Mark 7:1 8, 14 15, 21 23         Pentecost 12, 2006         September 3, 2006     Rev. Laird Duran

In the children’s sermon this morning, I held out and apple, and asked can you tell if an apple is good on the inside by what it looks like on the outside? No. I’ve had several apples that looked good outside, but were rotten on the inside. There’s a saying that you can’t judge a book by its cover. The same is true for people like you and me. Can you tell if a person is a good person by what they look like? The problem is, the world makes all kinds of judgments based on our external appearance.

Take for example, our health care system. At the time I wrote this, I just visited a woman who is very sick in the hospital. She needs very expensive treatments to keep her alive. Of course if she were really rich, she could just pay for services. But if she is like most of us, the deciding factor in the delivery of her healthcare is the kind of insurance card she has in her purse.

It’s like the commercial for the Capital One Card. “What’s in your wallet?” Of course if you apply for that card, they will make a judgment about you based on your credit score. The credit score takes into account your employment, income, your marital status, and so on. These external factors will make a big difference in her life.

We live in a culture where we are judged by the clothes we wear, the car we drive, where we went to school, and who our parents are. For example, when I ride with the police, and we pull a driver over. We can log onto the database, and find out instantly about past infractions, convictions anywhere in the country right from the computer in the police cruiser.

Our driver’s license tells about us. It lists our height, weight, color of our skin, and all the addresses we’ve had over the past ten years. People can tell a lot by the way we dress, talk, the languages we speak, even our body language all make a huge difference to others. When we stop someone with a record, we have to be extra cautious because it could be dangerous.

I remember talking to a woman who worked for a local dating service. She would counsel her clients about improving their speech, their posture, their haircut, their own self image. These exterior things make a huge difference to those who are looking for a relationship and meet someone.

What we have done, how we look, talk, and how much wealth we have is important to life in the world. But these things are not important to how God sees us. God does not judge us by what’s in our wallet. God does not care about our height, our age, weight, color of our eyes or skin. What God cares about is what’s in our hearts, our very souls.

Our gospel text talks about the Pharisees. The Pharisees of Jesus day had a religion where they had to be born Jewish. Then they had rules about how to look right, act right, do right, and who to be with in order to be pure before God. They were so pure, they would not even allow themselves to touch those who were considered impure. Washing their hands was not done out of health concerns. It was done to keep them pure from all the sinners and dirty people in the world. They taught that the more conscious you became of your own purity, the more zealously you protect it against the impure, and dirty, sick people. Their idea of a godly life was all about exterior appearances.

Jesus let sick people touch him, and he healed them! The diseased and disabled were ritually unclean under Pharisaical law. They were barred from offering sacrifices in the Temple. They were unacceptable in the sight of God. The Pharisees were so concerned with ritual cleanliness that they washed themselves after passing through the marketplace, because they had been in the presence of dirty people. Yet Jesus wasn't simply in the presence of dirty and sick people and sinners. He touched them. He let them touch him. And everyone who received his touch was healed. The point is that God’s grace includes tax collectors and sinners, the people whom the world calls dirty.

Jesus taught something different about the kingdom of God. Jesus welcomed all the outcasts and sinners, prostitutes, the poor, the hungry and the children. And he showed them God’s kingdom was available to them. For Jesus, the godly life was characterized by an increasing awareness of the mystery of God’s love, which led to an increasingly humble view of yourself. For Jesus, the more aware you became of God’s love for you, once you knew God forgives your sins, the more forgiving you became and the more you would love God.

For instance, Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” He didn’t include any exceptions for those who violated the rules, nor those who do not have the right credentials. Jesus even taught us to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek, and pray for those who persecute or steal from us. For Jesus, forgiving and loving was a sign of the kingdom he began. And that love for God and our neighbor would naturally lead to a desire to produce others who would share the good news.

Even though he was God’s royal Son, Jesus humbled himself and became dirty and bloody on his cross. They accused him of being a traitor to his own people like a tax collector and sinner, and hung on the cross. But God gave us the cross was given for the forgiveness of human sin. The Pharisee’s didn’t need forgiveness, as long as the stayed clean.

But there’s another difference between the Pharisees and Jesus. As our reading said, the Jews had to wash their hands before they ate. This was before the days of running water in every house. The common people had to carry all their water, often for miles every day. Now it’s good for us to wash before every meal, but for people who did not have running water in their homes, that regulation was impossible. In order to show sympathy for the poor, Jesus and his disciples ignored the tradition.

Jesus' taught when the performance of the ritual or practice excluded the poor, then the ritual itself was wrong. When the ritual became rigid and inflexible and burdensome to those who were lock out, it was not necessary. When the ritual hampers the ability of the powerless to hear the good news, the ritual needs to be ignored. It’s a lesson we, the Lutheran Church needs to heed today, as well as all Christian churches.

An old preacher said that years ago, following the regular Sunday service at a small country church, a woman lingered near the back of the building. Obviously, she had some agenda. She confessed that her 18-year-old daughter had given birth to a child out of wedlock. She had this affair with one of the hired hands on the ranch. She added reluctantly, "Well, it should be baptized, shouldn't it?" The pastor said that he would discuss the matter with the church board. After a lengthy debate, the board voted to approve the baptism. The baptism was set to take place the Sunday before Christmas. The church was full. This congregation had the custom of asking this question as part of the baptismal service: "Who will stand with this child?" At that point, friends, sponsors, and the family would stand up. The pastor and elders were worried that no one but the young woman's mother would stand up with her. When the question was asked, it looked as if their worst fears were being realized. Then one man stood up. It was one of the elders, a man not known for his compassion or sentimentality. Then some of the other elders stood, followed by a young couple who had recently joined the church. Soon, a number of people were standing with the young mother. Tears of joy coursed down her cheeks. The scripture lesson read earlier in the service was from 1 John 4: "See what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God . . . If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us." The folks in that small church came to understand that the Gospel is not about drawing lines, but about helping all people see God’s kingdom through us. To Jesus, it doesn’t matter which card is in our wallet, or who our parents are. Whatever prior record we have of convictions, citations, or infractions will be forgiven, when we commit ourselves to his love and grace. His grace is the only way into his kingdom.

Next week, we’ll be receiving new members into our church, and all of them were baptized Lutherans. Baptism is one of the means of grace that God gives us. It is God’s declaration that we belong to the kingdom, and the Holy Spirit is given. While it’s always good to receive new members who have already been baptized, I have to ask, what is preventing us from receiving others who are not yet baptized like us. We aren’t we receiving the un-baptized, the poor, the sick, the gentiles of our culture who don’t have the right kind of card in their wallet?

Now it’s out turn. Jesus is about to offer himself to us, under the form of bread and wine. The good news is that Jesus will not ask us what’s in our wallet or who are parents are. To him, you are a child of God, who needs forgiveness and sin and the hope of the kingdom he has begun. Now he invites you just as you are to come and eat the bread of life and cup of salvation. Let us live each day thanking God for all Jesus has done for us. And let us live in the house of the Lord today and forever. Amen

Amen