Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
We Episcopalians love our traditions. We really do. After all, we have over 500 years of tradition since old Henry declared that the Pope would no longer have any say in the affairs of the Church in England. That’s a lot! We have things like the Book of Common Prayer, a document that defines our worship and our beliefs all at once. We have heroes like Thomas Cranmer, Robert Hooker, Samuel Seabury, Joseph Kemper, and Daniel Tuttle. We absolutely love this stuff. We love the candles, the hymns, the Prayer Book, all the traditions that make us uniquely Episcopalian.
To be totally honest, those traditions are something that attracted me to the Episcopal Church. The church I was raised in didn’t do much with tradition. We really weren’t taught the history of the church. Learning the history and traditions behind what we do in our worship made things come alive for me.
The Pharisees loved their traditions, too. The main difference between the Pharisees and their opponents, the Sadducees, was that the Pharisees believed in an oral tradition, not just the written Torah. The Sadducees stuck strictly to the Torah as it had been written down. No additions, no subtractions.
Here’s an example: there’s nothing in the Torah that says that everyone has to wash their hands before eating. There was a commandment that the priests and Levites had to wash their hands and their feet before entering the tabernacle, but that’s it. Just the priests and Levites, and only when entering the tabernacle. By tradition, this had been extended to include everyone washing to avoid defiling their food. It was a tradition, not a commandment.
In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees want to know why Jesus disciples aren’t washing their hands. Jesus calls them hypocrites, and with good reason!
Unfortunately, the lectionary sometimes leaves out sections of a passage that might help in understanding the reading. In a portion of the Gospel that’s not included this morning, Jesus takes exception to the Pharisee’s use of the doctrine of “corban,” which just means “dedicated to God.” Once something was dedicated to God it couldn’t be used for anything else. Evidently, some Pharisees were designating some of their property as “corban” in order to get around using it to take care of their elderly parents.
I know, right? That’s kind of despicable, and definitely hypocritical. Jesus calls them out for using their tradition to get around obeying the Torah commandment of honoring your father and mother. According to Jesus, if your tradition disagrees with Torah, your tradition is wrong.
Now, we, as Gentiles and Christians, don’t live under Torah. So, what might this passage mean to us in the 21st Century?
I would suggest just this: That when your tradition gets between people and Jesus Christ, your tradition is wrong.
When you insist that people adhere to your traditions in order to be admitted to the Body of Christ, your tradition is wrong.
When you use human-devised doctrines to try to exclude people from the love of God, your doctrine is wrong.
The Church has all too often been guilty of excluding people because of tradition, often tradition that masquerades as theology.
For years, we excluded women from the ordained clergy because of tradition that masqueraded as theology. We’re doing much better, but that work isn’t done yet.
For years, we excluded LGBTQ+ people from the altar because of tradition masquerading as Bible scholarship. Again, we’re doing better, but that work, alas, is not done yet either.
Jesus said that it’s not what goes into the physical body that defiles. It’s what comes out. Since the Church is the Body of Christ in the world today, I think we can safely say that it’s not who comes into the Church — the Body of Christ — that defiles. It’s what the Church is seen to put out that might defile it. When we use tradition to reject anyone, we are putting out a very definite message that we value our traditions are more than we value people.
In our Baptismal Covenant, which we will reaffirm next Sunday as a part of the sacrament of Baptism, we will promise to “seek and serve Christ in all persons” and to “respect the dignity of every human being.”
We can’t do those things unless we accept all persons.
Every human being.
Everyone.
Without exception.
Let us pray that we continue to have the courage to do just that and to make God’s house a house of prayer for all people.
Without exception.
Amen.
Becoming Dominican 