Mind Your Own Business

Mark 9:38-50
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Quite often at our house we have to remind our children to mind their own business.  Usually, it’s William needing the reminder.  Sometimes it happens that we have to instruct Alice on the importance of certain life skills like picking up after yourself, not dawdling, or focusing when she’s trying to do the schoolwork she’s had to bring home because she couldn’t finish it at school for various unknown reasons.  In our calmest demeanour Dana and/or I will gently explain to Alice the importance of getting things done so she can do the things she likes.  This is not any easy task especially when it tends to occur ten minutes before the bus arrives and she’s just remembering she’s got schoolwork. 

In these moments of high quality family time William will often pipe in with what he believes is helpful advice on why one should get one’s work done, a skill which he himself has certainly mastered. This sends Alice to the moon and into what I call Edith Bunker mode.  That’s a high-pitched, shrill form of wining that makes you flinch so hard you squeeze the blood right out of your brain.  Of course, in our calmest of voices we have to say “William, that’s not helpful.  Mind you own business.”  In these moments I just have to sing a little Hank.  In fact, just thinking about it makes me want to sing some Hank, so bear with me while I sing some Hank.

(Please take a little time to listen to Hank William’s Mind Your Own Business.)

In our passage from Mark, Jesus is having a huge “mind your own business” moment with the Twelve Disciples who are again acting like children.  If you remember last week, they were wanting to be rock stars like Jesus and kicked off their ‘Let’s act like children” tour by arguing about which of them was the greatest.  Jesus made a teaching moment out of the argument telling them the greatest would have to be the least of all and servant of all.  Then he nabbed a nearby child and brought him into their midst and hugged the child and told them basically, “if you want to know me and my God, then you need to learn how to show hospitality and love to children.”

Today we pick up on more of that conversation and it helps if we remember that Jesus is still holding that child while the adults are still “acting like children”.  It seems the Twelve didn’t get what Jesus had just taught them about humility and so they moved on from “whose the greatest” to jealousy of those outside the clique.  The Twelve had seen a man casting out demons in Jesus’ name (which was something they had had a little trouble doing a few days before) and they tried to stop him simply because he was not one of them. 

Jesus, still holding the child, instructs them that anyone enabled with power to minister in his name, though not part of their little group, is still a part of his ministry and should not be spoken against or stopped.  Likewise, there will be those outside the fold who treat the Twelve kindly and will be blessed for it.  Cliquishness or should I say denominationalism aside, we are all in Jesus’ Kingdom of God bearing ministry together and should be “for” rather than “against” those outside our way of doing the things Jesus has sent us to do.

The Twelve were being territorial, cliquish, and were thinking that Jesus could only entrust his ministry to them because they were the ones who were with him all the time.  They couldn’t accept that there were other cowboys in the rodeo who were just as capable as them if not more.  So Jesus, still holding the child, more or less tells them to mind their own business in a very stern way. 

With the child in his arms Jesus tells them that if they, the Twelve not those outsiders, if they do something that causes one of the little ones who believe in him to walk away from him, then it would be better for them if they had a great burden chained to them and were drowned in the sea.  Jesus’ imagery is powerful here.  The guilt and shame of causing someone else to turn away from Jesus is like having a heavy millstone chained to you while drowning. 

To keep from doing that, Jesus tells the Twelve to mind their own business, to mind their own conduct.  Our translation makes it sound like we will go to Hell if we falter in our conduct and it causes another person weaker in faith to stop following Jesus.  But, Jesus didn’t say Hell.  Well-meaning but unthinking translators use Hell here because that’s what’s been done since the Middle Ages with the unfortunate result of leading us to talk about eternal punishment Dante-style rather than actually dealing with what Jesus is saying. 

The word Jesus uses is Gehenna.  Gehenna was the name of the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem that was always on fire and there was an endless supply of maggots and other worms eating on decaying stuff.  Gehenna was located just outside the city wall on the southwest in the Valley of Hinnom which was the place where wicked kings in ancient Judah sacrificed their own children to the Canaanite god Molech as a means to gain absolute power. 

Jesus, while still embracing that child and after teaching his disciples that welcoming children into their lives and loving them would teach them who God is, told the Twelve, his closest followers, that for them to fall away from him and to fall away from him in such a way as to cause other little ones to fall away will cause them to become a shameful waste, waste of the sort that is thrown on the ever-burning garbage heap of the city of Jerusalem that covers the spot where wicked kings sacrificed their children to the false gods of evil power.  Their choice is showing humility, hospitality, and love and coming to know God’s nature on the one hand or being prideful, jealous, and a shameful waste on the other.

Jesus finishes by saying his followers must be like salt.  Jesus said everyone would be salted with fire, the refining fire of staying faithful to him in the midst of temptations and trials of persecution.  Yet, it is possible to lose the saltiness.  The way to avoid that is to strive for peace among ourselves.

Today we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.  We are week early for World Communion Sunday, but no matter.  Today we gather around the Table of our Lord confessing the sin of denominational jealousy in a global church that is fiercely divided over many things – moral issues, traditions, grabs at power, theological differences, etc.  A hard to accept fact for us is that our disunity, evident in our Denominationalism, has literally caused young people to turn away from Jesus.  We who judge the ways and beliefs of other Denominations rather than seek peace and unity among ourselves must ask if the reason the North American church is largely devoid of children is that we have sacrificed them on the altar of false power – societal power, even political power.  Rather than actually loving young people and trying to teach them God’s love and the actual ways of Jesus, we’ve tried to control them and make them just like us in our hypocrisies of pride and jealousy.  Let us humbly gather to this Table and pray for unity in the Church.  Amen.

Like a Child

Mark9:30-37
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If there is one crucial mistake that children make is assuming that those in the front seat of the car are oblivious to what goes on in the backseat.  They think they are unheard when they start going on like,  “I’m better than you.” “No, you’re not.”  “Yes, I am.”  “No, I’m better than you”.  “No, you’re not.”  “Yes, I am.”  “No, you’re not.”  “Yes, I am.”   “Ok. You are better…better at smelling bad.”  That goes on until somebody gets punched.  The parent turns and asks, “What are you doing back there?”  Knowing that they shouldn’t have been doing what they were doing, the kids answer “Nothing.”  Kids are kids.

The Twelve Disciples seem to be having a kid’s in the backseat moment here in our reading.  They’re walking along behind Jesus and seem to believe he doesn’t know what they are debating about.  He knows it’s the old “I’m better than you” bit.  When they get home Jesus asks them, “What were you arguing about?”  Knowing they were on about something they shouldn’t have been on about, they answer, “Nothing”. 

Then Jesus calls their cards and his psychology is very interesting.  It seems he is saying, “If you are going to act like children, remember you are beloved children of God.”  Normally, when kids carry on in the backseat like that our parental response isn’t so kind.  It’s more like, “Cut it out or I’ll pull this car over and go all Mohammed Ali on y’all and really show you who’s the greatest.”  All things considered, I’m truly in awe at Jesus’ “parenting style” here.  He shows remarkable restraint.  It is powerful people who will put him to death and the Twelve are arguing which of them is the greatest.  Their denseness had to be unbelievably frustrating to him. 

In their efforts to understand Jesus, all the Twelve have to go on is their slightly off the mark, pop-culture beliefs about what the Messiah will do.  They are expecting to head to Jerusalem at any day.  Once there, Jesus will set up the kingdom of God and, like princes, they believe they will sit on thrones right beside him and rule with him.  But, who will be his right-hand man?  Who will be the greatest?  Just a few days before Jesus had singled out Peter, James, and John and took them up a mountain where they saw him transfigured and talking with Moses and Elijah.  Jesus giving quality time to those three is probably what set off the arguing among the Twelve as to which of them was the greatest.

Yet, who was the greatest among them was a conversation they shouldn’t have had.  Especially, since over the last few days Jesus had been repeatedly, over and over teaching the Twelve that he was going to be betrayed into the hands of powerful people who will put him to death and then on the third day he will rise.  The Twelve were arguing about which of them was the greatest all the while Jesus had been stressing that those whom the world calls “great” were going to kill him.  Being great by the world’s standards is not an aspiration his followers should embrace.

Jesus uses this as a teaching moment.  He teaches them that in his kingdom the truly great ones are those who humbly serve others.  The word Jesus uses for servant is the word from which we get our word “deacon”.  Deacons in general society back in Jesus day were table-waiters.  In the church “the Deacon” became an official title for those who served others by doing acts of love or looking after ministries that focused on the real daily needs of people.  Deacons did what food bank workers and PSW’s do today.  Greatness isn’t having the power to rule over people but rather the humility to serve another in very hands on, daily needs kind of ways.

Jesus then made his point by doing something that was quite feminine.  He hugged a child.  Men back then did not publically show affection to children.  That was a mother’s domain.  Men could teach a child to fight, or the work of a trade, or how to read, write, and do math, or the meaning of the Scriptures.  Showing affection to a child, for some odd reason, was showing weakness and therefore was the domain of the “weaker” gender.

The Twelve had been childish in arguing over who’s the greatest so Jesus commandeered a nearby child and placed him in the middle of them.  It was probably a child they all knew or even a child of one of the Twelve.  Jesus then took the child in his arms.  He hugged him.  Then Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”  This would have been a shocker to the Twelve.  They were expecting to sit on thrones and rule over Israel and here Jesus turns it all upside-down and tells them to welcome and show hospitality to children – welcome them, love them, cherish children as valued guests in their lives.  If they do that, then they will know what God is like.

There is knowledge of God to be gained if we make a spiritual practise out of giving children space in our lives and treating them as most honoured guests.  Showing hospitality to children is a way of understanding how God welcomes us into God’s own life to share in the loving relationship that Jesus the Son and God the Father have in the mother-like embrace of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

One lament that so many churches have today is that we are all nearly childless.  We long for the glory days of lots of children.  Lots of children meant a successful church.  But, parents don’t bring their kids to church anymore and…that’s okay.  It does not mean that we can’t love children anymore.  It means we have to take the love of Christ to them. 

When Jesus hugged that child and told the Twelve to welcome such a one, I don’t think he had a program of children’s ministries in mind.  In his day what we would call Christian Education happened in the home both for Jews and Christians alike.  Parents, particularly fathers taught the faith to their children.  I think what Jesus had in mind was our actually welcoming children into our lives; other people’s children not simply those of our own families.  We don’t need a program of Children’s Ministries to love children.  In the very least all we need is a smile and a kind face in the grocery story in the grocery store line and the confidence that stranger danger does not apply to us.  If you live in a neighbourhood and there are children, take a few minutes to talk to them.  After awhile the awkwardness goes away.  Talk to young parents being careful to listen to them and be helpful and sooner or later they will discover you’re a follower of Jesus and maybe become interested in Jesus because of you.  Volunteer at a school to read or to serve breakfast. 

Welcome children into your lives. Take the time to get to know the children that are around you.  The way we welcome children in the love of Christ into our lives as cherished gifts is the way God has welcomed us into his own.  Welcoming children is how we adults…who so often carry on like children...learn the nature of how God loves us as his beloved children.  Amen.

What Are We Thinking?

Mark 8:27-38
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“Notwithstanding” the past week in Ontario politics, American politics tend to be much more entertaining.  The 2020 presidential election, though less than 2 years away, promises to fill the bill like another movie in the “Expendables” franchise.  One candidate to watch for is a political activist and performance artist who calls himself Vermin Supreme.  His real name is Vermin Love Supreme.  He has been running for public office at all levels of government since the 1980’s.  This will be at least his fifth attempt at becoming POTUS.  He sports a big bushy grey beard and wears a black rubber boot on his head.  Vermin claims he is naturally qualified for the job because all politicians are vermin and since his name is Vermin Supreme he should be at the top of the heap.

Vermin Supreme claims to be a fascist anarchist.  He says we misunderstand Anarchy when we think it is just people run amuck doing whatever they want.  Rather, Anarchy is what happens after a major disaster or car crash – people pulling together to do the compassionate thing. 

Supreme’s campaign platform is interesting.  He promises that if elected, he will give everyone in the U.S. a pony.  This will reduce dependence on foreign oil, create jobs, and the manure can be used to revitalize the soil that has been exploited by big agriculture.  Moreover, everybody will have to have their pony with them at all times because their pony will be their personal identification.  He says he will make it a law that all people must brush their teeth.  Strong teeth will make a strong nation.  He will also provide a government-sponsored toothpaste made with mildly addictive but harmless ingredients.  He also promises to give all people with major health problems a free bus ticket to Canada where they will actually get care.  These are only a few of his insight promises.

Vermin Supreme may seem like a joke candidate only capable of drawing protest votes, but maybe there’s something there.  He’s smart and all of his outrageous promises address critical flaws in American government.  But, simply electing a fascist anarchist won’t fix the problem neither in the States nor here in Canada.  The fundamental flaw is with the people.  Citizens down there and up here too do not think “how can we build a more perfect union” but rather we tend to think of ourselves first and demand government protect “my” freedom to live “my” life in the pursuit of “my” own happiness, which translates into “keep the economy going so I can keep buying things that I don’t need but that I have been led to believe will make me happy.”  We think the things of “me”, rather that the things of “we”.

The Twelve Disciples had a similar problem with respect to what it meant for Jesus to be the Messiah and for them to be his disciples.  They had come to see that he was the Messiah, but they couldn’t see beyond their own expectations of what the Messiah was supposed to do and what it meant for them.  They knew the Messiah was to bring the kingdom of God, which meant getting rid of the Romans and the corrupt Judean royalty and then establishing a fair and just kingdom in which they, the Twelve, as Jesus followers would be his vice-regents.  Their problem was as Jesus said to Peter, “you are not thinking the things of God but the things of men.”

In Mark’s Gospel this passage comes on the tail end of Jesus having led the disciples all over Galilee and into Gentile lands on a Kingdom of God Share-The-Bread Tour where he distributed the bread that was left over from feeding the 5,000.  He proved himself to be the Messiah who was bringing in the kingdom of God according to about every Old Testament prophecy there is.  He had caused the lame to leap, the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and the mute to speak.  He had freed those held captive by demons.  He had caused Gentiles to have faith and to praise Israel’s God.  He had truly manifested the kingdom of God in their midst and they had participated in it.

But, then Jesus went a little Vermin Supreme on them and began to teach them of other Scriptures that said the Messiah would have to suffer at the hands of the religious and political authorities and be put to death and then on the third day rise again.  This was information the disciples couldn’t process.  According to their expectations, the Messiah was supposed to raise an army that included the angels of heaven, restore Israel’s independence, and rule in God’s name just like King David did in the good ole days.  He would end corruption of every kind.  His kingdom would be one of peace and justice and fairness.  Everyone was going to have their own vine and fig tree to sit under…and most importantly…the Messiah they were expecting was not supposed to die. 

Then Jesus went on to say that being his follower meant renouncing claim to oneself and taking up a cross too…also not on their list of expectations.  As those closest to Jesus – those who had left everything to follow him – they were expecting to sit enthroned at his side ruling with him.  But Jesus began to tell them that to be his followers they would have to renounce claim to their very selves.  They must deny themselves and think, “my life is not my own to seek my own goals, gain, and glory.  I now belong to Jesus for the proclamation and ministry of his kingdom which is at hand”. 

And it gets more difficult.  To take up the cross is to share in Jesus’ suffering for the sake of the world through the task of proclaiming and ministering the kingdom of God being at hand.  It would not be worldly gain for the Twelve.  They just could not wrap their heads around that.  Seriously, just a few days later James and John had the audacity to come to Jesus to ask him if they could sit at his right and at his left when he takes his throne.  The disciples simply were not thinking the things of God but rather the things of man.

Now to turn this around to us, we suffer the same malady.  We call Jesus Lord and Saviour, Messiah, Christ, God’s Holy Spirit Anointed King, and Son of God yet we too misunderstand what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah, the bringer of the Kingdom of God, and for us to be his followers, his heralds.  For most Christians Jesus is simply our moral example, our ticket into a favourable afterlife, and a bit of psychological help in times of trouble.  We tend not to think of Jesus being the King of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of God as something present in which we now participate.  The Kingdom of God is at hand.  It is here among us.  We as a gathering of Jesus-followers are participants right now in the Kingdom of God over which Jesus reigns through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Here’s how.  The Kingdom of God exists as a Holy Spirit filled community of disciples who strive to know Jesus more fully and who renounce claim to their selves to find their life in him.  It comes about when those who call themselves Christian gather together around the Bible and let themselves be challenged and recreated by its demands.   The Kingdom of God exists as a community where in the name of Jesus blind eyes begin to see with compassion.  Deaf ears begin to hear with empathy.  Mute mouths begin to speak the truth in love and the lame leap up and begin to walk the way of the cross.  The Kingdom of God exists as the community where in Jesus’ name faithfulness, honest communication, kindness, and forgiveness are the way of life.  The Kingdom of God exists as the community where those who follow Jesus share their weaknesses and allow themselves to be prayed for and supported.  That Kingdom of God exists as the community that feels no shame in inviting others to come and share in the good news that Jesus and his Kingdom are here; yes, right here in our little fellowship.

This leaves us with a question: “What are we thinking”?  Are we thinking the things of God or the things of man?  Are we each truly striving to know Jesus and participate in his kingdom before anything else or is “God” just a crutch I lean on and this congregation just a motley crew of good people who are like minded to myself and so I give them space in my life because I believe its important?  If we really want to live we must stop trying to fit Jesus into our own individual lives, which is thinking the things of man, and start asking what’s my place in him, which is thinking the things of God?  Amen.

Pushing the Limits

Mark 7:24-37

Do you folks remember All in the Family, the television series that aired back in the ‘70’s starring Carol O’Conner as the iconic racist and bigoted yet redeemable Archie Bunker?  It was a comedy that made America laugh while it exposed the racism and sexism that undergirded American society and made the case for the foundational American values of freedom, justice, and equality for all.  The character of Archie Bunker, as offensive as he was, held the beliefs, values, and opinions of so many if not the majority of Americans in the 70’s.  Yet, he demonstrated how people like him could soften and change over time when faced with real people. 

On every episode Archie Bunker’s racist and bigoted limits were pushed and so it was with everyone watching it.  All in the Family showed that whites and blacks could live in the same neighbourhood, be neighbours, and become friends.  It destroyed ignorant, racist myths like if a white person received a blood transfusion using a black person’s blood he would turn black. It demonstrated that women could work outside the home and weren’t “dingbats”; that it was even okay for a wife to work to support her husband.  It showed that a university education was a good thing and that the “liberal” ideal of a just, fair, and equal world were not “commie” or “pinko” threats to democracy. 

That list could go on, but the point is that all groups of people have their limitations with respect to other groups of people.  We feel safest when everyone else is just like us.  We find people and ideas that are different from us to be threatening.  So, we create limits in the form of -ism’s, myths, and phobia’s in order to reinforce our boundaries and keep “those” different people out.

This problem of limits was a particular concern in the early church as transitioned from being a predominantly Jewish to a predominantly Gentile movement.  These two stories in Mark address the tensions that arose back then as more and more non-Jewish people began to come to the small groups of Jesus followers to follow Jesus too.   They capture the moment in Jesus’ ministry when he took the Kingdom of God beyond the limits of Israel and opened it to the nations.

Our first story is Jesus encounter with a Gentile woman.  Christianity was very popular with Gentile women because it was, at least initially for a while, empowering to women.  Women could be leaders in a Christian fellowship as opposed to being temple prostitutes, virgins with no voice, or doped-up oracles as they were in the religions of the Gentiles.  Mark’s account of Jesus’ interaction with this assertive Syro-Phoenician woman has Jesus in a very Archie Bunker-ish way pushing the limits of the church particularly between Jewish men and Gentile women.  Jewish men frequently did not allow Gentile women to speak to them.  When it happened Jewish men usually ignored the woman or spoke very rudely to her.  As we find Jesus doing here.

As a side note, it needs to be said that in biblical studies recently it has become quite popular to say that due to the limitations of his being fully human Jesus was actually as sexist, bigoted, and prejudiced against Gentiles as this story portrays him to be.  I have to say that those who think that need to be careful about how much of our cultural baggage they may be reading back into the story.  As a counter argument, if Jesus was as sexist, bigoted, and xenophobic as he appears here in Mark, he never would have went into Gentile lands in the first place.  But, he did go outside the boundaries of Israel to the Gentile peoples.  He did so for reason and we must take a moment to say why. 

The Jews of Jesus day had a list of things from the Bible that they believed they could expect to happen when their expected Messiah came.  The Messiah would be of the family line of their beloved King David.  He would do things that only the Lord God of Israel could do such as cause the lame to leap, the dumb to speak, to blind to see, set prisoners free, and proclaim good news to the poor.  Jesus fit that bill.  Also, on the list were that Gentiles would be welcomed into the Kingdom of God and that there would be a general resurrection of the dead. 

These two Kingdom of God acts in our reading is the point when Jesus checks the list with respect to the Gentiles being brought into the Kingdom.  Jesus interaction with the Syro-Phoenician deals with the prejudices, the limits that needed to be pushed, that hindered the welcoming of the Gentiles into Christian fellowship.  It is likely Jesus is pushing those limits in an All in the Family/Archie Bunker kind of way – minus the humour. 

This story follows Jesus miraculously feeding over 15,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish.  Afterward, the disciples collected twelve basketsful of bread.  Then it appears Jesus led them off on a Kingdom of God Share-the-Bread tour all over Isreal – twelve baskets for twelve tribes.  This conversation Jesus has with the Syro-Phoenician woman concerns who can eat the bread. 

Jesus has taken the disciples and the bread into what is modern day Lebanon.  The only apparent reason there could be was that he intended to share the bread with Gentiles.  Upon arrival in Tyre, a Syro-Phoenician woman desperately sought him out and begged him to cast an unclean spirit from her little daughter.  Jesus’ response to her, which is more aimed at the Disciples than the woman, is “Let the children be fed first, for it is not proper to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”  She very wittily answers, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  He heals her daughter.

Jesus’ racist, bigoted, sexist, xenophobic behaviour towards this Syro-Phoenician woman was out of character for him.  It is likely he is acting like Archie Bunker, so to speak, to show his disciples that such behaviour and beliefs should be out of character for them.  A good way for ministers and church leaders to deal such behaviours in churches is that when someone makes a racist, sexist, or bigoted remark is to ask “Would Jesus make a remark like that?”  The answer is no and so neither should we!

Moving on, Jesus then takes the disciples for coastal Lebanon all the way over to the region of the Decapolis, the Ten Cities, which is Jordan today and historically the land of the Ammonites who were in the days of Moses the last people the Israelites fought before entering the promised land.  There he cures a deaf and mute man.  It is interesting that Jesus doesn’t just outright heal the man, but uses a lot of heavy sighing and hand actions as if he was a marketplace medicine man.  I guess its that when we are doing Gospel things among people different from us ways should do it in ways customary to them.

Of most significance in this healing is that the “magic word” Jesus used was the common language of the people of Palestine.  It wasn’t Greek or Hebrew.  Jesus put his fingers in the mans ears and then spat and touched the man’s touch and said “Ephphathah” (Ef-Faa-thah) which means “Be opened.”  This was the moment Jesus opened the Gentiles up to the Gospel of the Kingdom of God being at hand, opened them both to hear it and to proclaim it.  From that point on, the Gentiles have received and participated in the work of Jesus’ Kingdom of God ministry.

To close, in the church today we have our limits that need to be pushed.  It would be a lie to say that racism, sexism, and fear of foreigners didn’t still exist among us.  In the last 30 or so years we’ve been having our limits pushed with respect to reconciliation with the First Nations, human sexuality, and an influx of refugees.  In all things concerning our limits we have to ask what would be in character for Jesus and do as he would under the litmus that he loved and died for all.  Amen.

A Disease of the Heart

Mark 7:1-23
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The last two weeks we have been working with the Bread of Life Discourse in John’s Gospel.  The teaching session takes place the day after Jesus fed over 15,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish.  In John’s Gospel Jesus more or less makes the analogy that just as he fed all those people with bread in the wilderness – like what God did for the Israelites with the manna – so Jesus is the manna of true life come down from heaven.  Those who “feed on him”, who singularly devote themselves to him, will have a Holy Spirit-filled relationship with God which is “eternal life”.  That teaching got him in trouble with the religious authorities and a heated argument developed in which Jesus lost his cool and after which most of the people who followed Jesus turned away.

This morning we get what I think is Mark’s account of that day, but it’s many, many days later.  There’s roughly the same course of events.  Jesus performs the feeding, then he walks on water, then he gets into a dispute with religious authorities over eating bread.  There’s something interesting here. Most translations don’t follow what the Greek text of the New Testament actually says.  Most translations just say that Jesus’ disciples were eating with defiled hands meaning unwashed hands.  But, the Greek says they were eating the bread with defiled hands not just simply eating with defiled hands.  That they are eating the bread is significant and I don’t know why most translators omit it.

What bread are we talking about?  If you remember, after the miraculous feeding the disciples collected twelve basketsful of crumbs.  Have you ever wondered what happened to that bread?  Well, in the next couple of chapters of Mark’s Gospel Jesus seems to take his disciples on a Kingdom of God Share-the-Bread tour.  References to bread and breadcrumbs keep showing up. 

To get to my point, I don’t think the Pharisees and Scribes are upset because Jesus’ disciples are eating without first ritually washing their hands.  I think it’s that Jesus’ disciples are eating this miraculously provided bread with dirty hands.  I think the Pharisees recognized that God had miraculously provided this bread as a sign of God’s Kingdom in their midst and that Jesus did in fact do this miracle.  Therefore, as the bread was manna-like they believed it should be handled as such – according to proper ritual as spelled out by the traditions of the elders – so as not to offend God.  They thought that the disciples were taking this very wonderful act of Almighty Gawd and treating it as if it were common.

The hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Scribes is that the Kingdom of God and its King were right smack dab there in their midst yet they weren’t impressed with that.  Rather, they, in good Pharisaic fashion, wanted to make the evidence of it, the bread, “sacred” and build a fence of ritual around it so as not to offend God rather than deal with the full implications of what it meant that the Kingdom of God was truly and powerfully in their midst and Jesus was their Messiah. 

The Pharisees and Scribes did this very same thing with the Law of Moses.  God gave the Law to his people so that if they lived according to it, their quality of community would distinguish them as the people of the one, true God.  God had given them a powerful way of life and they in turn made a religion out of it.  They began to regard the Law as a sacred list of do’s and don’ts that if you transgressed them you were unclean, which meant you were not allowed into the presence of God and you needed to be cut off from God’s people to keep you from touching them and make them unclean too.  If you became unclean, the only way to get cleaned up was to see the priest and offer the appropriate sacrifice.

To help one keep from breaking the Law of Moses, over the years the religious leaders developed little rules and traditions that you had to obey and by obeying them you kept from breaking the Law.  Keep the Sabbath holy didn’t mean rest, enjoy God and the company of his people, and be renewed.  Rather, to the Pharisees and Scribes it meant not doing the long list of things the Elders said you couldn’t do on the Sabbath.

The Church has done the same sort of thing over the centuries.  Rather than understanding ourselves to be humanity in which God is restoring his image by filling us with his Spirit and empowering us to love God, ourselves, and our neighbours as Jesus has loved us, we’ve simply been the group that sets the standards of morality for our culture and then we judge others accordingly.  We’ve done this with worship.  Coming to worship together is time for us to be in the presence of Christ so that by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, he can heal our broken selves, lift our burdens, set us free from guilt and shame, and give us peace.  Worship is time for being in the presence of God in the midst of God’s people and opening up our hearts to Jesus, the Great Physician, and saying “Heal me.  Make me new.”  Yet, there have been more church-splitting wars fought over robes, the placement of “sacred” furniture, plastic flowers, when to stand, hemlines, organs, hymnals, slide projectors, recognition plaques – have you ever sat down and wondered what the Hell when seeing the name of the donator engraved on the communion set.  That one truly baffles me.

Being a follower of Jesus and a citizen of his Kingdom is not about the externals of sacred things and lists of do’s and don’ts. It’s that our hearts are diseased with sin and Jesus is here in the power of his Spirit to heal us and make us new.  Whether we stand for hymns or whether church music is played on an organ or an accordion has nothing to do with his healing our sin-diseased hearts.

The Scribes and Pharisees said the miracle bread could only be touched with clean hands that had been washed according to the proper rituals and traditions.  Jesus, on the other, metaphorically he’s the bread the disciples are eating, the bread ironically missing from our translations, the Bread of Life, and Jesus says it doesn’t matter how dirty our hands are. Dirt on our hands won’t defile him or us.  What is defiling is the stuff we do to ourselves and to each other because our hearts are diseased with sin.  Jesus wants us to eat the bread of his life in us.  He welcomes us as we are into his relationship with God the Father and they will pour the Holy Spirit into us so that we know ourselves to be beloved children of God and the Triune God of grace heals us of our shame and guilt and the selfish desires that when we act upon them we hurt others and ourselves.

We do not need to clean ourselves up to be in a relationship with God.  We don’t have to wash our hands to eat the bread.  We just need to start eating the bread.  We just need to partake of this relationship with God in Christ and start praying, learn Jesus and his ways…that’s it…and he will make us new. Amen.