Proper 16
August 23, 2015
Mark 7:1-13
Almighty and merciful God, defend Your Church from all false
teaching and error that Your faithful people may confess You to be the only
true God and rejoice in Your good gifts of life and salvation.
The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were an interesting sort. They
were outwardly pious. They were serious about their faith. They practiced their
religion. They kept the law. They even devised new rules to follow. In order to
promote their self-righteousness. But they only gave lip service to God’s Word.
They were interested in the letter of the Law not the spirit. They were focused
on the rubrics and the mechanics of the law. They were not interested in the
fulfillment of God’s law. They had no need of a Savior. They were convinced
they could earn favor with God. On their own terms.
They followed the law in order to measure their own
righteousness. And to compare themselves to others. Thus, the confrontation
with Jesus’ disciples. They criticized Jesus’ disciples for not following their
traditions.
Godly living comes from a believing heart. Our text begs the
question – which is worse – dirty hands or a dirty heart? Some are obsessed with dirt. They are
super-clean. We might call them “neat freaks.” They are ever dusting, cleaning,
scrubbing, vacuuming. At the same time, they can be dirty on the inside as
their hearts are filled with dirty thoughts, motives, interests. This is the
issue from this morning’s Gospel lesson. The religious of the day were
concerned with washing hands pots, pans but neglected to wash their hearts.
Jesus points out that dirtiness is not from without but from within the heart.
A dirty hearts causes a person to perform dirty acts.
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to
the traditions of man. Mark 7:8
Do not use religion to avoid the demands of faith.
Leadership of Jesus day built for themselves a religion of traditions and
proceeded to use tradition to escape the demands of faith. Jesus has a word for
this – hypocrisy. Whose voice will you listen, the voice of God or the voice of
the church? That was the issue of the 16th Century. Certain reformers
repudiated those traditions that they found contrary to the word of Scripture.
Is the church today in need of another overhaul? Some believe that a
reformation is long overdue. If so, who is to be the arbitrator? At all costs,
we need to avoid making religion our religion.
Traditions can and do change with time. They mask the real
issues. Here religion was used to avoid the demands of religion. Building a
religion of traditions and the use of traditions for tradition’s sake helped
one escape the demands of true religion. Jesus calls this hypocrisy v 6.
Tradition can become a substitute for true religion. Customs and ceremonies
lose their significance and meaning. We do things without knowing why we do
them. Traditions can become like barnacles that gradually grow on a ship and
impede the progress of the boat. In the 16th Century, the issue was the Bible
vs the traditions of the Church. The reformers repudiated traditions contrary
to the Word of God.
1. There is a religion centered in man’s traditions.
A. Traditions can
become a substitute for true religion.
1. The
leadership of Jesus’ day – they were godly, they had it right, they fulfilled
the very letter of the law, including the traditions. They were convinced that
the external cleanliness of their lives, as was exhibited by their ritually
clean hands, pots and pans made them clean before God.
2. When tragedy
strikes our lives, do we not sometimes wonder why God seems to take no notice
of our godly and clean living? After all, we are faithful in our church and
communion attendance. We are regular in our witness and generous with our
offerings. We work hard at our jobs and try to raise our children rightly.
We’re upright and moral people. When such thinking occurs, we make self the
object of our worship, making tradition our religion, and fall into the trap
believing external living in compliance with God’s law somehow makes us clean
and godly before Him.
B. When we live
for tradition – customs and ceremonies can soon lose their significance and
meaning.
1 We may wake
up finding ourselves following practices and ceremonies not even knowing why we
are following them.
2 This happens
when we follow blindly never questioning why we practice such rites, rituals
and ceremonies.
3 Cleanliness
before God must flow from the inside out. From the heart out. It is the
condition of the heart, not the position of the body that concerns our Savior.
It is the state of your heart that determines whether you are clean before God.
We dare not let tradition become like barnacles that
gradually grow on a ship and impedes its progress.
2. We need a religion based on the clear word of the Lord
A. His Word will
not fail. What does His Word teach us? It teaches us that mere ritual, washing,
or clean living will never do. However, His washing will always make us clean.
St. Paul reminds us, “When we were baptized into Christ Jesus, we were baptized
into His death. We were buried with Him by our baptism into death that as
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
should walk in newness of life. For if we were united with Him in a death like
His we will certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”[1]
In Baptism, you were incorporated into the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ is the only one who has ever lived a
perfectly good, clean life before God. He alone is the spotless Lam of God. He
never soiled Himself with the stain of sin, even though He was tempted as you
are.
B. His Word gives
salvation and life. Jesus chose to cover Himself with the entire dirt and filth
of your sin. The Father chose to give Him your punishment for that sin and to
give you His cleanliness. Now in the
waters of Baptism the Father give you Jesus’ clean, holy life as your own and
washes away the stain and dirt of your sin.
This is the Father’s idea of godliness. Not what we can do
to look impressive before God rather it is what He has done for you. The power
of forgiveness in Baptism we are able to really do what the leaders of Jesus’
day and our own hypocritical nature can only mimic – offer a life to God that
is also externally clean and godly.
In Jesus Christ all our actions as God’s people – from the
rituals of our worship to the duties of our daily lives are now clean in God’s
sight. No wonder the Scriptures call Baptism a “washing of regeneration” and “a
renewing of the Holy Spirit.”
Christ alone can make a good heart.
________
Words- 1,189
Passive Sentences –
Readability- 74%
Reading Level -6.4
No comments:
Post a Comment