Clean From the Inside Out: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 - 15th Sunday after Pentecost

¹Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around [Jesus], 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;  ‘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.’
  teaching human precepts as doctrines.’⁸You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
  ¹⁴Then 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.”
  ²¹For 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.”

Washing hands before entering the temple by gwaar on Flickr.  CC BY 2.0

You can have the cleanest house on the planet—but that doesn’t mean that pests won’t find their way into your home.

Elizabeth and I try very hard to keep a clean house.  But somehow, a mouse found its way into the kitchen cabinet above the stove.  When I first noticed the unpleasant signs of its presence, I quickly removed all the food, sanitized all the surfaces, and set two traps.  Wouldn’t you know it, the mouse keeps coming back—even though there isn’t anything for it to come back for, aside from the bait in the traps, which it doesn’t take.

We go to great lengths to keep pests out of our buildings and germs out of our bodies.  Pests destroy our buildings; germs destroy our bodies.  Don’t believe me?  Go inside any public building, and you’ll have better luck finding hand sanitizer dispenser than a drinking fountain.  We value cleanliness that much. 

So I’m not that put off by the scribes and Pharisees who criticize Jesus and his disciples for eating with unwashed hands.  Yet, nobody knew about the existence of germs back then.  In fact, germ theory wouldn’t emerge until late in the 19^th century. 

Instead, the scribes and Pharisees criticize Jesus and his disciples for breaking a tradition that had played an important role in Jewish life for generations. 

Even in modern Judaism, you wash your hands because the mealtime is sacred.  Even though such practice is never stipulated in the Law of Moses, this tradition keeps God and God’s law at the center of daily life.  It binds people to God and each as the world threatens to tear them apart. 

From the perspective of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus and his disciples were defiling what was sacred.  But from Jesus’ perspective, the scribes and Pharisees remain defiled, even though their hands are “properly washed…”

In Judaism, the Law and the traditions of the elders were supposed to be public witness to the rest of the world; to bring God to the people.  But now, the tradition was being used to keep people out—and to maintain the false belief that a person can only be defiled by stuff that comes from the outside of the person.

Jesus says, “All evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”  Does that not strike you as odd?

Pests infest your living space and germs make you sick, and there is unfathomable moral and spiritual filth in the world.  All the way back in 1961, FCC Chairman Newton Minow called television “a vast wasteland.”  Today, thanks to the internet, a waste universe is just a click away.  BUT—that filth also has an off switch (that we should use more often).

One thing we can’t control is the people who show up in our schools, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, and even our country.  We don’t want them around—because they’ll steal our jobs; commit crimes; and destroy our way of life.  They’re unclean simply because they’re different.  We all fear the unfamiliar.

But Jesus says, “All evil things come from within.” And no matter how hard you try to keep yourself clean and pure, there is still evil in your heart.  The human heart is sin’s breeding ground.  Pests, germs, and trash TV can’t possibly defile a person like the deeds that come out of a sinful heart—because they visit harm upon the neighbor.  And there is no greater defilement of the Body of Christ than when someone who bears Christ’s name builds up themselves and their tribe by judging others as beyond God’s love—or when they use power to abuse and exploit.

Evil comes from within—redemption, however, comes from without.  God in Christ defiled himself by putting on human flesh and taking upon himself the violence we commit against God and each other.  Jesus immerses himself into the dirt of your sin; the muck of your fear and pain; and the mud that is slung at you.  While you were still a sinner, Christ died for you.  That is the righteousness that makes you clean.

All the hand sanitizer and purity rituals in the world cannot create the clean heart and renewed Spirit Christ creates within you.  It comes in through your ears, as you hear the Word; through your mouth as you eat and drink his body and blood.  It comes in through your eyes and through your emotions as you see Christ’s self-giving and self-sacrificing love renewing and transforming all that sin and suffering have wrecked.  But just the same, it goes out through your words and the work of your hands.  Christ goes with you when you venture out into this unclean world to bear witness, welcome the stranger, and do the good that is in you to do.

Your challenge, then, is to be wiser with what your heart clings to.  Much of the stuff that defiles you is the stuff you cling to for happiness; the stuff that makes us feel in control; the stuff that makes you feel good about yourself.  Use the off button more often on your technology.  Be wiser about the stranger—and remember, Jesus loves them, too.  You haven’t really seen the full power of Christ until you see his redemption at work in someone most different from you.

In the end, you are not made righteous by what you do and don’t do; by who you avoid and what you embrace.  Cleanness is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that comes from outside of you; makes you clean within; and expresses itself as love, mercy, and forgiveness.  Go now and live clean!