"Germs and Sin"

Message preached August 31, 2003
Long Green Valley Church of the Brethren
Glen Arm, Maryland USA
based upon Mark 7:1-23

Order of Worship

            Let me begin with a question for our youngsters. You have done so well over the summer sitting through all of worship instead of heading to choir practice part-way through. I know I sometimes talk too much, but I hope you’ve gotten something out of being more a part of worship for the past three months. Anyway, on this last Sunday before the Alleluia choir kicks in again, let me begin with a question for you.

            When you’re called to the supper table at home, what are you supposed to do first? If you don’t do it, and sit down for the meal anyway, what are you asked to get up and go do? Take three steps back if you didn’t answer, "wash your hands." Even you adults. My mother instructed me to always wash my hands before eating. I’ve not always been faithful to that rule, mind you, but still I can hear her speak it.

            We wash our hands before eating for a very good reason. There are all sorts of little organisms, too small for the human eye to see, all over everything we may touch in the course of work or play. Germs! Some of them may not be all that harmful, but there are other microscopic things which can do us great harm if we allow them entrance into our body through our mouths.

            If we dwell upon the unseen dangers which lurk within reach of our fingers, we can become afraid of everything. Antibacterial soaps and sprays have become the rage lately, though I’ve read that a good washing with plain, old soap and water may work just as well as all this antibacterial stuff. Note, I said, "a good washing." I didn’t say, "put your hands under the facet for a second and then dry them off." I’m sure most of you children have heard, many times, your parents preach about washing your hands before eating. Right?

            So, then, we come to this little episode in the gospel story where the Pharisees and some scribes noticed that a few of Jesus’ disciples were not washing their hands before eating. With my Mom’s instructions ringing in my ears, spoken many times when I was a young boy, I approach this scripture thinking that Jesus’ natural response would be in agreement with their concern. "You know, you’re right. Fellows, get up and go to the bathroom and wash your hands. You don’t know what those hands might have picked up. You don’t want to get sick, do you?"

            Let’s be honest, parents. Don’t you think that’s what Jesus should have said? Anything else would’ve been disagreeing with mom, and you don’t want to disagree with your mother. Correct? However, is that what Jesus did? No. Instead, he went off in a very different direction.

            Now, something we should probably say before we go pitting Jesus against mom is that the issue in this scripture story was not "germs." Whether or not Jesus, whom our faith claims to be the Son of the One who created all things - even microscopic stuff, knew about germs back then, the people in that era did not. The concern of the Pharisees and those "Scribes from Jerusalem" was not really over good hygiene. The issue for them was contact with "unholy" things in a religious sense. It wasn’t germs they cared about. It was sin.

            Because God is a "holy" God, the people of God were supposed to be a "holy" people. I didn’t say they were supposed to be full of holes, though sometimes they were. No, they were supposed to be "different," if you will. Not just like any old people who could care less about things. They were to be "different," because their God was "different" from all other gods. Now, the Pharisees were concerned about the holiness of God’s people. Not just the holiness of the priests, mind you, the "holy guys" who served in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Pharisees were teachers who lived among the "average" folks, and encouraged them all to live "holy" lives.

            It’s hard to define exactly what the word "Holy" means, because it encompasses so much. I just used the word "different," because "different" touches on one aspect of "Holy." Have you ever been in a place that just felt very different from all other places? It may have been some grand cathedral, or it might just have been some spot in the woods. A "holy" place is where we become especially aware of God. It’s "holy" because there we sense God’s presence. For Moses, it first was a burning bush on a mountainside, around which the ground was so "holy" - so "different," so full of God’s glory (now, there’s another hard word to absolutely define), that Moses just had to take off his sandals as he approached. The truth is - every place can be "holy" if there we recognize God.

            Remember the prophet Isaiah? He sensed God’s presence in a dream. In fact, God called him to be a prophet in a dream, of all places. In his dream Isaiah stood in the Temple. There he heard all sorts of heavenly beings sing, "Holy, holy, holy," sort of like the words that we sang earlier in worship. When in his dream he realized that he was in the presence of God, Isaiah said, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" (Isaiah 6:5).

            Isaiah, in his dream, became aware of how un-holy he and the rest of God’s people really were. Un-holy, I guess, would be the opposite of "different." In an un-holy place, perhaps you become especially aware of God’s absence. "Unclean" is another way of putting it, though it has little to do with soap and water, or even antibacterial sprays. In Isaiah’s dream, it was not his hands which were unclean, but his lips, as well as the lips of his people. Did your mother ever make you wash your mouth out with soup? If so, I doubt if that did much to actually make your lips clean after uttering some foul words, though it sure may have made you think the next time you were tempted to speak unholy stuff.

            In his dream, Isaiah was perhaps conscious of his lips because God was calling him to speak "different" words - God’s words. He recognized that his lips weren’t up to the task. Nor were the lips of God’s people, who were themselves called to be "different," to speak a "different word in this world. Now, another way of putting this is that Isaiah realized the sin in his life, and how that might get in the way of what God wanted him to do.

            "Sin." Now there’s another one of those hard-to-define words. I guess we know sin more by its effect upon us. One of the best ways of describing it I’ve come across is that "the power of sin is centrifugal. When at work in a human life, it tends to push everything out toward the periphery. Bits and pieces go flying off until only the core is left. Eventually bits and pieces of the cores itself go flying off until in the end nothing at all is left" (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, ©1973, Harper & Row, p. 88). "Sin" is whatever pushes us away from God, who needs to be at the very center of our existence.

            The Pharisees in Jesus’ story, they cared about "sin," and how it was cutting people off from God. When they saw the disciples not seeming to care about contact with "sin," with "unclean" stuff in the world, with un-holiness, they were rightly baffled. These disciples of Jesus were being trained to be his mouthpiece, like the students of any rabbi. But these students didn’t ritually wash their hands before putting food to their mouths. Their lips, like Isaiah’s, would be unclean, sinful, unholy, unworthy of speaking for God. Sometimes I think the Pharisees got a bum rap in the Bible. They cared. Too many people, especially among the "holy guys" in Jerusalem, didn’t really care. For them it was all "politics" as usual. The Pharisees, however, who were the spiritual ancestors of today’s rabbis in Judaism, cared.

            As Jesus pointed out, though, in an argument that is hard for us to follow, and which includes a whole lot of comments on the side by gospel-writer Mark (or somebody) to help make sense of it all for those not raised Jewish - comments that at some points further confuse rather than shed light - Jesus pointed out that the Pharisees were misguided in seeing sin as being on the outside of the human heart just looking for a way of getting in. The "unclean" stuff isn’t "out there," Jesus said. It’s "in here."

            That probably goes without saying, or does it? Some of us are all too aware of our sin "on the inside," the un-holy, unclean stuff that pushes us away from God. Jesus, in fact, named them very well, thank you, when he later spoke to his dim-witted disciples. These things don’t lie around on some counter-top, like germs, waiting to be touched and brought into the body through the mouth where they can do damage. Nope, they are already on the inside waiting to get out. Some of us were raised to live perpetually with an awareness of all this sin within us. But, you know, if we dwell upon these dangers which lurk within us, we can become afraid of doing anything. Sometimes our very awareness of our sinfulness itself gets in the way of us finding that holy place within where God desires to dwell.

            If you’ve read or heard about the dream of Isaiah when he was called by God, you know that an angel responded to Isaiah’s awareness of his own sinful lips with a burning coal from the altar. Mind you, kids, don’t try this at home. The angel touched Isaiah’s lips and said, "now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out" (6:7). Remember the context. This took place in a dream, a vision within Isaiah through which God created space for himself to dwell in this prophet.

            Isaiah didn’t go out preaching that everyone should now get their lips touched ritually by hot coals in order to make them holy. No. He did note that God’s people were just giving lip service to the Lord, that they spoke holy words in worship, but their hearts were far from God (Isaiah 29:13), a passage of scripture Jesus quoted in this morning’s gospel story.

            Finding that holy place within where God desires to dwell - isn’t that the point? Becoming "different" on the inside. Not just looking different on the outside, washing the hands in just the right way, but becoming different on the inside. Not putting on an act, but becoming really different. You know, the world is longing for something "different."

            Yes, we live with an awareness that we have met the enemy, and the enemy is us. Sin didn’t enter from the outside, it’s part of who we are. But that’s not the whole story, is it? We also live with a growing sense of God’s holy presence within. His Spirit is at work with us cleaning up on the inside, working its way to the outside. Our focus thus becomes not our sinfulness, which we cannot deny, though we should not allow it to rule us. Instead, we keep looking to that "holy" place within our hearts where God wants to live. "Seek first the kingdom of God" (Matthew 6:33). That’s true for us an individuals, as well as for us united together as the body of Christ. "The kingdom of God," Jesus said, "is within you" (Luke 17:21).

©2003 Peter L. Haynes
(you are welcome to borrow and, where / as appropriate, note the source - myself or those from whom I have knowingly borrowed.)

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