Guest email preacher - Rev John Howell
Sermon P13 Taupo 3 Sep 06
Bible reading: Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23
“Thus he declared all foods clean.” Mk 7:19
This story is not about hygiene. It is in fact a very disturbing story for the church. It is a very disturbing story for the secular and sacred world. It is a very disturbing story for rule makers, whether in government, or in quality control, the safety industry, and all those who write laws, regulations, codes of conduct. It is a disturbing story for the Book of Order Committee of Assembly. It is also a very disturbing story for any organisation, which wants to define or shape what it is to be human. In the global scene, it is a disturbing story for when politicians become defacto directors of the corporation, and politics becomes business.
“Thus he declared all foods clean.” That is the clue to understanding this story.
It begins with a perfectly valid and reasonable request. Why don’t the disciples wash their hands before they eat? The Pharisees have the public health authorities on their side here, as anyone who has come to the meetings about Bird flu will know. Wash your hands. It is a basic rule of hygiene. Why don’t the disciples wash their hands?
But this story is not about hygiene. Verse 3 tells us:
For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders… (Mark 7:3 NRSV)
Now that tells us something. Jesus was upsetting the traditions of the elders.
The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" verse 5.
“Defiled hands? Defiled, not just dirty but defiled? This is not about hygiene, this is not about organic food, this is about ritual purity.
Jesus goes on to say, that he found the Pharisees hypocritical. Their rules got in the way of looking after their father or mother, a clear breach of the law from Moses of the need to honour your father and mother. And you do many things like this, he tells them.
What he seems to be saying here, is that the law of Moses, and the traditions that have flowed from that, were written for a purpose, and the rules of the Pharisees are blocking that purpose. If I may take the example of the game rugby. If you have too many rules, then the game becomes one of penalty kicks, and the best kicker of penalties wins the game. But game does not flow, the ball is not run, all you hear is the ref’s whistle. The game can be stifled by too many rules. What’s the point of playing the game if there are too many rules, and the rules start conflicting with each other?
However Jesus is not telling the Pharisees to go away and consolidate or rewrite the rule book. This story is not about hygiene, and it is not about rules. You see, what the Pharisees had ended up with were dietary regulations and hygiene rules that were about purity and exclusiveness. The kosher diet and the traditions defined who could come to the table to eat, and who could not. Gentiles could not eat with Jew. The purity laws were in fact a gate. You can’t eat with us, the laws said. Slam goes the gate! And that is what this story is really about.
“Thus he declared all foods clean”, is about opening the gate that keeps people out. What defiles is not about eating, it is about the kind of person we are, and that is decided on what is inside of us. It comes from the human heart – our thinking, our feelings, our empathy with others, our ability to form relationships. Look inside a person.
Any rule, tradition, or organisational pre-entry requirement, that is placed in the way to be a barrier to life, is what Jesus is speaking about. “Thus he declared all foods clean.”
What defiles us is not the colour of our skin, or our sexuality, whether we have money or status, where we were born, or whether we speak English or not. Purity or holiness or the lack of, cannot be established by a label - you have to look at the heart of a person. I believe this is important to remember when we write rules and regulations about those who are allowed to become leaders in our church. “Thus he declared all foods clean.”
“Thus he declared all foods clean.” This story will be difficult for exclusive brethren. I am thinking of the church that calls itself Exclusive Brethren, and also those organisations that act and behave like exclusive brethren. It seems to be a common factor in our ability as human beings, to organise ourselves in such a way that we become exclusive brethren.
I invite you to think about how we define our humanity. What is it to be human? Is our humanity defined or defiled by the colour of our skin, or where we were born, or what our sexuality is? Is our humanity defined or defiled by whether we are ritually pure? Are only Christians the ones that are human?
Is what Jesus is saying that the problem with religion, and the problem with churches, and the tendency with any group, is that it can become like the exclusive brethren? That we need somehow for our protection to have purity rituals that control who is in the club or not?
Our world is also full of organisations that are like exclusive brethren. If we think about how we can live in a global society, the difficulty for the WTO or the United Nations is that the world is full of exclusive clubs. Take for example the negotiations around trade. The Doha round of talks has been called off by the inability to get those nations with power and control to open their doors to new trading arrangements. The exclusive brethren of the wealthy and powerful want to keep it that way. “Thus he declared all foods clean.”
During the week the two journalists kidnapped in Gaza were released. Just before the New Zealander, Olaf Wiig was released along with the American Steve Centanni, a video appeared with them proclaiming that they had converted to Islam, and had new names. Olaf said later in an interview, that he felt that for the time when he was in captivity, he would do everything he could to form a constructive relationship with his captors. So he read the Koran, and then went along with the confession of a conversion to Islam.
Now I am not an expert on Islam, but I would have thought this was fundamentally in conflict with what Islam is about. No major religion believes that kidnapping is the way to convert people. What defiles a person is not what is outside, but what is inside. It is your mind and your spirit that makes you a religious person. And a commitment to faith, if it is to survive and become part of your life, cannot be forced on a person. This is one of the paradoxes of faith. Faith comes from within. The same applies to freedom. If a person is to be free in the complete sense, then the very freedom we are wanting demands the person can choose. Faith and freedom cannot be imposed by external force - as the coalition for the willing in Iraq have so ably demonstrated. You cannot kidnap a mind. You can frighten a mind, you can intimidate a mind, but you cannot kidnap a mind.
“Thus he declared all foods clean.” “Thus he declared all foods clean.” As I said at the beginning, this is a disturbing story. It affirms a common humanity, and it affirms a common spirituality. It reminds us of a phobia to be exclusive brethren. Being exclusive is not the gospel. You cannot corner the market. That is why running the nation or running the world as a business strategy is in fundamental contrast with the openness and the inclusiveness of the gospel. When corporations rule the world, they will want to corner the market, and they will want to kidnap us into their way of thinking.
“Thus he declared all foods clean.” It is a disturbing story. | 
