PROPER 17, YEAR B

September 1, 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

 

Today’s readings raise an important and interesting theological question: namely, the relationship between divine commandments and human traditions.

 

Three years ago, when I went on my first and only pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I encountered a tradition of the sort described in today’s Gospel. One of the stops on our itinerary was the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Our guide explained to us that before we entered the plaza leading to the Wall itself, we would need to wash our hands at one of several stone fountains at the plaza’s entrance. This handwashing would symbolize our desire to purify our hearts before we entered this holy place. I personally had no problem fulfilling this request, nor, I think, did any of the other pilgrims in our group. Having thus washed my hands, I unexpectedly found placing my hand on the Wall to pray one of the most spiritually moving experiences of that entire pilgrimage.

 

As a priest, every time I celebrate the Eucharist, I engage in a similar ceremonial handwashing, called the lavabo, before I presume to handle the sacred gifts on the altar. And the prayer that I say quietly as the server pours water over my fingertips is, “Wash me from my iniquities, O Lord, and cleanse me from my sins.”

 

So Saint Mark says in today’s Gospel: “For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders.”

 

Yet, in today’s Gospel, Our Lord seems to condemn such practices: “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

 

The first point to note is that the relationship between God’s law and the tradition of the elders was already a topic of debate within Judaism before Jesus came along. In our Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people: “Give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am commanding you to observe … You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take anything away from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God …”

 

By New Testament times, some groups within Judaism, notably the Pharisees, believed that the tradition of the elders—that is, a body of customary practices not found in the Law itself but developed and handed down through the centuries—constituted a kind of fence or guardrail around the Law.  That is, if you succeeded in keeping these little rules and customs of human origin, you were more likely to succeed in keeping the big and really important commandments of God as delivered by Moses on Mount Sinai.

 

Other groups, such as the Sadducees, based in the Temple at Jerusalem, frowned on this accumulation of traditions, and emphasized instead keeping the Law itself, the whole Law, and nothing but the Law. So, in today’s Gospel, Jesus appears to be taking sides in this ongoing Jewish debate.

 

Another key point to note is that Jesus is not in away way condemning or setting aside the Jewish Law itself. His disciples may have been eating with unwashed hands, but we may be certain that they were not eating pork! The debate here is about the right way of keeping the Jewish Law, and not about whether that Law is still in force. The question had not yet occurred to anyone whether Gentile converts to the Christian Church would be required to become Jews, undergo circumcision, and keep all the dietary and other precepts of the Jewish Law. That would become an issue only years later.

 

And I don’t believe that Jesus was necessarily condemning the tradition of the elders either. In several places in the Gospels, we encounter Jesus faithfully observing traditional Jewish customs and practices not found in the Law itself—not least, breaking bread and blessing the cup at a ritual fellowship meal with his disciples on the eve of his death.

 

So, what’s the problem? What provokes Our Lord’s wrath against the scribes and the Pharisees in today’s Gospel? I suspect that the real problem arises when the keeping of human traditions becomes more important than, and then gets in the way of, fulfilling the Law’s commandments in their deepest meaning.

 

Jesus says something along these lines in Chapter 23 of Saint Matthew’s Gospel: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith!”

 

Or, as Saint James says in today’s Epistle: “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves … If any think they are religious, and not do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.” James goes on to describe what it means to keep God’s commandments: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

 

Most of all, I suspect that what really provokes Jesus in today’s Gospel is the challenge: “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” It’s a hostile question, probably asked with the intent of gathering evidence to use against Jesus. Apart from any sanitary purposes, the tradition of washing hands before meals is meant to signify holiness and purity of life, but by weaponizing it, the scribes and Pharisees are subverting and undermining its very meaning and purpose.

 

For example, it’s all well and good for me to have my hands washed at the lavabo before consecrating the bread and wine at the Eucharist. That ritual expresses my desire to approach the sacred mysteries with a pure heart and clean hands. But the minute I give in to the temptation to criticize the priest in the next parish down the road for not doing so, then I defeat the ritual’s whole purpose by making it an occasion of division and disunity.

 

Another example is making the sign of the cross. Some of us find it spiritually helpful; others don’t. But once we start criticizing one another for either doing or not doing it, we violate its deepest meaning, which is our baptismal unity with God the Holy Trinity.

 

In sum, we rejoice in keeping God’s commandments, which are given for our eternal good. And we rejoice in the traditions that have been handed down to us in the Church, which, when rightly used, help us grow in the knowledge and love of God. But we need always to beware of allowing those traditions to become a source of division and contention among us, for then we defeat their very purpose of building up our fellowship in the Body of Christ.