more than just the things we do. It comes from within us. And James teaches us that a faith that does nothing is worth nothing. It is dead and useless. An authentic faith combines heartfelt faith with practical actions.

Authentic faith deals with the inner person (Mark 7:20-23)

After Jesus blasts the Pharisees for having an inauthentic faith that was heartless in its devotion to man-made rules, Jesus calls to the crowd and tells them that being unclean isn’t about what you consume; its about what’s in you.

The Pharisees taught everyone that if you, or the dish you served it on was ceremonially unclean, then you would become unclean as well. But because Jesus came to give us freedom from those man-made rules in order to draw us back to authentic faith in God, he challenges that assumption and tells people in Mark 7:20-23 “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.””

The complexity of humanity’s relationship with God is that God wants our hearts and yet our hearts are naturally bent away from God because we have a corrupted sin nature.

Jeremiah 17:9 NLT

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?

But the good news of Jesus is that he reconciles our hearts to God. Jesus’ atonement on the cross transforms our hearts and fulfills what Ezekiel prophesied in Ezekiel 36:26 “And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.”

God cares about our hearts first and foremost. That’s why, when the paralytic and his friends came to Jesus, he forgave him sins first and only healed his body after. And because God cares about our hearts, we have to as well.

The conflict that Jesus addresses in our passage in Mark 7 is the difference between a religion that only looks at the outside versus a faith that looks internally. An authentic faith deals with the inner person.

Romans 12:1–2 NLT

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Paul’s challenge to us is the same as Jesus’. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to transform us day by day from the inside out. The problem is that too many of us approach it backwards. We try to make changes from the outside in. If I do this, it will be better. If I try that, things will improve. We like the doing of things because it gives us a sense of control.

But authentic faith resists that temptation and instead begins to examine the inner life and allow the love of Jesus to transform us.

Authentic faith prays Psalm 139:23 regularly.

Psalm 139:23 NLT

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

In our passage, Jesus said that there is all this evil in our hearts. And it’s true.

Cleaning my wife’s car and needing recognition.

As we entered the Lenten season this past week, I wanted to make a more conscious effort at letting my doing flow from my being and not the other way around. This passage in Mark this week has challenged me to renew the calling to self-reflection so I can root out the evil in my heart and bring it to Jesus, who gives me the victory over it through his triumph on the cross.

Conclusion

In our passage today, Jesus breaks the traditions of the Jewish faith of his day. Traditions themselves aren’t bad things. They can keep us grounded, help us know who we are and help define our community. But traditions have a dark side that we have to be careful of. They can trap us in a way that keeps us from knowing God.

The Pharisees judged the disciples for not keeping their traditions of hand washing. What they didn’t realize was that their traditions actually kept them from knowing God in an intimate and healthy way. After all, he stood right before them and they missed it.

God’s heart for us is to have authentic faith and an authentic faith combines belief and action together and it deals with the inner person. May each of you pursue an authentic faith that fills your soul and your community with life.