Sermon Tone Analysis

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.

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.

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.

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.