February 20, 2011 | 4:00 p.m.

With Dirty Hands and an Open Heart

Part of the Sermon Series
“Preaching through the Gospel of Mark”

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Mark 7:1–23

I know that I’ve talked about my son’s growing stubbornness before, but it’s a pretty big deal in our house, so I think about it a lot. Now that he is officially two years old, every now and then that phenomenon known as the “terrible twos” rears its ugly head. His big thing now is wanting to do everything himself. He wants to put on his own shoes, brush his own teeth, pour his own drinks. Not only that, he has particular opinions about how pretty much everything around our house should be done. Mommy is supposed to do certain things; Daddy is supposed to do certain other things. If we do something out of line, you better believe that he lets us know.

As a pastor who works with young people, I know that this is only going to get worse the older he gets. Making your own way in the world is part of growing up. We want to encourage independence in our youth, but we all know that doing so can be a major pain—a necessary pain, but a pain nonetheless, a growing pain.

I suppose that this struggle for independence and this search for new and different ways is characteristic of the transition from one generation to the next. It’s part of the dynamic of growing up. But it’s also part of the dynamic of reform and revolution.

During the past several weeks, we have seen unfold before our very eyes a remarkable revolution in Egypt. There is something exhilarating about watching a revolution take place in real time—on television, on Facebook and Twitter—because we often only think about revolutions as events of history, something you read about in a book. But now we live in a revolutionary time.

It has probably always been the case, but especially in today’s world news of revolution spreads quickly, and the spirit of revolution spreads right along with it. This is why we’re seeing unrest in so many different places in the Middle East. Revolution is in the air, and people seem ready for change.

As we continue Mark’s story, we find that Jesus too is very much involved in the spirit of reform and revolution that characterized his time. His people, the Jewish people, lived under the thumb of an empire that was at the same time progressive and oppressive. The Romans themselves revolutionized the world with their imperial roadways, connecting the world together in ways that had never been done before. But the Jewish people, with their rich traditions and still vibrant memories of the good old days of the Davidic kingdom, longed to be independent once again. Almost 200 years before the ministry of Jesus, the Jews had waged a successful revolt against the tyranny of the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes. But their independence would only last about eighty years, at which point the Romans took advantage of a moment of weakness and annexed Judea into the Roman Empire. From that point on, the Jews were vassals of the Romans, and many of them were waiting for the right time to revolt and the right leader to lead them.

The Gospel of Mark is keenly aware of this Jewish angst about Rome. Most scholars believe that Mark was written right in the midst of the great Jewish revolt against Rome that took place between the years 66 and 74. In fact, many scholars believe that this Gospel was written right around the time that the Roman general Titus, soon to be emperor, destroyed Jerusalem and the sacred temple. There is no doubt that the spirit of the Jewish revolt against Rome influenced Mark’s telling of the story of Jesus.

But it is also clear from this story that Jesus was not interested in leading the kind of revolt that many of his contemporaries were hungry for, the kind of revolt that would end with the destruction of the temple and the severe persecution of the Jewish people. Jesus tapped into that revolutionary spirit, but he redirected it to something quite different. Jesus’ revolution—really more of a reform—began internally.

We have already seen that Jesus’ radical words and deeds have brought him into conflict with the religious leaders of his day, even with his very own family. Here, when Jesus is challenged, he goes on the offensive. He is accused of ignoring the traditional teaching of the elders when it comes to eating food with dirty hands. Carrying on and reinterpreting ancient taboos and ways of organizing life into categories of clean and unclean, the Jewish purity laws were very important to many of Jesus’ contemporaries. In fact, these traditions, passed down orally from generation to generation, were believed to be of divine origin. According to Jewish teaching, Moses not only received a written law on Mt. Sinai, he also received an oral tradition of interpretation that was transmitted through history parallel to the written commandments. In the eyes of the legal scholars of his day, Jesus was violating these sacred, treasured traditions.

Now, it is important to remember that biblical scholarship has helped us understand that Jesus was not some idiosyncratic lone wolf who emerged from and operated within a cultural and religious vacuum. Traditionally Christians have made the Pharisees out to be the bad guys of our various stories of Jesus. But in reality, of all the various Jewish groups—we might call them denominations—that existed in the time of Jesus, he was most likely himself affiliated with the Pharisees. So when we read of his clashes with the Pharisees and legal scholars of his day, we should imagine something like an internal debate, the kind of conflict that often happens within religious—and other—communities. In this respect, it is not exactly the case that Jesus is breaking away from the Jewish religion; it is not exactly the case that he is creating something entirely new. He is instead a great reformer, working from the inside to reshape his beloved community into something new, but not something completely different.

When it came to the purity laws, Jesus was moved by the Spirit to reconsider the effect these venerable traditions were having on his community. As he saw it, this truly pious desire to maintain purity resulted, more often than not, in the dis-integration of the community. What was meant to maintain holiness ended up separating God’s children from each other.

It’s hard to read this debate about purity and not remember some of the stories we have already heard about Jesus. He regularly ate with outcasts and people on the margins. He touched the sick and the dead. Jesus crossed boundaries and defied those things that tend to ostracize or distance people from each other.

In defense of these audacious moves, Jesus here redefines the rules that govern purity. For Jesus, purity isn’t about the things you eat or touch. Rather, purity is something internal. It is about your heart. And because the source of purity is internal, the source of impurity cannot be external. It isn’t about what comes into contact with your body; it isn’t about what you ingest. It is about what is inside of you and how that is expressed externally. Jesus reverses the conventional thinking of his community. Rather than fixating on all the things out in the world that can make us unclean, Jesus is more concerned about the condition of our hearts and how that translates into the way we live our lives.

I think it’s hard for us to fully understand how radical this was. Since we have never participated in these purity laws, they don’t mean that much to us. In fact, Jesus’ teaching seems so clear that we might even find it hard to believe that people were ever so hung up on such things. But there are aspects of our own tradition, and our own struggles to change them, that may help us appreciate the spirit of Jesus’ reform.

There was a time when our faith community found no problem with the practice of slavery. For one human being to own other human beings seemed like part of the natural order. In fact, there were passages of scripture that even seemed to support such a practice, so people thought it must be from God. Looking back, we wonder how any follower of Jesus could think such a thing, but they did. Yet it was the reforming spirit of Jesus that inspired his followers to reject the venerable traditions of their elders and move into a new moment of God’s kingdom.

In the same way, there was a time when our faith community marginalized the leadership of women. Again, it was taken for granted that the subornation of women was woven into nature and supported by scripture. And again, it was the reforming spirit of Jesus that re-formed the church and led us into new territory.

It’s hard to think of these examples, and the spirit of Jesus that ultimately provided the reforming impulse toward radical change, without reflecting on the struggles about sexuality that currently divide our church. During this year, the Presbyterian Church (USA) is once again putting to vote an amendment to our constitution that would remove prohibitions against noncelibate homosexuals being ordained as officers and ministers of the church. Just this week, the Presbytery of Chicago approved this amendment by a 3 to 1 margin. There are still many more presbyteries left to vote, so the final outcome is far from certain.

In our culture, and in our church, homosexuality has long been taboo. The traditions of our community, seemingly supported by the scriptures we all hold sacred, have rendered an entire class of people unclean. Yet many of us feel that the Spirit is leading us into a new place. Many of us are inspired by the reforming spirit of Jesus to take a step back and reconsider the traditions we have inherited. Many of us sense that Jesus’ reversal of his community’s traditional thinking about purity might well apply to our situation. Perhaps Jesus is saying that whom you love will not defile you. Rather, it is how you love that defines your holiness and righteousness.

Reforms and revolutions are not easy. Like the growing pains of a child finding her own way, sometimes in defiance of her parents, reforms and revolutions hurt. It is so much easier to hold on to what we have always known. It would be so much easier for children to just do it the way we do it, or at least the way we want it done. But the growth of a child doesn’t work that way, and neither does the arc of history or the move of the Spirit.

I don’t believe that most rules and traditions were ever originated simply to oppress or bind or restrict. I think traditions are developed in order to protect us as best as we know how in the moment. When I am tempted to slow down my son’s desire to be independent, I mostly do it to protect him. I feel better when I feel like I still have some control of the situation. But he wants to dive right in there, even if he gets dirty in the process, even if he gets hurt along the way.

There is a sacred brilliance to the sacraments of our church. When all of our words have been spoken, when all of our songs have been sung, in the end we are invited to meet God in quite tangible elements of life: water, bread, juice.

In light of this, I think the image of Jesus eating with dirty hands is a remarkable one. The Jesus we meet in the Gospel of Mark is not separated from the realities of life. He doesn’t set up barriers; he tears them down. He doesn’t represent some sacred purity that avoids contact with a hurting and broken world. Rather, he immerses himself in the world. He isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. And neither should we be. With dirty hands and an open heart, let each of us follow Jesus into the world, on the way to God’s kingdom.

Amen.