Sermon August 30, 2009

Pentecost, Proper 17

Deuteronomy 4: 1-2, 6-9, Psalm 15, James 1: 17-27, Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

I suppose it's not difficult to figure out why I might see some health issues in today's gospel: because it's pretty obvious that health issues are on my mind today!

If you stop to think about it for a moment, Mark's rather critical remarks about the Pharisees - that they "do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders", and that they're also pretty obsessive about "washing cups, and pots and bronze kettles" - those critical remarks seem out of place - counter to common sense - to those of us living in the 21st Century. In fact, the principle of washing our hands, and the things we eat and drink from, underpins our understanding of good, healthful living.

So we're not going to get anywhere with this text if we simply look at "just the facts, Ma'am, just the facts". What's going on behind them?

Scholars debate why the early Israelites adopted the particular set of rules around food - what you could eat, what you couldn't, how you prepared it, how you prepared for eating it. Some have argued, for instance, that the prohibition against "the other white meat" (pork), or shell-fish, was because the Israelites had simply learned through experience that you were more likely to get sick if you ate them. Today, though, the belief is that the purity codes around food were adopted simply as a way of creating community identity. "We're different", the rules say, so - unlike those other people who live in this area, and who seem to be a lot like us - we don't eat particular foods, and the foods we do eat we prepare in a unique way."

Hygiene, in other words, had nothing to do with it. The food laws were about identity.

So when these visiting Pharisees, who've come up from the Big City, from Jerusalem, to the boondocks of the Galilee, sneeringly ask about the behavior of Jesus and his disciples, they're not raising questions of good hygiene but whether or not they're people of faith who maintain the integrity of their faith tradition - whether or not they're real Jews

That makes this exchange a much more important one than simply an argument over hand-washing. Jesus' integrity and his whole message are being called into question.

Which, of course, explains why Jesus loses his temper. In his reply he calls the Pharisees hypocrites and, more importantly, blasphemers - a charge that, if sustained, could result in execution under Jewish law.

So there's obviously a great deal at stake in this exchange.

And there's an issue that lies behind the argument that is always going to be contemporary, and that's about tradition.

The Pharisees say "your behavior violates our tradition as people of faith." Jesus replies, in essence, "your tradition is unimportant if it violates the tradition that comes from God." By way of illustration, Jesus lists those sorts of behavior that violate the Torah, and, in particular, violate the Ten Commandments, as an example of how the Pharisees particular brand of tradition lacks religious integrity if it only focuses on externals. Hear that again: if it only focuses on externals.

Jesus is not saying that tradition, or individual traditions for that matter, are, in and of themselves, bad.

It's clear, for instance, that the purity traditions of the Jews played a very important role in maintaining their sense of identity down the ages, so that, while many of the other nations surrounding them vanished, they endured. In that sense, Jewish tradition around the washing of hands and utensils was a good and positive thing - in fact it's not unreasonable to argue that it was vital for their continued existence as a people.

But, said Jesus, when you get locked into one way of seeing things, when you focus only on one way of interpreting faithful response, you're in trouble.

What tradition does is to

• connect us with our forebears,
• assure us that we in some way carry on their contributions to the practice and understanding of our common faith, and
• assure us that we are passing on the core of our common faith that those traditions connect us to to those who will come after us.

Simply put, tradition presents a way of life, it provides us with guides to behavior and ways to think.

What tradition is not is this

• The preserving unchanged of a set of practices handed down from our forebears
• The elevating of form over content
• The elevating of things over people

In other words, tradition serves us, we do not serve tradition and genuine tradition is fluid not rigid, alive, not dead.

We must always pay attention to what we have received from those who have gone before us, but we're not bound to embrace the forms they found meaningful if they're less meaningful for us.

If we were so bound we would still be speaking Aramaic, or Greek, or Elizabethan English in our worship. Rather, every generation has to reinterpret our shared faith for itself, has to look for meaning anew, has to discover new ways and new languages and new forms that offer vitality and new life.

The core of our faith is essential, it's expression is fluid.

All of which adds some real contemporary energy to a biblical passage about washing your hands! And it raises a whole host of questions for every contemporary Christian community to explore as we face a changing future. We'll continue to do that here . Amen.