Sometimes we find ourselves in a position where it would be
easy to break the rules. Our story from
Mark’s gospel today starts as an apparently trivial dispute about some
religious regulations, and escalates into a total reworking of how we should
believe and act.
Whenever the Pharisees show up from Jerusalem, it usually
leads to conflict. This suggests
strongly what will happen when Jesus eventually goes to the holy city. The Pharisees are incensed because Jesus’
disciples do not keep the strict regulations about hand washing. In the Old Testament there are regulations
about how the priests should ensure they were ritually clean for their work in
the temple. The problem was that these
regulations had not been prescribed for the bulk of the population, but the
Pharisees were imposing them on everyone.
It was as if everyone had to scrub up like a surgeon before eating
supper.
Jesus confronts them that they are hypocrites; the like to
appear religious but they are not living spiritual obedient lives. The whole of their religion consists of
taking the righteous laws of God and changing and expanding them into a
man-made structure to maintain control.
They are, in effect, taking the name of the Lord in vain. As an example, he quotes the fifth
commandment, to honour our father and mother.
The teaching of the Pharisees has the effect of wishing them harm by
denying them financial support that they need in their old age. In a dodge that any tax accountant today
would recognise, they have transferred assets to the control of the temple,
thus making the money in theory God’s, and putting it beyond the reach of their
needy relatives.
In verse 15 Jesus says something that is blatantly obvious
to us but that was radically new to them.
The whole idea, derived from the Old Testament, that touching certain things could render you
impure is misconceived. Nothing that
comes into a person, certainly not food that merely passes through our body,
can defile us. It is what comes OUT of
us, out of our hearts, that can cause grief to us and to others.
The disciples are struggling to comprehend this, and this is
not surprising. A major marker of being
a Jew has been the dietary laws that have marked them our as different for the
surrounding nations. Daniel in captivity
made a significant point when he refused to the dainty food of his Babylonian
captors. Everybody knows that to be a
Jew, there are things that you eat and things that you do not. What can Jesus mean? Is he really sweeping all this away?
The answer is yes.
How can they be so lacking in understanding that they do not see the
obvious? We carry the uncleanness around
with us. When God purged the earth with
a flood, the sin survived because it was in the boat with Noah and his
family. Saying the right prayer or
keeping the right religious observance is not enough to let us live an upright,
spiritual life.
Jesus names a list of vices that are devastating. Some such as murder or adultery seem pretty
extreme, although Jesus did say that merely to look at a girl with long was to
have adultery with her in your heart.
But there is folly on the list, and I can be such a fool. There is envy on the list, that leads us to
coveting. And if anyone looks at the
list and says none of it applies to them, then they are guilty of arrogance.
We begin to see what Jesus is saying and doing. If we were contending with a system of rules,
we could work at it and become quite good at it. The fact is that we are totally incapable of
living at the level of purity and goodness that Jesus calls us to. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of
us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us
all. He bore the sin of many, and made
intercession for the transgressors. The
cross was the place where Jesus took all of our sin, our uncleanness, our many
transgressions and fallings short. Every
and anything that we have ever done. All
that we have wished could be undone.
Every occasion when we know we should have done more.
Our theme in Alpha Renewed this week is Why did Jesus
die? My preliminary response, that is
open to discussion, is that he voluntarily bore our sins, so that we might be
cleansed and made free. We are invited
to so identify ourselves with him that we also are brought to the point of
death. We die to our selfish instincts
and ungodly desires. He was totally
obedient to the will of his Father. We
are not, and never can be, except and unless we trust in him. Jesus’ dying on the cross enables us to let
go of all that was opposing God. We
invite the risen Jesus to come and take up residence in our hearts, changing
our desires so that we want to please God and find for the first time that we
are moving in that direction.
No comments:
Post a Comment