Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
To download the mp3 file, right click the image below and "save as."
I?ve had an uneasy feeling all week about this text. I?ve been afraid that the children might get the idea from this text that Jesus isn?t happy with anyone who washes their hands before they eat. I?ve had this disturbing picture in my mind that, at this evening?s dinner table, one of our dutiful parents would ask that question that no meal can begin without, ?Did you wash your hands?? To which one our precious little children would reply, ?Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites as it is written, ?you people honor me with your lips but your heart is far from me.? I only hope my fears are unfounded.
So, why did Jesus react so harshly against the Pharisees and Scribes for pointing out that He was not being a very dutiful parent because he let his children eat without washing their hands?
First, let?s see if we can picture the scene the way Mark paints it. ?Now when some of the Pharisees gathered to Him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem?? Jesus was with His disciples in Galilee. Galilee is a long way away from Jerusalem ? at least a two-day journey if you really hoof it. They ?gathered to Him.? Not like we ?gather to Him,? to listen to His Word, to eat His flesh and drink His blood for the forgiveness of all our sin. They ?gathered to Him? like vultures circling their prey, to trap Him in His words, to devour His flesh and blood because He was, to them, a rodent that would satisfy their hunger for control. They had come from the Center For Disease Control to save the people from the Ebola that He was spreading. To them, Jesus was the germ that was infecting their nice, sanitary religion. He needed to be eliminated before the disease He was spreading became an epidemic.
Now, for the sake of us na?ve gentiles who might not appreciate good, old fashion pietism when we see it, St. Mark spells out just a few of the ways these vultures tried to make themselves look like peacocks. ?The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash.? For the Jews, this had nothing to do with OSHA or common sense sanitation. It was purely symbolic and simply ceremonial. They understood that washing their hands before eating bread didn?t really mean anything. But it sure did mean a lot if you didn?t.
Did they believe that by washing their hands they were washing off their sin and making themselves holy and righteous before God almighty? I doubt it. They were smarter than that. They understood that this was what the sacrifices at the temple were for and that apart from the shedding of blood there could be no forgiveness of sins.
So, why then did they get so upset that Jesus didn?t make His disciples wash their hands before eating? Or why did they make such a fuss when He let them pick heads of grain to eat on the Sabbath? And now, one more question. Why didn?t Jesus care a bit about these things?
The answer to all of these questions is, ?the 10 Commandments.? There?s a real problem with the 10 Commandments. Or is it that there?s a real problem with us that the 10 Commandments expose? Either way, the problem is, nobody can keep the darn things. If you use the 10 Commandments to keep score of how you?re doing in your walk with God, the score is always God – 10, you ? 0.
But of course for the believer, that?s not the real problem because by faith we believe that the Messiah has come to rescue us from being total zeroes. He has kept the 10 Commandments perfectly and for His sake, God has written His score us on our scorecard, and by grace, through faith, for Christ?s sake, – we?re perfect 10?s to God.
And all of that is fine and dandy as far as it goes. The problem with the 10 Commandments is ? they don?t go far enough. They do nothing to distinguish one believer from another. Against the 10 Commandments ? there is no distinction between Peter and Paul or between Bill and Glenn or Kathy and Karen. All fall short of the glory of God in one, indistinguishable mass of sinful humanity. And it?s right there that we begin to think that these 10 Commandments are not so fine and far from dandy.
So what?s a good pietist to do? The answer ? create a separate scoring system that allows for some real distinction between the faithful, the really faithful, the really, really faithful and the total looser. Make up some rules that actually can be kept and start keeping score.
The Jews developed a score sheet of 613 of these rules for faithful living that could actually be kept and that were useful for scoring one?s performance of faith compared to another?s. Jesus? disciples were good scorekeepers and had at least a few tiffs between themselves over who was the greatest among them. A Pharisee named Saul had one of the best scores ever posted. ?If anyone thinks he has reasons to be confident about himself, I have more,? he once wrote. (Phil.3:5). Later on, this same Saul, who changed his name to Paul, would give himself a big, fat zero saying he refused to play that game any longer.
You see, what we really want out of our religion is not so much that it would show us where we stand against God. Even the most marginal believer believes that God accepts me, ?just as I am, without one plea.? What we want our religion to show us where we stand against our neighbor. How else will we ever be able to stand up and loudly pray, ?I thank you Lord that I am not like other men,? and rattle off all the reasons why? We?re not so prideful to claim that we?re perfect but you?ve got to admit, there?s a whole lot others a lot worse than I am. Oh yea? By whose count? According to God?s Word, ?there is no difference.?
To all of this spiritual one-upsmanship, Jesus says, ?You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!? ?Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ?this people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.??
Why were the Pharisees and Scribes so upset with Jesus over hand washing? Because He refused to recognize their spiritual superiority. ?Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men?s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.? (Matthew 23:27-28).
This is not just a Jewish problem. This is a human problem. We hang these pious platitudes on ourselves until we look like an over decorated Christmas tree. While all the time, over there in the corner, completely ignored, stands a real ?Charlie Brown Christmas Tree? with only one ornament hanging, limply from it?s branches. But oh, my friends, this is the only ornament that really counts for anything because it is everything. In the end, all of those spiritual ribbons and medals we?ve so proudly pinned on ourselves will be burned off like dross in the judgment and only this One will remain ? Jesus Christ and Him crucified for you.
The prophet Isaiah, when confronted by the holy, holy, holy God suddenly sees all of his confidence in the flesh fly right out the window and he comes undone. ?Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.? And the Lord heard his confession and purged those unclean lips of his with a hot coal from the altar.
Much later, it would be the unclean lips of a man named Judas, who would use those lips to ?honor? His Lord by planting a big kiss on Jesus? cheek. ?O Judas, you honor me with your lips, but your heart is far from me.? But on the cross, the hot coal from the fires of hell itself would sear Jesus? lips as if they were Isaiah?s and Judas? and ours. And from those precious lips, He would ?honor? us saying, ?Father, forgive them…?
The only righteous One with whom the Father is well pleased, is despised and rejected by men. What?s that tell you about we score things? The One who is first of all in the Father?s eyes is least of all in eyes of men. What?s that do to your spiritual ranking?
There on the cross hangs Jesus, who though He was first made Himself last. The blood and water that flows from His pierced heart washes your unclean heart and it is clean. His precious hands that knew no sin were nailed to the wood so that your hands, all dirty with sin would be squeaky clean. There on the cross hangs all of our ?evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, and wickedness.? There hangs all of our sin and all of it washed out in His precious blood and buried in His tomb.
Yet, even though our hearts have been washed in Holy Baptism and never need to be washed again, we continue to get our hands dirty in sin. And so it is precisely those with dirty hands that Jesus calls to come to Him and eat the bread that is His flesh that goes into a person?s mouth and makes his hands clean again, and again, and again.
By His precious blood shed for you on that cross, there is no difference. All who are ?gather to Him? in faith, are all one, big glorious company of saints, justified by His grace, holy and clean in His sight. Here is true confidence, both against God and against one another.
Can you see how Jesus has turned everything upside down? Or, is it that He has turned everything right side up? Either way, by His cross, He has set us free to quit the contest of spiritual one-upsmanship and love our neighbor as the commandments would have us do? ?If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last and the servant of all.? (Mark 9:35). ?For he who is least among you all is the one who is great.? (Luke 9:48).