01 September 2024 - Proper 17, Year B

 

Theme

This week’s readings remind us that what we believe and what we say is less important than what we do - the way we live out our faith. In Mark, Jesus confronts the pharisees and religious leaders about being hypocritical and judging others while they commit grave wrongs themselves. In James, we are encouraged to not only listen to God’s word but to do what it says. In Deuteronomy, the Israelite people are instructed to hear and follow God’s laws. The Psalmist declares that the one who is blameless and righteous will dwell with God.

Scripture Readings

  • Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 - Jesus and some of his disciples are eating food with unwashed hands. The teachers of the Law ask Jesus why his disciples don’t obey the traditions of the Jewish elders? Jesus quotes Isaiah and tells the elders that they are holding onto human traditions and not the commands of God. Jesus states that nothing can defile a person by going into them, but only what comes out of them. It is from within, out of a person’s heart that evil thoughts come.
  • James 1:17-27 - “Every good and perfect gift is from God the Father.” Everyone should be quick to listen and slow to speak and become angry. Get rid of evil and accept the word planted in you. Don’t only listen to the word but do what it says. Those who consider themselves religious need to speak and live in a certain way as to not be worthless.
  • Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9 - Israel must hear and follow the decrees and laws of God. They must not add or subtract from it. Observing God’s laws will show their wisdom and understanding to the nations. They must be careful not to let these laws fade from their hearts.
  • Psalm 15 - The one who walks blameless and does what is righteous will dwell with God.

The Context

After five weeks walking through John 6, we now return to the Gospel of Mark. For the next twelve weeks, we’ll move chronologically through Mark, step by step, nearly all the way to Advent — the beginning of the new church year.

Personal Application

This week’s readings remind us that it is not what enters the body that defiles a person, but rather what comes out of their heart. What enters our body goes into our stomach and exits again later, but what we let into our hearts will come out in the way we live our lives.

In the ancient world, many understood the human heart to be the center of a person’s being and identity as a decision-maker and “doer.” When James says we should avoid being “hearers of the word and not doers,” the idea is that the Gospel should engage both mind and heart, intellect and will. With his repeated references to "the heart” in this week's passage, Jesus trades on this ancient line of thought.

Jesus calls us to beware the traps our own sacred practices can set for our hearts, as well as the ways judgmentalism can defile from within. For Jesus, the heart of the problem is the heart - and that’s where the good news of the Gospel this week is, too. For the prophets don’t only condemn, and neither does Jesus. They also declare the consoling, encouraging promises of God, including the promise that God will soften our hearts, transform our hearts, unmask our hearts, and in the end write a new covenant on our hearts. And little by little, by the merciful grace of God, our life together is this pilgrimage of transformation, this journey on which we are invited, again and again, to embark. For God loves us fiercely and deeply, and has promised to give us new hearts for a new day, so that we might increasingly become not only hearers but also doers of the Word!

What does it mean for God to change your heart? How can you allow God to cleanse your heart so that everything that flows out of you is pure as well?

Communal Application

Since Jesus is a Jew being critiqued by Jewish religious authorities, the criticism is coming from "inside the camp" — and so the most faithful way to translate this story into Christian contexts today is to conceive the critics as Christian religious leaders. The temptation here is to fall into the same trap that ensnares Jesus’ opponents in this story, that is, to point accusingly at the hypocrisy of others rather than examining, addressing, and repenting of our own hypocrisy.

In the end, this isn’t a story about food, or purity practices, or tradition, or being too “legalistic.” This is a story about a contemptuous, manipulative form of hypocrisy. It’s a phenomenon all too common in human community, including but not limited to religious community. How easy it is to look down our noses at each other, to misuse religion, to fashion clever ways to serve ourselves in the name of serving others. And how tempting it is to point out those examples as if from afar, all the while ignoring the logs in our own eyes!

This hypocrisy is what kindles Jesus’ indignation. “You hypocrites!” he says. You develop traditions that effectively "make void the word of God," excusing disobedience by camouflaging it in religious trappings. This is what really gets under Jesus’ skin: using the sacred in the service of desecration. In the name of God — disobeying God’s commands.

How often do we too use God’s name to promote ungodly things? Do we too focus on minor rules to further our own selfish purposes rather than living out God’s major laws of love, justice and mercy for all?

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