“Wash Your Hands”

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

One of my earliest childhood memories has to do with dinner. I remember sitting down at the table and my mother saying, “Did you wash your hands?” I was around four years old at the time, and I am sure my hands were filthy from climbing a tree or playing in the mud, etc. I remember getting up and running to a nearby sink, getting my hands wet, and coming back to the table. My priority was NOT clean hands. It was dinner! My mother, realizing that approximately 5 seconds was not long enough for a thorough hand washing, said, “Let me see those hands.” I held them up and was told to go back and wash them with soap and to take my time doing it. Early in my young life, I learned a rule: Clean hands equals food on the plate. We raised both of our kids that way as well.

Is this the issue raised by the scribes and Pharisees with Jesus and the disciples? Since Jesus and the twelve were eating something without having washed their hands, was this the same rule: Clean hands equals food on the plate, or was the issue deeper? And what was Jesus’ response to the temple leaders about? We will see that Jesus’ priority was similar to that four-year-old kid, Danny. It wasn’t about clean hands, either. The issue was about having a clean heart.

Let us begin with the Scribes and Pharisees in this morning’s story. What was their concern about? It wasn’t about germs. That knowledge wasn’t around back in those days. Washing hands was a ritual to honor God. This ritual was not from the original Torah but was part of a set of oral traditions known as the oral Torah meant to protect believers from defiling themselves or offending God. As priests serving in the temple were required to wash their hands before entering the temple, eating a meal or offering a sacrifice, all of God’s faithful were required to do the same. This was a way of making mealtime sacred, honoring God with a handwashing ritual.

Handwashing back then went as follows: One would dip their hand into the water up to the wrist, place the fist of the hand into the palm of the first hand, and twist the fist. Then the process was repeated with the other hand. The disciples' lack of ritual observance and eating bread with unwashed hands put them in danger of losing their Jewish identity. Not only the Pharisees, but in fact all Jewish people at that time, did not eat anything unless they first washed. To be Jewish, one had to wash hands. Jesus questions the purpose of this ritual.

Also washed cups, bed, etc.- the story about water drinking machine in Moscow - one cup!

Faith communities are grounded in rituals and traditions. There are traditions for when to stand and when to sit in worship. Certain parts of the worship service are done every Sunday. There are traditions for what to wear: for some, the covering of one’s head, and for others, the donning of certain garments. I still remember going to church as a child in the 1960s, and most women wore hats (Thanks to Paul, who wrote women should cover their heads in worship), veils over their faces, and gloves as well. That was the ritual of the day.

The daily ritual for all Jewish leaders and people was to wash their hands before a meal. Why, the scribes and Pharisees ask, does Jesus not adhere to the traditions of the elders?

Jesus did not follow tradition. He challenged the traditions of the elders. Not only did he tell the disciples it was okay to eat without washing their hands, but he also touched those who were sick, interacted with a woman who was unclean due to prolonged hemorrhaging blood, and let the disciples pick grain on the Sabbath. He challenged the rituals of the day, wanting the temple leaders to prioritize people over ritual. Rituals dedicated to God must not get in the way of God’s intention for the world. Formality and tradition are secondary. God’s ways for living are primary. Does following religious ritual get in the way of God’s intention for the world?

I have a more modern-day example for you. When I first began ordained ministry, Presbyterian church leaders and the Book of Order told us that non-baptized congregants and young children were not allowed to take communion. One had to go through the ritual of baptism and membership in order to take communion.  I can remember letting people in membership classes know about how becoming baptized would let someone partake in the Lord’s Supper. I taught young families classes on the importance of baptism and making sure each young child fully understood the deep meaning of communion. I tested young children on the importance of knowing what communion was all about. Once these congregants went through those rituals, they could only then have communion. I think I even may have asked a parent at some point if their child had been baptized as they were coming forward once, and telling them I could give the child a blessing but not communion. They hadn’t taken the class yet.

Then, at some point, I looked at Jesus’ original meal with his friends. He didn’t put any ritual hedge around that meal in the upper room. He just broke bread and poured wine into a cup, gathered them all in grace and love, and proclaimed himself as Messiah. If Jesus didn’t ask those gathered to be baptized and fully comprehend the meaning of the meal, why was I doing that? So, although our Presbyterian Church USA still holds on to those traditions of the elders, I do not. The communion table is an extension of God’s grace, meant for everyone. I’ve not yet been hauled off by the Presbyterian police for this stance, but the day is young.

Jesus saw that the traditions of the elders were also getting in the way of God’s grace. He quoted Isaiah 29:13, telling the leaders, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;⁷ in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.” The problem with the temple leaders of the day was that they got so focused on the externals of faithfulness that they neglected to examine their own hearts. The rituals created a spiritual hierarchy between the clean and unclean. Instead of honoring God, ritual purity became a means of excluding people from God’s love.

Then Jesus gives a specific example of how that oral Torah had gone wrong, using the commandment to honor your father and mother. Yet the tradition of Corban was in place. Corban (Kawr ban) is a word that means an offering dedicated to God. It was being misused by sons who were called to honor their parents yet who wanted their parents’ wealth. A son could claim all of his inheritance as Corban or his parents' financial support as Corban and leave his parents destitute. (This was corrected after the Gospels were written in the Mishnah- saying a vow would be broken to God if he left one’s parents destitute.)

Jesus’ message for the leaders of the temple, to the crowd around him, and for us this morning is as follows. When ritual gets in the way of fulfilling God’s ways: Honoring and caring for our parents, loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves, we have lost the whole point of being faithful to God. Then Jesus gets to the heart of the matter.

He tells the temple leaders and the crowd around him that nothing outside of us can defile us by going in. The word, “Defile” koinoo in Greek, means “corrupts or makes filthy.” What can corrupt us are the things that come from our heart-“evil intentions gratuitous sex, adultery, theft, murder, greed, wickedness, deceit, lying, slander, pride and foolishness.” (Mark 7:20-23)

 We can project a squeaky-clean image and follow our rituals and traditions, but one way or another, the evil within us will find a way out. Jesus doesn’t want us to wash our hands. He wants us to wash our hearts.

There is Good News in today’s passage. Jesus can see the ugliness in the human heart, yet does not turn away. He can see right through the highly edited version of ourselves, knows us fully, yet loves us still. He encourages us to change inside, let him rule our hearts, and shows us a new way to be in this world.  Jesus dared to touch those who were unclean, dared to love those who were outcasts of society, loved and served those in need, and gave his life for all people- sinners, unclean women, lepers, those possessed, scribes and Pharisees, and even you and me. This Good News claims our hearts and calls us to follow.

Participation in God’s kindom is not based on religious observances. Theologian Elisabeth Johnson writes, “Following Jesus is not about separating ourselves from those considered less holy or unclean. Following Jesus means that like him, we get our hands dirty serving others, caring especially for those whom the world has cast aside. True faithfulness is not about clean hands, but a heart cleansed and a life shaped by the radical, self-giving love of God in Christ.”

May God bless our hearts, and cleanse them deep within so that they beat to the love of Jesus Christ so that what comes from our hearts are things like love, grace, and mercy. We and the world around us will then be shaped the way God intended. Alleluia. Amen.