Mark 7.1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
“This people honors me with their lips,
   but their hearts are far from me;
7in vain do they worship me,
   teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
8You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

14  Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’

21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

Sisters and brothers in Christ,

In the United States there are what is called “trivia murders,” murders in which a person is killed over some really little, what we would think unimportant matter. A person is killed because “he used my hand soap.” Another is killed because “he looked at me funny.” The persons who did the killing labeled the actions of the person they killed as dirty and personally insulting.

But it is their own hate and disregard for others that is filth.

The French, but this is true for many cultures, struggle with the definition of what it means to be French. With children of immigrants born in France, are those children French if they speak French but are not White and do not dress like the French? But such things are outside a person, not inside their heart.

What of the hatred between Shiite Muslim and Sunni Muslim, or Baptist Christians not associating with Episcopalian Christians? Shiite, Sunni, Baptist, Episcopalian, all have their beliefs written down outside of them. They are all judged as filth because of something on their outside. But it is those who hate, who discriminate, who are filthy. For “nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

Look at how backwards we’ve got it. We look at things on the outside of a person—skin color, their dress, their culture, their language, and we call the outside dirty. Jesus tells us different. Jesus tells us that things on the outside do not make a person dirty, do not make a person someone to be hated or an enemy. Rather, says Jesus, a person is dirty because of what comes out from inside them.

The dirty things that come out from inside us are murder, stealing, not being faithful to your partner, lying to them, and pride and folly and wickedness, being mean, uncaring, boasts about being better than others, and the attitude of thinking we can insult anyone we want to. A person’s wealth is outside of them, yet we will look down on those who have no wealth and pretend they do not exist and let them starve to death.

But there is a filth even dirtier than all that stuff coming from within us. Because even deeper inside us, deep in our hearts, is our distrust of Jesus and our distrust of God, his Father. We see that distrust in the Pharisees who point out to Jesus that his disciples are eating with defiled hands. Something dirty is on their hands! Shocking. It’s not that the disciples’ hands are dirty from handling fish and their fishnets. It’s that their hands are not pure, not holy, not ritually cleansed from the chance of having touched unholy people—the poor, the sick, the unemployed, or anyone who wasn’t Jewish, who wasn’t of the same ethnic people as they were. To the Pharisees, Jesus was not holy, thus, he could not make his disciples holy to God.

We do not trust Jesus to make us holy to God either. We are concerned about looking good, being respected, earning our pay, and making other people to look worse than us. And we expect such things to impress God. Do we think so little of God that we think God is going to be impressed with how we look on the outside? God has made galaxies of billions of stars, so why would God think our clothes and money are that important?

But we keep insisting that they are. We keep hating others. We keep distrusting Jesus. We distrust Jesus so much that we put him on a cross and get rid of him, making him to be the dirtiest, filthiest, most unholy person we can make. And we wash our hands clean of him and his dirt.

To God, those who think Jesus is dirty are the ones God judges to be his enemy, the ones God calls sinners, unworthy to be given life in heaven. Thus, God has his enemies die and to become unclean in death forever. But we deny that God is like that and continue to insist that we are clean and good.

But God has raised that dirty, filthy, unclean, unholy Jesus from the dead! God has declared that dirty, filthy, unclean Jesus to be his new definition of holiness and goodness and life! Jesus is holy and good! Jesus, killed on a cross, is God’s most holiest treasure. For God has raised Jesus up to sit him at his right hand and to put all things under his feet. The good news is that Jesus gives us his holiness. He gives us his very crucified self so that God may also see us to be the same as Jesus and so be God’s holiest treasure, too, just like Jesus. Our faith in Jesus, trusting Jesus to have died for us and to have been raised for us, that faith within us is what God calls holy.

We are free in the holiness of Jesus inside us to longer need to judge others, to make others our enemy. We don’t need to make them unclean. We no longer hate them and no longer think killing them is a way to make ourselves look good to God. With Christ in us, then there comes out of us that which is good and holy from Christ—the good things of forgiveness and love and mercy and kindness and helpfulness and respect for others, even those we consider to be different than us, or to be our enemies. We see their holiness belongs to Jesus, not to their skin color or their past actions. Now, instead of stealing coming from our heart, our heart gives help; instead of pride that makes us look down on others, we have Christ’s mercy come from our hearts. Instead of greed, we now have generosity. Instead of slander, we have words of kindness come from our hearts. Instead of trivial things mattering more to us than the life of another, out of our heart now comes love for one another. For Christ is now our heart. Christ is now our way of living. Christ is now how we treat others who are different than us, because Christ is God’s greatest person, the one God raised from the dead. We may have wanted to get rid of that dirty person named Jesus, but God has made that dirty person on the cross the best there is. God has made him to be our goodness and our eternal life. Yes, the crucified, beaten, dirty Jesus, is our cleanness to God. Jesus is who makes our neighbors clean, also.

Rejoice in your clean hearts. Rejoice in your new hearts of Christ! Rejoice in your new hearts that forgive, that love, that act with kindness and compassion. This is the new way of Christ, and it is the way of life.

Amen.

Pastor Timothy Hoyer
gloriadei@alltel.net