That's Good, But...

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 3, 2006
The 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

That’s Good, But
Mark 7:1-8
James 1:17-27

Our lesson from Mark is not one
we want our children to hear, do we?
What parent doesn’t find himself or herself
repeating that familiar phrase before every meal:
“Did you wash your hands?”
And then we hear Jesus teaching us
that we don’t have to wash our hands,
that we can actually come to the dinner table with dirty hands.
From sandbox to spaghetti,
from mud to meatloaf
from dirt to dinner
without that agonizing detour to sink and soap.
And all God’s children lifted up their voices in praise:
Way to go, Jesus!

What is Jesus doing here?
The Pharisees were the leaders of the religious community,
followers of the Lord God,
the leaders at the Temple --
not, by the way, the Temple Solomon built,
the Temple we heard about last week,
but the one that was rebuilt more than 400 years later
after Solomon’s Temple was destroyed.
The Pharisees were men who took their faith,
their religion very seriously.
The rules that governed their rituals and practices
had been collected over more than thousand years,
rules with their roots in Scripture, Torah,
and especially in the book of Leviticus.
Ritual handwashing,
along with ritual washing of pots and other utensils,
had become an important part of preparation before a meal.

And then Jesus came along and was neither respectful, nor polite.
His words were harsh as he condemned the Pharisees as hypocrites.
He quoted from the prophet Isaiah;
God spoke through the prophet more than 600 years earlier,
spoke of his exasperation with his people,
how they preferred ritual, tradition,
practices and rules they had developed,
to living according to God’s laws:
“These people draw near with their mouths
and honor me with the lips
while their hearts are far from me.
and their worship of me is a human commandment,
learned by rote…” (Isaiah 29:13)

That described the Pharisees;
in fact it described most of God’s children.
There was nothing in Scripture that demanded
that they wash their hands before a meal.
The rules the Pharisees were following
were rules they had made up,
their own traditions, their own practices.
It may have made for elaborate and impressive ritual,
but Jesus’ reaction was blunt, direct:
“what’s that got to do with love, mercy,
kindness, goodness,
What it got to do with following God’s laws?”

A thousand years earlier,
Moses tried to make things clear for the Israelites
as they stood on the east bank of the Jordan River,
gazing upon the land promised them by God,
the land they were about to enter
following their years in the wilderness.
“What does the Lord your God require of you?” Moses asked.
“Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways,
to love him, to serve the Lord your God
with all your heart
and with all your soul,
and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God…”
(Deuteronomy 10:12)
How simple was that?
Love God and follow God’s commandments –
all ten of them.
Nothing more, nothing less.
The prophet Micah reinforced Moses’ teachings
with his words, “what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly before God.”
(Micah 6:8)
Simple, straightforward,
not complicated.

And yet what do we humans do?
We wander off the path,
away from what matters to God,
substituting our own way for God’s way,
our own will for God’s will,
substituting ritual for faithfulness.

We don’t want Jesus to react to what we do
in the same way he reacted to the practices of the Pharisees,
but Jesus expects a great deal from us as his disciples,
as his followers.
He expects nothing less than our transformation.
Jesus is always asking us,
always putting the question before us,
are we really doers, doers of God’s word,
or are we merely hearers,
thinking that we are doers because we do
what we want to do?
Jesus asks us:
“In what you are doing,
are you serving God,
or serving yourself?”
Are you walking in God’s ways,
or in your way?
Are you serving God with all your heart and all your soul?
Are you working for justice?
Are you living and sharing kindness?
Are you walking humbly before God?
Are you sharing the good news
of God’s love and mercy?
Are you looking after the orphan and the widow?

Are we doers of the Word:
doers of the Word of the Lord,
the Word that is really so simple:
The Word that is Jesus Christ…
the Word that is love.

We can say, yes, we are doers.
But how easy it would be for Jesus to respond to us with
“that’s good but…”
“But what are you doing to work for peace?
But what are you doing to look after the poor?
You say you are a doer, and yet tomorrow
30,000 children under the age of 5 will die,
most from malnutrition.
What are you going to do tomorrow?
And what will you do on Tuesday when another 30,000 die?
And what will you do on Wednesday?

Just one hungry child,
just one frightened woman,
just one elderly man living alone
and there is more to be done,
more for us to do as disciples of Christ.

We are about to be fed,
fed and filled,
fed by God and filled by the Holy Spirit,
through a meal prepared for us by our Lord Jesus Christ.
The invitation to this table comes to us
not because of anything we have done.
The invitation comes by grace alone.

As you take the bread and the cup,
lift up a prayer for guidance,
guidance for how you can be a more faithful doer,
a more focused laborer.
Ask God for guidance for how we as a community
can be a church of more faithful doers.
Ask God to help you turn from the distractions that fill your life,
fill all our lives,
the rituals, traditions – all those things
that block your path of doing God’s will,
following God’s way.

For what does God require of us?
Do justice,
love kindness,
walk humbly.
Love the Lord, love one another
with all our hearts, and all our souls.
As the ad campaign tells us,
just do it.
AMEN