Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, 2 September 2018, Eldroth
A friend of mine was recently priested in the Church of England. On the first Sunday he went to celebrate communion in his church, he encountered an odd tradition. Preparing him in advance, his vicar said that what would happen was this: as he made ready the bread and wine the server would offer him a bowl of water with which to wash his hands. He wasn't to accept this - instead, what he should do was hold his hands up and shake his head, as if to say, 'no, thanks'.
What a strange tradition. It turns out it started decades ago when a vicar used to wash his hands at that point in the service, but when his successor came along he didn't want to do that - so he went like that. Instead of asking the server to stop offering the water, that odd, meaningless ritual began. And it's carried on ever since.
It’s always good to question our traditions and rituals. Those things we regard as 'orthodox'. The things we keep on doing simply because we've always done them that way. Well, that way may no longer speak to people's hearts, that way may no longer be God's way, if it ever has been.
As followers of Christ we have every right to question our church leaders on the traditions we maintain. Because Jesus was always asking questions of those who upheld the traditions of his day. Jesus didn’t want God's people to miss the point and get themselves so wrapped up in the letter of human laws, that they let their hearts shrink from the spirit of the perfect law of God.
So in today's gospel we find Jesus in conflict with the traditionalists of his day. Over the issue of ritual cleanliness. In brief, if you didn't wash properly, wash yourself, and wash the utensils you used around food, then you were unclean, defiled. You won't find this law in the scriptures. It was one of many which the religious gatekeepers had created through their own interpretation of the scriptures, and imposed on the people of the day.
It was a simple enough law to keep if you lived and worked close to a good water supply, like in the temple courts, government offices, royal palaces. If you were comfortably off, well-plumbed-in. But what if you worked out in the fields all day, or if you were a builder up on the rooftops, a plumber down the drains? It was impossible to arrange a pretty ritual wash up before your hard-worked-for food breaks in any of those places.
The law established by tradition condemned such folk as unclean, defiled. Jesus wouldn't wear that. Jesus condemned this man-made law. Jesus said, it's not what goes into a person that makes them unclean - he's talking about food here - it's what comes out.
He's saying, it's not important whether you obey purity rules or not, what's important is what comes out of your heart. If your heart's full of badness then that's where pollution begins. It's a bad heart that makes you unclean. It's a bad heart that defiles you. Let’s be frank: it’s a bad heart that imposes bad laws on other people.
Now, the spirit of our age is quite Christlike. Because today, people question those institutions which uphold tradition. Our society has a critical spirit, which keenly seeks out hypocrisy: in the government, in the church, in media, in royalty…
Some of this may be mischief-making. But it’s no bad thing to keep check of what's at the heart of our institutions. For how can a government be trustworthy if at its heart is deception and protectionism? How can a church be loving if at its heart it’s concealing child abuse?
These are Christlike questions to ask. And it is our challenge and our gift to embrace them, to take a long hard look at ourselves and ask whether our precious traditions are what Jesus called the traditions of men, in contrast to the loving laws of God.
James encourages believers to ‘look intently into the perfect law that gives freedom,’ the law of Jesus - a way of relating to God and neighbour which looks at the heart of a person, not at how they relate to what is written in the statute books or how human society judges them. James entreats us to hear this teaching and act on it - to keep asking ourselves, do the rules that we follow reflect the loving commands of God, or are they closer to the crushing traditions of men?
The everyday people of Jesus' day who didn't wash their hands in the ‘proper’ way were condemned as unclean, defiled by those who weren’t bothered enough to try to understand why.
It’s a little like the way our society condemns the homeless or the prisoner as unclean and impure without seeking to understand the complex reasons why they got in that position; condemning without caring to try to help them rebuild their lives, to work for their rehabilitation for their good and for the good of society.
Just like Jesus' opponents all those years ago there are still issues about those who eat food differently to ourselves. Although our British palate has broadened significantly in recent years so we’re far more positive about food from other countries than ever before, now another sort of tradition is developing: a kind of food snobbery whereby if we’re not operating at Masterchef-level in our kitchens we feel a little chastened, if we can’t offer visitors a choice of a dozen kinds of latte then we’re embarrassed. This food snobbery, this new-fangled tradition of man: I see it in people’s eyes when I tell them my stepson works at McDonalds.
And then there are the ambulance-chasers, the PPI specialists, those keen to help us sue the NHS. When we depend on laws, and unwritten rules and regulations, it feels like trust has broken down between people, that we are failing to understand and value each other at a human level. This is a litigious society, shackled by our law books; a judgemental society, shallow in relationships. [2]
I could go on. I think the point's been made. In the light of all this, here is Jesus inviting us to discover what God's perfect law of love and freedom means in every circumstance, in every relationship; here is James challenging us to be bold enough to bury those old and harmful rules which - in the light of God’s law of love - no longer apply, and to live generously towards others.
Notes
[1] This is a rewrite of Mark 7 - What defiles a person? preached in Devon in 2012, and previously in Wavertree, in 2003.
[2] Giles Fraser, The Military Ethical Complex, talk at Greenbelt 2012.
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