Mark 7:1-8, 14-23
A. INTRODUCTION
It has been said that Australians are paranoid about cleanliness. But then, the amount of time we spend washing or in the shower—or the way we go about making sure everything is perfectly hygienic—is often a topic of debate. In addition, the number of times people in England have a bath each year is often raised in Australian humour. And, once again, provides a comment on Australian hygiene.
Of course, in addition to personal hygiene, these days we also have strict regulations in regard to the public preparation of food, and an extraordinary list of rules and regulations regarding the administration of medical procedures. And for those who work preparing food or in the medical profession, those rules seem to get more and more numerous and complex as time goes on.
Now, of course many of the things I’ve mentioned make perfect sense. And cleanliness, and the control of situations, so that a high standard of health can be maintained, is obviously a very sensible idea. However, I can’t help wondering, sometimes, whether we have taken the whole health thing just that little bit too far. Indeed, have we taken the idea of cleanliness to extremes, to the point where we have lost, or are in danger of losing, our natural immunities that we would otherwise depend upon? Indeed, do we leave ourselves open to exactly what we are trying to protect ourselves from—germs and disease.
B. GOSPEL
1. New Testament Health Regulations (7:1-4)
Now there’s nothing new about being concerned or obsessed with cleanliness and health. They were also concerns recorded in New Testament times too. However, while the rules and legislation that we face, today, deal mainly with situations in the public arena, in New Testament times people lived with regulations telling them what they had to do in their own home too.
Indeed, there were expectations that people would wash their hands before a meal. There were expectations that people would wash food that had been bought in a market. And there were rules regarding washing cups, pots, and kettles, and all other sorts of things beside. And woe betide anyone who slipped up when someone in authority was watching.
As a consequence, we can read a passage like that in Mark’s gospel. And we can see that when some Pharisees came from Jerusalem to see Jesus—and they noted that not all of Jesus’s disciples washed their hands before eating—the inevitable happened. They not only became very upset, but they used the opportunity to voice their disapproval, and in no uncertain terms.
2. Health Regulations or a Power Struggle? (7:5-8)
Now maybe in this story we can envisage a health inspector (in the guise of a Pharisee) banging his fist on a table, telling everyone that they had to comply with the regulations. Except for the fact that in this story there is a twist. Because Jesus was not taken in by the whole charade. He knew the Pharisees were not concerned with people’s health at all. The cleanliness rules were rules that the Pharisees rigorously applied, to tie everyone up in knots. They had taken an Old Testament command for priests to wash their hands and feet before entering the Tabernacle—a rule commanded by God, designed to indicate a priest’s cleanness of heart before God—and they had played with the rule so much that they had come up with a host of regulations that had nothing to do with people’s health and welfare. And certainly nothing to do with people’s spiritual cleanness at all.
No! Their rigorous application of the rules was not out of concern for the health of the people, or their cleanliness (physical or spiritual). Their rules were intended to keep control over the people, and to maintain their own privileged position in society. They had developed their rules so much that they had left the intention of God’s original commandment well and truly behind. And, as a consequence, their rules, regulations, and traditions had taken on a whole new life of their own.
Of course, washing one’s hands before a meal may be a good idea but, in this particular case, the tradition that had been built up had very little to do with cleanliness or health. It was about maintaining what the Pharisees enjoyed. It was in the interest of the Pharisees that their own traditions be maintained. And they did so to the detriment of the people, and to the detriment of their, and others, relationship with God.
3. The Conflict between Commandment and Tradition (7:9-13)
Well, you can imagine Jesus’s reaction to all of that. Jesus had no time for man-made traditions where they perverted God’s commands. And he had no time for man-made traditions where they created a barrier between the people and God. And so he told the Pharisees just what he thought about their rules and their traditions. He called them hypocrites. And not leaving it there, he tried to instil in them the idea that it was far more important to keep God’s commands than to pursue their own traditions, which in the end were simply stumbling blocks stopping people from coming to God. Indeed, Jesus continued that the traditions of the Pharisees often distorted the meaning of God’s commandments, to such an extent, that they didn’t allow people to comply with God’s commandments at all.
4. True Cleanliness (7:14-16)
Strong words from Jesus. And there’s no doubt that part of Jesus’s motivation was to shame and silence his opponents. After all, they had put tradition before scriptural commandments. As a consequence, someone needed to speak out, and put them in their place.
But as a result of having done so, Jesus was then able to turn to the crowd, and was able to pick up the theme of washing, of cleanliness, and of purity. Indeed, he was able to raise the issue of what real cleanliness and real purity was all about.
Because, as far as Jesus was concerned, it was not a matter of whether the disciples washed their hands before a meal. It was not about whether they’d gone through certain rituals or followed certain regulations. It was rather whether their hearts were clean, and clean before God. That was what was important. For that was the purpose behind the original commandment requiring priests to wash their hands and feet before entering the Tabernacle.
5. Jesus’ Application (7:17-23)
At the end of the discussion, no doubt, the Pharisees would have been fuming. The things that Jesus said, as far as they were concerned, were dangerous and radical ideas. They didn’t like the implications. They liked their place in society, they liked lording it over others, they liked their rules and traditions. And so being told they were quite wrong—and being told that publicly—would have been very hard for them to take.
But apparently it was hard for Jesus’s disciples to take too, because they were quite confused. Some of them may not have washed their hands before the meal, but they were used to the ways that the Pharisees taught. As a consequence, they didn’t quite understand what Jesus was saying.
So Jesus repeated it all over again. But this time he spelt out what happens when rules and traditions get in the way of a proper relationship with God. And he indicated a catalogue of sinful acts and attitudes that would result—including evil thoughts, immorality, acts of deliberate malice, deceit and treachery, stinginess, slander, pride and arrogance, and foolishness. And all of these and more, Jesus indicated, were the direct result of putting man’s rules, man’s traditions, and man’s own interests before those of God.
6. Summary
Like many things in life, the argument began over an apparently very simple matter: the issue of some disciples not washing their hands before sitting down for a meal. The disciples had failed to keep the strict rules and traditions that applied before one could eat. And unfortunately the Pharisees had been around to see their fault.
But Jesus soon cut to the chase. These rules were man-made and, what’s worse, instead of clarifying God’s rules they actually distorted them. They were traditions that the Pharisees wanted to keep for their own ends. They liked them, they enjoyed following them, they gave them power and authority. And they were the means in which they maintained their position in life, which they were prepared to defend at all costs, no matter how it affected other people’s relationships with God.
C. IMPLICATIONS
Now, at the time, Jesus stood up to the Pharisees. Indeed, he wouldn’t have a bar of their rules and regulations which created a barrier to anyone having faith. And that’s the whole point of the story that’s been recorded.
And if Jesus wasn’t prepared to accept any barriers to faith, the implication is that neither should we. The lesson of this story is that just as Jesus made a stand on barriers to faith in New Testament times, so we need to stand up to any barriers to faith that may be around us today too.
Of course, to do that we need to examine our beliefs and practices. We need to look at our own traditions—our own sacred cows that supposedly have been put there to be helpful—and to clarify and enhance our understanding of God and his laws and the things that he wants us to do. And then what we need to do is to have the courage of our convictions, and put away any barriers that are a block to people, including ourselves, from having a full relationship with God.
And I think that if we are prepared to do that, we would be quite surprised about how many barriers we have been able to accumulate over the years.
1. Barriers to Faith
After all, how often in church circles have you heard, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that. It’s against the rules’? ‘We have strict guidelines over what we can and cannot do, and you can’t do what you’re suggesting’? But then you can ask question . . . ‘Yes, but whose rules? Man’s or God’s? Do these rules help, or do they get in the way? And in any event, whose church is it, is it man’s or God’s’?
How often in church circles have you heard, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that. It’s not the way we like it done’? But then you ask the question . . . ‘Yes, but is it right? And does it fit with the way God wants it or not? Or is it just the way some people want it to be?’
And, how often in church circles have you heard, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that. It’s not our tradition’? And apart from the fact you could ask, ‘Whose tradition?’—because everyone seems to have a different version—the question is, tradition or not, does it measure up to God’s standard? Does it measure up to the way Jesus said things should be? Or does it actually obscure or block the standard that God has set for us to follow?
2. The Radical Jesus
In his time, Jesus was a very radical thinker. He upset many people because of the controversial things that he said. Indeed, if anyone should think that he was meek and mild, that he got on with everyone, and never rubbed anyone up the wrong way, and somehow he managed to accidentally get himself killed, then they are not talking about the Jesus that was foretold about in the Old Testament. And they are not talking about the Jesus that is displayed in the pages of the New Testament either.
Jesus was a radical. His teaching was radical. And the church that he set up was radical. And if the church today is not seen by people today as holding those same radical views, then I’m afraid it is not the church that Jesus intended it to be.
Jesus was a no-nonsense sort of man, and he was very fierce on anyone, or anything, that created a barrier between the people and their creator. That is why Jesus had little time for the man-made traditions of his time. And he had little time for people who used rules, regulations, and traditions to maintain their positions and power.
And because Jesus was a radical person, so Christianity should be a radical religion too. Indeed, the whole premise of the Christian faith turns what would be considered to be normal and acceptable, in this world, upside down. That’s why Jesus was so despised by the religious leaders of the day who wanted to maintain the status quo. And that’s why any suggestion today to bring down traditions that have become obstacles are, and will be, met with fierce opposition.
3. The Need to be Radical Today?
Despite that, Jesus’s concern was with people’s spiritual welfare, and that nothing should be allowed to get in the way between the people and God. And if that was Jesus’s concern, so it should be our concern too.
Of course the radical process of breaking down the barriers and traditions that are obstacles to faith will not be an easy process. Indeed there will be much opposition, both outside and inside the church. Despite that, however, that is what we are called to do. And, in doing so, we will need God’s guidance, and we will need God’s strength and courage to be faithful to God, and to be faithful to Jesus’s example too.
D. CONCLUSION
At the beginning of this gospel story we appeared to see a dispute over the simple matter of washing one’s hands before a meal. A seemingly sensible ideal, and one to which many people in Australia today could agree. However, at the heart of it was not a concern for people’s health (either physical or spiritual) at all. Rather it was about man-made rules, man-made regulations, and man-made traditions which effectively had replaced the laws of God, and which certain people had a vested interest to maintain.
But in contrast to that we have the example of a no-nonsense Jesus who was able to see through the deceit, and stood up for the need of a person to come to God free from the man-made obstacles put in their path. And as a result we are challenged to do the same.
Now Australians may be considered by some to be paranoid about their physical cleanliness. But the challenge for us is to be concerned about our spiritual cleanliness. Indeed, we are faced with the challenge from Jesus to take the same attitude to barriers to faith that he took. In other words, we need to examine our rules and traditions and compare them with those of God. And if our traditions cause barriers to faith, then we are called on to put them aside and return to God’s original guidelines.
Now this isn’t a matter of change for change’s sake. But a matter of going beyond our traditions and rules and returning to the standards that God originally set. It’s a matter of getting rid of all the cobwebs and the barnacles and whatever else has been growing around the things that the church has gathered on its journey, but have now become unhelpful and a burden not just to ourselves but to others too. And it’s a matter of returning the church to God’s way, and the way he intended it to be.
Now that’s quite a challenge. But if we are serious about our faith, it is something we must do, nonetheless.
Posted: 1st September 2023
© 2023, Brian A Curtis
www.brianacurtis.com.au
