Proper 17 Year B

Song of Solomon 2:8-13, Psalm 45:1-2,7-10, James 1:17-27, Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23

Hands.

Hands are a way to interact with the world around us. Hands touch things and move them around. Hands extend greetings to one another, offer peace, and accept the body and blood of Christ. Our hands show our history.

Take a few seconds to look at your hands. 

Are they rough from many days of hard work? Are they soft from being well taken care of? Do they have scars that remind you of times that you will never forget? Can you remember the first time they held your child or your best friend’s hand?

Our hands are easily seen by others, and that is where our Gospel starts today. Jesus is questioned because his disciples do not wash their hands before they eat. The Pharisees are concerned about this because their tradition tells them that they must wash their hands before consuming food. They are bothered that Jesus and his disciples do not wash their hands, not because those who eat with unclean hands might get sick from the dirt and germs on their hands, but because they are breaking tradition.

In the Episcopal Church we are big on tradition. 

I can imagine a similar conversation taking place between long time church members when they see someone new doing something out of the ordinary but hopefully we would teach this new person our tradition before harshly questioning them about their practices. Fortunately for us as Episcopalians, our faith is not solely built on tradition. From the time our ancestor, The Church of England, was founded we have built our faith on tradition, reason, and scripture. The great theologian and scholar Richard Hooker wrote a seven volume book entitled The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity in which he explains in great detail how tradition, reason, and scripture work together to help us come together as a church to experience God. Although many of the services and traditions of our church have not changed in hundreds or even thousands of years we do not follow them blindly. We look at our traditions through the lens of reason and scripture to make sure that we continue to practice in the way that God is leading us.

Back to today’s Gospel…

    

As usual Jesus turns the situation 180 degrees. Rather than continuing to talk the Pharisees about hands, he talks to them about the things that really defile a person. Jesus is very clear, “there is nothing outside of a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

Huh, no dancing around that. 

Jesus tells the Pharisees and us that it is not the traditions we keep or the things we eat or the friends we have or the things we touch that defile us; it is what we say and how we treat other people that defile us.

There are many ways in which we say or do things that hurt others. Each one of us is the beloved of God and so we hurt our relationship with God when we hurt those around us. 

In a few minutes we will confess our sins together. I invite you to think about those who you have hurt through word or action this week and to seek forgiveness in your heart during that time. Then I invite you to experience the rest of the service in a new way, recognizing our history in one another’s hands through the peace and in the sharing of communion.