Sermon: Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

September 1, 2024 

Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Pastor Jonathan Linman

God tried to keep things simple. And what did we human beings do in response? We made God’s teachings and commandments much more complicated, adding our own rules and regulations.  

Which is to say, God gave Ten Commandments to guide the totality of our life, our relationship with God and our relationships with each other. And then we humans added 10,000 more to the Ten. 

So it is that religious people end up with dietary laws, what you can and cannot eat. And rules about sexual engagement with each other. And rituals that must be followed precisely. And on and on the list goes of our human-generated additional commands.

But lest we forget, one of the divinely-inspired instructions to us was to keep it simple! Listen again to Moses in today’s passage from Deuteronomy: “So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe…. You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you.” (Deuteronomy 4:1a, 2)

Inevitably, given our human condition, the people, we, ultimately did not obey and we generated and continue to create all sorts of other laws, prescriptions and proscriptions, that is, do’s and don’ts. 

And here’s the other thing, human sin gets caught up in all of this and we quickly figure out how to obey merely the externals, the outward appearances, of the letter of the law, while too often completely failing to keep the spirit or intent of the law. 

Take the commandment, “Thou shall not kill,” for example. Most of us will keep the letter of the law and not end up literally killing anyone. But the spirit of the law would suggest that we also are called upon to do everything in our power to promote the well-being of others. Lots of people end up literally dying because of human neglect in failing to keep the intent or spirit of the commandment to not kill. 

These realities about the spirit and letter of the law and divine vs. human commandments are at the heart of Jesus’ controversy with the religious leaders of his day, the Scribes and Pharisees, recorded in today’s gospel reading.

The leaders saw that Jesus’ disciples were eating their lunch without having washed their hands. So, they objected to Jesus: “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?” (Mark 7:5)

As usual, Jesus doesn’t answer the religious leaders directly, but goes right away to the deeper issues. Jesus responded: “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” (Mark 7:6-8)

Here Jesus names the problem of the human tendency to insist that purely human teachings have an ultimate or divine status. Let’s take ritual hand-washing as an example. We know that washing hands helps prevent the spread of disease, and ancient people probably knew this, too, even from their own non-scientifically informed experience. But instead of just keeping it simple as practical advice, they elevated hand-washing to sacred status and a matter of one’s relationship with God. 

You probably remember the old adage from your parents or grandparents: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” I know I heard that when I resisted my mom’s efforts to get me to take my baths as a kid. But you know what? That phrase – “cleanliness is next to godliness” – is not in the Bible….

Anyway, Jesus goes still deeper in commenting on how we humans also tend to ignore our deeper motivations, allowing us to continue in our sinful ways. Addressing not just the leaders, but the crowds, Jesus said, commenting on dietary laws, what can and cannot be eaten: “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.” 

Then Jesus offers a long list of behaviors that result from our broken, sin-compromised hearts: “sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, avarice [that is, extreme greed], wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:21b-23) In short, God is not so concerned about the food we eat, but is profoundly concerned with the dispositions of heart that motivate our sinful, commandment-breaking behaviors. 

Folks, the truth is our motivations are compromised because our hearts are broken. Deep inside, so many of us suffer from not feeling loved and accepted. Many have endured abuse of one kind or another. Our human dignity is often robbed from us. All of this breaks our hearts, the seat of our will, the place from which we are motivated to do good or bad things. Broken hearts can lead to destructive behavior.

That’s why I like the wisdom of a former mentor of mine: the word sin can be understood as an acronym. S-I-N, meaning, “someone in need.” It’s our neediness which can give rise to all the evil things that Jesus lists.  

The good news, of course, is that Christ came to heal broken hearts. His earthly ministry culminated in his death and resurrection, the ultimate expression of God’s love and mercy and forgiveness. And it’s God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness which are healing balm for our broken hearts.

And then after Jesus ascended again to the Father in heaven, God sent the Holy Spirit to us, not leaving us orphaned, but guiding us into all truth, giving us the sacred power to cooperate with the divine will, continuing to heal our hearts such that we find ourselves more willing to pursue the good. 

God in Christ in the power of the Spirit continues to heal our broken hearts right here, right now in this place, at this sacred, weekly Sunday hour, claiming us with the word of love and grace, cleansing us in the baptismal waters, feeding us with the meal of forgiveness and mercy. 

And these means of grace generate and renew and strengthen our faith, our trust in God. By faith and in faith, we’re given hearts that are clean, new hearts full of God’s love. That’s the good soil from which emerges our good works in the power of the Spirit. And it comes with a freedom from the weight of the Law such that it’s all about what we get to do and not what we have to do!

Here’s how the author of the letter of James puts it: “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of the divine purpose God gave birth to us by the word of truth, [Jesus], so that we would become a kind of first fruits of God’s creatures.” (James1:17-18)

Thus, in the power of God and by the gift of God, we are freed to refrain from things like: “sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, avarice [define], wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly.” And we discover that we’re more inclined to things like: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23a) All the fruit of the healing of hearts that were broken.

Thus, by the gift of God in Christ and by the Spirit, we become more able to be “doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive [ourselves].” (James 1:22)

Furthermore, in our works of mercy and seeking justice, in the power of God working in our healed hearts, we can fulfill another simple command as we also heard today in the passage from James: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:27)

In closing, here's my prayer for you, for me, for us as a church for the sake of a world of broken hearts – indeed, let us pray: God in Christ continue to heal our hearts that we may keep it simple and avoid the pitfalls of loopholes that allow us to obey the letter of the law and fail to keep the spirit of the law. 

God in Christ give us laser focus on the basics – “to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, mind, soul and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves.” God in Christ empower us, encourage us “to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with you, our God.” Amen and amen.