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Jesus and his disciples were hungry. We know from the Bible that the crowds and the Pharisees kept Jesus so busy that he had trouble finding time to eat. On one occasion they even interrupt his meal. One day Jesus and his disciples stole some time from teaching and healing to eat dinner. In the middle of their dinner a nearby Pharisee said, (Gasp) "Jesus, why don't your disciples keep the traditions of our people. Why do they eat with unwashed hands."
Now you and I know the value of washing our hands before eating, but the Pharisees were extremely particular about it. They were legalistic about ritual cleanliness. They had rules about washing their hands before eating and washing their food. They even had a rule that said you must wash the outside of your pots. And they were offended that Jesus' disciples had broken their rules.
Jesus responded, between bites of figs and olives no doubt, "Isaiah was right about you hypocrites. 'They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from it. They vainly worship me while teaching human ideas.' Look what you do to God's law. The Bible says 'Honor your father and mother' and 'anyone who curses their parents should die.' But you use the law to show disrespect to your parents. You even go so far as to say that if you have promised part of your profits for God and your poor mother needs that money to buy medicine you would deny it to you mother. In your attempt to honor God with a gift, you dishonor your parents by ignoring their need."
By this time a crowd had gathered. Jesus stood up and said, "Listen up and hear me out. There is nothing that you can eat that will make you unholy." Then he looked at the Pharisee; "It is what comes out of your mouths that makes you unholy."
The disciples had always been taught that eating the wrong foods, like pork, is what made a person unholy, so they had trouble understanding and they asked Jesus about it later. Jesus said, "You still don't get it. Don't you see? What you eat doesn't effect you soul. It goes into you intestines and is flushed down the commode. It’s evil words and actions that make one unholy because evil acts come from a heart full of evil.
In Summary: The Pharisees told Jesus to wash his hands before he ate. Does that mean that my mother was a Pharisee? Don't worry, my mother was not a Pharisee and neither was yours. The Pharisees were not concerned with hygiene like your mother was. What they were referring to was a ceremonial washing that their traditions taught. The problem wasn't that Jesus and his disciples had dirt under their fingernails. The problem was that Jesus did not teach his followers to do all that their traditions taught.
Now don't get the idea that these traditions were innately bad. Originally these traditions had been expressions of true faith and reverence. Because God had made them a holy nation, they ceremonially washed their cooking utensils. God had given them the food and it was holy so they ceremonially washed their hands before eating. It was like saying grace before the meal. God had told them to worship on the Sabbath, so they went out of their way to hallow that day.
The problem is that these traditions got out of hand. They were meant to be expressions of faith. They were meant to help people live out their devotion to God. They reflected of fact that God had made them a holy people. But the Pharisees thought the rituals themselves made a person holy. They believed that people were holy, not because God made them holy, but because they kept all the traditions. Instead of joyous acts of devotion, these traditions became burdens that many were unable to bear and the Pharisees condemned them for it.
Jesus and his disciples were some of the people they condemned for not holding to all the traditions. Jesus was a common man, a carpenter. He knew what a burden these traditions had become; especially for common people. Water was scarce and hard to get. The women would have to go early in the day before it got hot, and draw water from the well. Then they would have to carry it back. There was not water left to wash the outside of the pots when only the inside needed cleaning. For those who could afford to expend the time, energy and expense of keeping the traditions, they were fine, but for most they were a hardship.
Jesus may have been a carpenter but he was also the Son of God. He knew that those traditions didn't make a person holy. And in the same way they didn't make a person unholy. The prophets had said it. God does not require sacrifices, but humble hearts. Jesus told the Pharisees, "It is not that goes into the mouth that defiles a person it is what comes out of the mouth." They were looking at the outside, not the inside. They were more concerned with whether people performed the right rituals than whether their hearts were devoted to God.
You know times haven't changed much since Jesus' day. Maybe our mothers weren't Pharisees, but there are still plenty of Pharisees around. I would say that Christians today have just as many rules and traditions as the Pharisees had. For some the Christian life is summed up in "Don't smoke drink or chew or hang around with people who do." That's not bad advice for those who seek to live a Christian life. But is that what makes us a holy people? Or is it God's Holy Spirit that dwells in our hearts that makes us holy? Sometimes our traditions have good bases, but they take on a life of their own. And we begin to think that keeping our traditions makes us holy.
Like the Pharisees, many today take the traditions of their churches and teach them as the laws of God. Each denomination, in an attempt to be true to the Gospel, has traditions of how things are to be done. Like the traditions that the Pharisees taught, they are useful instruments of devotion. But people make them burdens for others to bear. Instead of aiding people's devotion to God they make keep people from doing God's will. As with the Pharisees the rules get in the way of God's rule over our hearts.
Jesus said, "It is not what goes in the mouth that defiles a person it is what comes out of the mouth because what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart." A person is not holy because he does the right things. A person does the right things because she is holy. We can do the "right" things all we want but until Jesus changes our hearts they mean nothing. However, once Jesus does change our hearts, we can respond in acts of holy living that come from the heart.
In a moment I will be inviting you to respond to God's Word in prayer and praise and communion. Don't come to this altar thinking that you are holy because you did a good thing. Don't praise God because you think that you praise earns God's favor. In like manner when you leave this place don't perform acts of mercy and love to justify yourself.
Don't get me wrong, all these are good things to do. When we kneel before the Lord in prayer, or praise God from our hearts, or pray for the needs of the community; or receive the gifts of bread and wine; we are blessed. We are blessed when we do these things because through them we open ourselves to God. And when God enters our hearts, he changes us. We are blessed not by fulfilling external acts, but by the internal change wrought by God.
Don't respond to God's Word hoping that your actions will make you holy or somehow make you worthy of God's blessings. Respond because God can and does make you holy. Surrender yourself to God and let him work on your insides. Then your actions will no longer be an attempt to justify yourself. They will become joyous expressions of the great love that we have experienced in Christ.
The Word of God is like a mirror. If you have ever experienced the aging process, you know that mirrors don't tell lies. They merely reflect what is placed in front of them. That is their nature. They do not have minds that could decide to present a false image. They are just glass that reflects reality whether that reality is pretty or not.
Often times when we look in the mirror we don't see what we want to. In our minds we imagine ourselves as we want to be. Either it is the way we once were or the way we wish to be. It is an ideal picture of ourselves that accentuates the positive and eliminates the negative.
When you stand in front of a mirror you see exactly what is there. All those pounds you put on. All the gray hairs that have appeared on your head. All the wrinkles. Don't blame your mirror if you don't like what you see when you look into it.
Mirrors don't lie. We may want them to. But they don't.
The Bible is like a mirror. Some people complain that there is too much violence in the Bible. Occasionally someone will really read the Bible for the first time and they will realize what is in it. There are stories about things that our parents didn't tell us about. People kill each other left and right. And every kind of sin that you can think of.
And they are right. The Bible is full of stories of sinful people. From Genesis to Revelation. In every book someone is killing or stealing or doing something evil. Every sin in the book is in "The Book." If the Bible were a movie it would be rated "R."
But don't blame the Bible. It is just telling us the reality of the human condition. Humanity is violent. Our history is marked by war after war. And between the wars people persecute each other. Human beings are sinful creatures. We covet our neighbors possessions. And then we steal them. The Bible doesn't show us what we want to see. It shows us the truth about humanity.
Christ is like a mirror. When we Christians speak of the Word of God we mean more than the Bible. The Bible is our primary witness to the Word of God so we call it that. But John's Gospel reminds us that Christ is the Word of God made flesh. When I say Christ is like a mirror I don't mean Christ is a mindless piece of glass that is silvered on one side. I mean that looking at Christ shows us the truth about ourselves.
Christ is the image of a perfect human being. He is the only human being who ever lived a perfect life. As the Son of God he is the only untarnished picture we have of the image of God. His life, death, and resurrection are the only living examples we have of absolute sinlessness. The shear pureness of Christ's perfection is revealing.
When we look at Christ's life we see perfection. But when we look at our own lives we see the flaws much more clearly. We see bellies bulging with the fruits of gluttony and covetousness. We see faces deeply creased by anger. We see heads grayed by years of wanton sinfulness.
Christ, the word of God, is like a mirror. His perfection helps us to see our imperfections. His holiness, helps us see how truly sinful we are.
Sometimes people ignore things they don't want to see. They conveniently forget what they see in the mirror. The same way that people forget that they have a dentist appointment. Some people simply choose not to look in the first place. It's like the way people close their eyes while watching a horror movie. They always do it right when the monster is about to attack someone.
We don't want to know the truth when it is ugly. We don't want to look at the depravity of humanity. We don't want to hear about the violence that we are capable of. And most of all we don't want to look in a mirror and see our own sin.
And so many people come to church on Sunday and live the rest of the week as if they forgot what they heard. We are all guilty of being Christians with amnesia. We conveniently forget the reality that was presented to us in the Word of God, the Bible. We forget about the sinfulness of the world around us. We also forget the flaws we saw in ourselves when we gazed upon Christ.
We hear the Word, but we forget it. We are like someone who looks at their natural face in the mirror. And right away they forget what they saw. They forget the lines. They forget the gray hairs. And they go about their lives as if they had never looked in the first place.
Be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. The Word of God is like as mirror. It present for us an image of humans as they are. It doesn't lie to us. It doesn't distort that image so that it appears as we want it to. It shows us humanity with all its bulges, wrinkles and gray hairs. It reveals to each of us our true sinfulness.
Today as any Sunday the Word of God, the Bible, has been read and hopefully proclaimed. We have looked into the perfect law of God. And if we took a good look we saw the human race as it really is. And we have seen ourselves, wrinkles and all.
Today, as any Sunday, Christ, the living word of God, has been here. I pray that you saw him. I pray that through the prayers, the hymns, your sisters and brothers gathered here you have caught a glimpse of Christ. And through that glimpse of perfection, you became aware of your own imperfection.
In a moment we will all get out of our pews and go out that door. When you do, don't forget. Don't forget what you saw and heard here today. Don't forget the sinfulness of humanity. There are people out there lost in darkness. There is a world out there lost in sin. It is not pretty, but it is the truth. Don't forget the image of yourself that you have seen either. Warts and all. Let that image sink in. Don't forget the truth that has been revealed to you. The truth that we humans are lost. That if we were left to our own we would be hopeless.
But most of all don't forget the image of Christ that you have seen. Yes! His perfect love helps us see our own imperfections. But he also shows us what God wants to make us into. Don't forget him because he is the only hope that this awful world has.
Don't forget what you have heard and seen here today. There is an ugly world out there. And it needs the beauty of Christ. Don't forget these things. When you go out into the world take these images with you and let them change you. Remember Christ, and the world's need for him so that you can introduce a world without hope to its savior. Then you will be doers of the Word and not just hearers.