Sincerity of Heart

1 Kings 2:1-4, 10-12; Ephesians 6:10-20; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

When I was a kid I can remember some of the visits I made to my Grandma Donelson's house while she lived in Rockford, Illinois. For the most part, these visits to Grandma D's place were fun. But, I remember one particularly long stay I had with her, there.	Now, you have to understand that Grandma was a pretty tolerant person, as Grandmas go. She'd had three boys of her own, so having me around the house wasn't anything new. And I could usually get away with quite a few things while at her house. But, there was one thing that my Grandma Donelson wouldn't tolerate. And that was a foul mouth.

I remember how she caught me using a naughty word, once. Now, I don't know where I had heard the word. Probably from some kid down the street. I didn't even know what it meant. But, when I let go with this word, Grandma Donelson suddenly threw down her knitting, got up out of her rocking chair, took me by the ear into the bathroom, and promptly proceeded to use a bar of ivory soap on my mouth.

After that I was very careful not to say any of those sort of words around my Grandma Donelson, nor around anyone else who might be prone to use a bar of soap.

So, I quickly learned the meaning of a clean mouth, and how much my Grandma wanted me to have one. And, yet, there are other kinds of dirt that a person can be proud of. And, sometimes it is even fun to get dirty.

I remember, when I was at Boy Scout camp in Wisconsin, one summer, when I was about fourteen years old. The camp was situated along a part of the Wolf River where the water moves fast. So, those of us who were good swimmers decided that it might be fun to go up the river a ways and float down through some of the rapids. But, before we got into the river, we discovered a swampy, muddy area. And I'll tell you that we had more fun than a barrel of monkeys picking up big globs of that gooey black stuff and throwing it at each other. By the time we were ready to get into the river we were covered from head to toe with mud, and laughing hysterically. But, by the time we had floated down the wolf river, going through some rapids on the way, we were perfectly clean, once again. So, indeed, unlike a foul mouth that a person should be ashamed of, that was a kind of dirty that was just good clean fun.

Isn't it funny how you're reminded of something like this when you read the Bible? In fact, that's what I was reminded of when I read our gospel lesson for today. For it is in Mark 7 that Jesus is confronted by some of the Pharisees of Israel who had noticed that some of his disciples ate with unclean hands.

I don't know what it is about religious people, but there is the awful tendency among some of them to act out their religiosity by spending an inordinate amount of their time trying to point out the sins of others, especially each other. And this is one of the things that many of the Pharisees of Jesus day were good at. So, our gospel lesson for today is no exception. Folks were saying that Jesus was perfect, that Jesus had never committed any sin. So, these Pharisees felt challenged to find something wrong with him. And, it didn't take long for them to find something! As perfect as Jesus was supposed to be, as sinless as his reputation said he was, they found that his disciples ate with unclean hands. And they were quick to point it out.

Now, Jesus knew that whether a person eats with hands that are washed or unwashed had nothing to do with a person's spirituality; that it was only a tradition, and nothing more. If it hand washing had any value, it was a reminder of how God wanted God's people to have a clean heart. Certainly, hand washing didn't make a clean heart. But the Pharisees were acting like it did.

Do we have any rules or regulations that are like this that are not from Scripture, but from our tradition and culture? It has only been about twenty years, for instance, that men have been able to come to church without wearing a suit and not feel out of place. Before that time, if a man came to church without a suit or a tie, he was looked at as though he was from Mars. Or, there are women here who can remember how just a few years ago any woman who walked into church wearing pants was thought to be somewhat strange. But, now, a person can come to church wearing just about anything that covers his or her body and feel accepted. And perhaps that's a sign of how far we've come to taking Jesus seriously when he said, "Nothing outside of a person can make that person unclean." Indeed, I think most of us can agree that we'd much rather meet a righteous man in a pair of bermuda shorts and a T-shirt than a bigot in a tuxedo, any day.

I think Jesus would have felt the same way when he told the Pharisees of his day that they only used the traditions of their culture to create pious facades to cover up their sin and to hide the fact that they failed when it came to obeying the real intent of God's commands.

There were some Pharisees, for instance, who wanted to show the world how pious they were not only by supporting their parents lavishly in their old age, but by supporting the Temple, as well. So, using a loophole in the Law of Moses, they would give just a little bit to their parents and then tell their parents that the rest of the money they would have gotten was going to the Temple, instead. It was like telling a man who needed money for a doctor that a gift had been sent in his name to Oral Roberts.

And, so, when the Pharisees told Jesus that his disciples ate without washing their hands, he responded with by showing them their hypocrisy. And then he told them, "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a person 'unclean.'"

Jesus gave us the definition of the truly spiritual person, the truly clean person, when he said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength; and love your neighbor as yourself." For Jesus purity of heart and soul came from inside, as well.

And we need to ask ourselves, from time to time, how we're doing. Do we try to keep a dapper exterior while our hearts and souls look pretty shabby towards God? Do we talk about world hunger and clean our plates, remembering the hungry little children across the sea, and forget to send the check? Do we talk about ecology and saving the planet and then throw our newspapers and tin cans away in a plastic garbage bag? Do we have all sorts of Bibles sitting on our living room shelf as reminders of our righteousness, but forget to use them everyday?

May God help us toward purity of heart. May we love him with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourself. Amen.