Mark 7:1-8,14,15,21-23
1 The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)
5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”
21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
Are Your Hands Clean?
What constitutes “clean”? I suppose it depends on who you ask.
Imagine you have (I don’t know…) a 4-year-old son. Before dinner, you tell him to go wash his hands, so he dutifully heads off to the washroom and about 30 seconds later he confidently struts back out ready to eat.
But you know 4-year-old boys (and you didn’t hear the water run) so you ask, “Are your hands clean?” He looks up at you with his big innocent puppy dog eyes and says, “Yeah,” and proceeds to show you hands that are bone dry – haven’t seen so much as a drop of water in hours. So, you send him back to the washroom and tell him to use water this time.
A similar course of events plays out, only this time you do hear the water run. But you still know 4-year-old boys and you still have your suspicions. “Did you use soap?” With an “Ugh! Fine!” he stomps back to the washroom. 30 seconds later he comes back again, and to his credit he has soap suds on his hands, but he also has tree sap and blue marker and visible dirt crusted into the creases of his fingers.
A parent’s definition of “clean” often is very different than a child’s definition of “clean.” And in our Gospel reading for today we find that the same is true for God and man.
Jesus and his disciples were in Galilee when some Pharisees from the south tried to stir up trouble for Jesus. As was always the case, Jesus himself didn’t give them much to work with; he was a squeaky-clean guy. His disciples, on the other hand, weren’t as spotless, and on this occasion, the Pharisees noticed that Jesus’ disciples were eating bread without having washed their hands.
Now, I should clarify – the disciples weren’t barbarians. It’s not as if they had just come in from their boats with fish guts on their hands. No, the washing that the Pharisees were referring to was a matter of ceremony, not hygiene. But despite the fact that this was one of their own, made-up traditions and not one of God’s laws, the Pharisees arrogantly interrogate Jesus:
“Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”[1]
Jesus didn’t take too kindly to their objection. In fact, he called them out on their hypocrisy:
“Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’”[2]
The Pharisees were presenting themselves as good, righteous, God-pleasing people, when in reality they were just picking and choosing which rules they wanted to obey to make themselves look the best. They were fastidious – obsessive, even – about this ceremonial hand-washing (that wasn’t even commanded by God), while at the very same time breaking God’s very first commandment.
Do you remember what the First Commandment is? You shall have no other gods.[3] Luther explains it this way: We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Compare that to the Isaiah passage that Jesus quotes at them:
‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’[4]
The Pharisees’ hands may be clean, but what wasn’t? Their hearts. They were far more concerned about conduct and behaviour and obedience than they were about fear and love and trust in God. And, if we’re honest, aren’t we often guilty of the same sin?
As Christians we should be concerned about conduct and behaviour and obedience, but to what degree and at what cost? And do we ever confuse our rules for God’s divinely binding law?
Think of it this way, if you’re the parent of a teenager, which is going to get a rise out of you quicker – your 18-year-old coming home with a failing grade on their final exam or that same 18-year-old only coming to church for Christmas and Easter? Why would we be more concerned about grades that may determine the next couple years of their lives than their soul that will survive into eternity? If our hearts are not close to God, then it doesn’t matter what we’re doing with our lives.
Even the conscientious Christian can try to erect these borders and boundaries to try to keep ourselves safe from sin, but when we overemphasize our own man-made rules and traditions, we run the risk of forgetting where the real problem lies. It’s not with sinful eyes that look at things they’re not supposed to, or sinful tongues that say things that are hateful or hurtful. The problem is and always has been our sinful hearts.
That’s what Jesus says:
“Understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.
“For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.”[5]
Can you honestly look at a list of sins like this and say that you’ve never committed any of them? The harder question is, are there any of these sins that you haven’t committed?
The problem hasn’t been that you didn’t set up the parental controls on your computer. The problem hasn’t been that you don’t have a good system for tracking hours or expenses at work. The problem hasn’t been that you have social media downloaded on your phone. The problem is your heart. And the hard thing to hear is that your heart is sinful even when you’re not doing these things. These are just the evidence of the sin that’s already there.
And there’s no amount of soap in this world that can scrub the pornographic images from your eyeballs. There’s no bleach so potent that it can remove the stain of hatred or greed or envy from your heart.
That’s what the Pharisees got wrong, and that’s what made their worship vain. It turned their best words into hollow lip-service and their best works into hypocritical self-service.
But that’s also what Jesus came to clean up for you. You look at a list like this and there isn’t a person in this room who could claim to be clean. But there was one who could – who was tempted in every way, just as we are – yet did not sin.[6] Jesus was pure in every respect, and despite the fact that he was squeaky-clean in every conceivable way, he willingly exposed himself to the consequences of breaking – not human tradition – but God’s divine law. He put himself in your place and took your sin; he took your hypocrisy and self-righteousness and self-service and he took it to the cross, where the full force of God’s righteous indignation was poured out over him so that you could be forgiven, i.e. so that you could be cleansed.
The writer to the Hebrews dedicates an entire chapter to this:
Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.[7]
Do you know what was sprinkled on your heart to cleanse you from a guilty conscience? It was the blood of Jesus poured out for you on the cross to cover over all your sins.
Do you know what water washed your body? Not some tepid bathwater, but the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit[8] through Holy Baptism.
God knows your heart. He knows how unclean you can be. He knows that it’s not just that you do sinful things, but that you are a sinful person. And he provided a solution. He gave you salvation through his Son. He cleansed you by Christ’s cross so that your heart could be close to him.
That’s what God’s after anyway – your heart. And that’s what you can learn to pray, just like David did:
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.[9]
Maybe you’re like me, but often, after committing a sin, I go to God with a guilty conscience and own up to the offense I just committed, and my temptation is to pray, “God help me. God help steer me clear of these kinds of temptations in the future. Order my life such that I don’t have to find myself here again confessing this same sin again.” And that’s not a bad prayer; but there may be a better one.
What’s even better is to remember that the circumstances of your life are not the problem, and a change of scenery or situation isn’t your solution. You don’t need help; you need a pure heart. And God has given it to you through his Son’s sacrifice on the cross to cleanse you of all your sin and to make you clean and spotless in his sight. We don’t live in guilt anymore. We live in the joy of Jesus’ forgiveness.
A parent’s definition of “clean” often is very different than a child’s definition of “clean.” The same is true for you and your Heavenly Father. You are not clean because you’ve never been dirty. You are clean because God has cleansed you through the blood of his Son.
And that changes you from the inside out, starting with a heart that wants to be close to him. And when your heart has that desire, your attitudes and actions will follow. The Christian life is not one of setting up electric fences around all temptation; it’s about setting your heart next to God’s.
As you lead your Christian life, wash your hands! That’s important! But rejoice that God has cleansed your heart. Amen.
[1] Mark 7:5
[2] Mark 7:6,7
[3] Exodus 20
[4] Ibid
[5] Mark 7:21,22
[6] Hebrews 4:15
[7] Hebrews 10:22
[8] Titus 3:5
[9] Psalm 51:10