For Epiphany 6

Text: Mark 7:1-23

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” 

He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

“‘These people honor me with their lips,

    but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain;

    their teachings are merely human rules.’

You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” 

And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) 

He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Reflection

One of my clergy friends told me about a children’s sermon she recently preached. She told the children about how Jesus wants our hearts. One kid responded, as truly only a child can, with sheer horror. The child’s response was something like, “But I don’t want Jesus to take my heart! I need it to live!” She proceeded to explain that what she meant was that Jesus wants to live in our hearts. A comical moment, no doubt. I can imagine the chuckles of the congregation. But when I think about the child’s response of fear, thinking that Jesus wanted to literally take his heart out of his body, (a la Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), I can’t help but think, maybe that response isn’t as far out there as we think. See, Jesus is actually concerned about our hearts – and what lives within them. And the work that Jesus wants to do with our hearts can be downright painful and scary.

In the text this week, Jesus and the Pharisees hash it out over what it means to be “pure.” The Pharisees become quite concerned when they see that some of Jesus’ disciples are not observing the practice of ceremonial handwashing before eating. To us, this might seem like it’s not a very big deal, but it was significant to the Pharisees. It was an important way that they showed their commitment to recognizing the blessings of God. The practice of ceremonial washing before eating was a traditional way that many Jews showed honor to God. It was an act they took seriously, even if it wasn’t technically Law, per se.

When that group of Pharisees see some of Jesus’ disciples failing to conform to this practice, to them, it felt like an affront to God, and they wanted to prove that Jesus was, in fact, a heretical teacher. Jesus’ response, however, is pure gold. The Pharisees are trying to indict Jesus by accusing him of circumventing the Law; Jesus’ response holds the mirror right up to the Pharisees to show them their hypocrisy in idolizing their own traditions to the point that they are actually the ones violating the Law! (This is what is going on in the whole conversation where Jesus quotes Isaiah and then talks about honoring one’s mother and father and the use of Corban, which was a practice of giving one’s assets to the Temple, assets that may no longer be used for the family’s, including elderly parents’, care).

Jesus continues on and moves the conversation to address the heart of the matter (pun intended). He shifts the conversation from outward practices and traditions to the content of the heart. He says, what actually defiles a person is what comes from within the heart. In other words, we can do or say all of the right things, but when we have hatred, or malice, or selfish desires in our heart, we, in fact, violate the Law. We might have all of the “right traditions, go through the “right motions” in worship, or even keep the letter of the Law, but those things are not what make us good or righteous. Jesus talks extensively about this very idea in his Sermon on the Mount.

(Please do note that in Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees that he is not making a blanket condemnation of all tradition or outward acts of piety. Rather, he is condemning the ones that circumvent the heart of the Law and become idols in themselves. Sometimes traditions can teach and train our hearts in the ways of Jesus.)

What is in our hearts matters. We might be very practiced at saying and doing all of the right things, but if, in our hearts, as Christians, we are filled with selfishness or hatred or lust for power, then we are no different from the Pharisees in today’s text. This is not to say that our actions don’t matter. They do. And in fact, goodness, kindness, love, and the other fruits of the Spirit are things that should flow out of a heart that is being changed. Jesus does want out hearts, but he wants them so that our whole lives and world can be truly transformed.

Jesus holds up a mirror to each of us. What do you see today?

Ponder

o   What words, phrases, or images from the text speak to you? What thoughts or feelings do they evoke?
o   What do you see in the mirror?
o   What traditions do you hold on to? What traditions have helped cultivate your heart in positive ways? What traditions might you need to leave behind for the sake of the gospel?

Challenge

Get a mirror. Look into it. Have a conversation with yourself about what you see – not physically, but spiritually. What might God be wanting to do in your heart today?

And/or

Think about someone (whether it is an individual, or perhaps even a group of people) to whom your heart has been hardened. Simply spend some time in prayer for that person or group of people – not prayers that they might change, but that God might meet their every need.

Prayer

God, you want to work in my heart. I give it over to you, to tend it, to prune it, to plant new seeds within it. Tear out the weeds of selfishness and fear and hatred. Make me new. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

-Cindy+

Epiphany 5

Text: Mark 6:1-29

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.

“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.

These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”

They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”

Others said, “He is Elijah.”

And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.”

But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”

For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married. For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him. 

Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests.

The king said to the girl, “Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you.” And he promised her with an oath, “Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.” 

She went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?”

“The head of John the Baptist,” she answered.

At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: “I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”

The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. On hearing of this, John’s disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

Reflection

If I had to sum up this week’s text in one word, it would be “rejection.” First, Jesus experiences rejection in his hometown, where no one can believe this little kid they watched grow up is now this miracle worker, teaching with authority. They knew him when he was still in diapers, for goodness’ sake! Then, as Jesus sends his disciples out, he gives them advice about what to do if they are rejected. “Shake the dust off your feet!” he says. And then, in the third, and longest, segment of the text, we hear of the beheading of John the Baptist. If that isn’t a story of rejection, I don’t know what is. That third story is what we’ll be considering today.

Herod Antipas was the ruler of the Galilee. While he didn’t have the title of “king,” he was known as the Tetrarch (which means “ruler of a quarter”). He ruled Galilee as a client state of Rome, meaning that all of Herod’s power was derived from and subordinate to Rome. Herod’s own rise to power was one fraught with complications and manipulations. He was a younger son of Herod the Great, and it was never intended for him to rise to become a ruler. But after the executions of two older brothers, and another tried to poison his father, Herod Antipas was granted the rule of Galilee and Perea, which had to then be ratified by Caesar Augustus. Perhaps Herod Antipas felt like he had a lot to prove, and he sought to establish himself as a great and powerful ruler like his father.

As one who had grown accustomed to a life of seeking power for himself, Herod Antipas had a habit of taking what he wanted, which included his half-brother’s wife, Herodias. Herod divorced his own wife, in order to marry her. War broke out because of it. John the Baptist was an outspoken critic of Herod Antipas. Ultimately, that outspoken criticism led to his imprisonment and subsequently his beheading.

I don’t know about you, but these days, I am wrestling with Christianity’s relationship to the powers and rulers of the world. John the Baptist did not have any problem calling out and confronting Herod. John was definitely not a supporter of Rome or any of its subordinate institutions. His defiance and his proclamation of sin got him in big time trouble. I can’t help but look at our society today, where many who consider themselves to be a part of Christian evangelicalism appear to try to derive their own power from the “rulers of this world.” I can’t help but think about how many Christians are unwilling to confront corrupt and abusive powers of our leaders when they demonstrate such behavior. John the Baptist knew that his power did not come from Herod or from Rome. His power came from God. I can’t help but wonder, what would John the Baptist be doing and saying if he were living today?

John the Baptist reminds us of the cost of being sent out on God’s mission – it can mean rejection. Herod was afraid of John and the kind of life and kingdom John was proclaiming. He also came to see Jesus as a threat to his power and authority. There is much for us to wrestle with in this text. Where do you find yourself in it today?

Ponder

o   What words, phrases, or images from the text speak to you? What thoughts or feelings do they evoke?
o   How do you understand the relationship between faith and the political sphere? What do you consider to be appropriate or inappropriate interaction?
o   In your understanding, how would you characterize the kingdom of God?

Challenge

Where do you see corruption or injustice in today’s world? Consider how you might be called, as a person of faith, to address it. Take the first steps towards doing so.

And/or

Journal about how the idea of “rejection” sits with you.

Prayer

God, your kingdom is not like any kingdom of this world. Align me with your goodness, with your purpose In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

-Cindy+