Disciple – Clean & Unclean

“Clean & Unclean” – Sermon by Caleb Campbell

Good morning, church. Yes, this is a flower. And yes, today is Mother’s Day. And I hope that that’s not news to you. Because it is today, and if you are feeling caught off guard that it is, in fact, Mother’s Day, you perhaps do not have a flower ready. But we’ve got your back. Here at Desert Springs Bible Church, we’re all about looking out for each other. And for those of you who perhaps forgot that you were supposed to pick up flowers today, I want to inform you that out on the patio after service, our Adventure Kids Ministry will be selling flowers. And all the proceeds will help send our Adventure Kids to camp. As many of you know, as inflation has gone up, the cost of camps continues to go up. We want to make sure that every kid who wants to go to camp gets to go to camp. So, buy some flowers today on the patio. Help send a kid to camp and save your own bacon. How’s that sound today?

The other thing I wanted to point out with this flower is this deep truth: We are a people of tradition. We are a people of ritual or a people of ceremony. We are a people of rites and routines. This flower, for me, at least as I think about today, has been a reminder that not only do I have to get some flowers, but also that the compulsion comes from a space that’s deep within us. We are a people of tradition. No matter who you are or where you’re coming from, we practice traditions. Sometimes we do so consciously, and sometimes we’re participating in practices, traditions, ceremonies, subconsciously. Whichever the case, we are a people of traditions.

And so, here’s my question for you today: Are the traditions, routines, rites, ceremonies that you practice life-giving or life-taking? Are the routines, rites, rituals and traditions that you participate in something that leads to human flourishing or exclusion? The traditions that you hold onto and value dearly — are they leading to the glorifying of God or the glorification of the self? As we explore our text today, I hope that you’ll meditate on those questions. Are the traditions that I hold life-giving or life-taking? Are they something that invites other people in or something that keeps people out?

We are a people of traditions, and today we’re going to continue in a study of the Gospel of Mark. We’ll be in Chapter 7 today, and we’re going to look at a time where Jesus engages in a confrontation with some religious leaders about tradition, rituals and rites, and then actually kind of peels back some layers as to how these rituals, rites and traditions are used to exclude people. And then we’re going to get to one of the most difficult sayings of Jesus in the whole Bible, in my opinion. If that’s not exciting to you for Mother’s Day – I hope it is — because we’re not changing it now. You know this isn’t an optional thing. So, Mark chapter 7.

For those of you joining us online, if you have a print Bible, I’d encourage you to grab one. Or just go to bible com. We’re using the Christian Standard Bible. And for those of you joining in the room, we have it printed out in the handout, but also we would love for you to use a print Bible if you’ve got one — or a digital Bible. Whatever you have available.

Again, Mark Chapter 7 verses one through to 30. I think we’ll get through it today. We’ll see how it goes. OK, so I’m going to read through this. Remember that we’re thinking about our traditions, our rites, our rituals — how they are used to either give life or take life, how they’re used to include or exclude. Let’s take a look at Jesus here. He’s going to have a confrontation with some religious leaders.

“The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is unwashed.” (Verses 1-2)

First of all, who’s coming at Jesus? The Pharisees and some of the scribes. And they’re coming all the way from Jerusalem. OK, so these are religious elites. These are people who know their Bible — what we call the Old Testament. They knew their scriptures. But they also had, you know, power structures and traditions and religious ceremonies and rites — much of which was really good. But these homies come down all the way from Jerusalem. So, you’re expecting some sort of real important thing is the reason that they came all the way from Jerusalem to observe the disciples. This is like people flying in from headquarters. OK, so the leadership is flying in from headquarters all the way to catch Jesus disciples doing what? They were eating bread. That’s not scandalous, is it?

They’re eating bread with what? Now hold onto your seats again. What would warrant these homies to fly all the way down from headquarters? They were observing that some — but not all — some of the disciples were eating bread with unclean, that is, unwashed hands. You know that you’re supposed to wash your hands before you eat. I really hope that you do. I hope that those who work in our hospitality ministry faithfully every week do so, as they prepare the coffee and the doughnuts. But do you think that washing hands warrants the Pharisees and scribes, the religious elite, to fly in all the way from headquarters? Do you think that this is about hygiene? What do you think? Is this about hygiene? This isn’t about hygiene. This is about religious tradition. This is about a rite or ritual.

“(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of their elders; …” (Verse 3)

So, watch this. Mark is going to clue you in on it. Mark says the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing. That’s what it’s about. It’s not about hygiene, it’s about that ceremony, keeping with the traditions of their elders, right? So, they had a tradition that before you eat you would ceremonially clean your hands. It’s good to wash your hands. This is not an anti-hand-washing sermon. That’ll be next week, but today what we’re just focusing on is there’s a ceremony, and the ceremony was good. The ceremony came out of what we call the Old Testament. It came out as scripture. It wasn’t for everybody.

Actually, it was just for the priests. When they would enter a holy space, they would do ceremonial washing. Again, washing again was not about hygiene; it was about the heart. The ceremony was meant to remind the priests of who they were and how they were, and who God is and how God is. In other words, I’m an imperfect broken vessel coming into the presence of the divine. I’m not fit for that. I’m not in and of myself. I’m not able to stand before God face to face, but God provided this means of the ceremonial washing. So, I if I were the priest, I would be reminding myself again. It would be shaping me, reminding me that there are a lot of things in this world that are not godly. I’m going to wash that off of me ceremonially, or figuratively, before I enter into the presence of God. You guys with me so far? This was what the priests were to do.

Now in Jesus ‘s day, the Pharisees and scribes, they kind of took that idea, which is a beautiful idea … Have you guys read Leviticus lately? Is Leviticus your favorite book of the Bible? OK, I want you to put it in your top ten, and here’s why. If you just think deeply about our normal lives, we are people of tradition and ritual. And in Leviticus you have a lot of tradition, ritual and ceremonial things happening. If you just kind of peel back the layers, you’ll notice that these ceremonies and rituals were shaping the hearts of the individuals and shaping the heart of the community. And so, there’s this beautiful ritual. But the problem was is that the Pharisees, at least in this scene, seem to have taken this beautiful ceremony and then projected it onto everybody. Notice the language: Nobody is allowed to eat unless everybody does what was instructed for the priest to do. So, they took this tradition, this drama, but then it got misused in a way that would keep some people out and invite others in. Then, you’ve got Mark here explaining why.

“… and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.” (Verse 4)

Then it says when they came from the marketplace. So again, Pharisees, the Jewish people, they do not eat unless they have washed again, not a hygiene ceremony. And there are many other customs they have received and keep — like what? What else do you think they washed? Like the washing of cups. We could see how that works. If we’re going to wash our hands, but we’re going to put our lips on our cup, so let’s ceremonially clean the cup. That kind of makes sense, right? And pitchers, because what’s in them goes into the cup. And then kettles, because their contents also go in a cup. And then of course, dining couches. Is everybody seeing what I’m doing here?

I could imagine cleaning one’s hands. I could imagine cleaning a cup. I could imagine cleaning a pitcher. I could imagine cleaning a kettle. But how do you ceremonially clean a couch? Now let’s just notice that this has really gotten interesting. Evidently, some of the people in Jesus’s day were literally dragging their couches out into the ceremonial cleaning pool. So just imagine, you’re in your house, you’re having a cup of coffee, reading the paper. Someone in your house says, “What’s that noise?” Oh, it’s Jim. He’s ceremonially going to be cleaning his couch today. Oh, OK. I think that this is getting to a point where the tradition maybe has gotten a little bit out of hand. Can we agree?

“The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, ‘Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?’” (Verse 5)

The Pharisees and scribes ask Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to our traditions? Why don’t they live according to our traditions?” Now, you already know that this is baked into every culture. For those of you who grew up in America, do you remember when you went to your first baseball game or football game? It’s not written anywhere that I could tell — I was not informed of it, but before the game actually started, something happened. There was like a little a tune that was familiar to me, and some words that I didn’t quite understand. “Oh say, can you see? By the dawn’s early …” And I’m just sitting there with my hat on, right? How come no one informed me of this?

This happens before every ball game here in America. And here’s the deal. This is a tradition, this standing with hat off, hand over heart, singing of the national anthem. It’s a tradition, right? And here’s how I know that ritual is so powerful, because when we all stand up to do the song and someone isn’t doing it, what’s everybody doing? “Can you believe this person? Their hat is on!” Now where is it written that it’s a sign of respect, a transcendent truth, that to stand with hat off at the national anthem is a sign of respect and honor? We don’t write that stuff down. We just do it.

How about holidays? Have you have you ever experienced holidays with other people? I remember when my wife and I got married, we were celebrating Christmas together and I remember that her family just did Christmas the wrong way. They did so many wrong things. Christmas Eve obviously is Peter Piper night. OK, this group of people ate fish. This is not the way we do things around here. What’s that? That’s ritual. That is the tradition of the elders. Are we not a traditional people? Are we not a people of ritual? So, here’s the question: Are our rituals life-giving or life-taking? Are our rituals God- glorifying or self-glorifying?

And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy to you hypocrites, as it is written ‘This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me, but in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.” (Verses 6-7)

Let’s keep going. They’re accusing Jesus of having disciples who eat bread with unclean hands. He answers them, “Isaiah prophesied …. *** TV timeout. Isaiah is a prophet that the scribes and Pharisees would have venerated. He was respected, and they had read and heard the Isaiah scroll before. They knew this text. I think this is conjecture, but I don’t think that they ever appropriated the following words to themselves. They knew the Bible. They knew what Isaiah was about. ***

Jesus quotes Bible at them and expects them to know that He’s going to apply it in such a way that they say, “Thou art the one?” He says: Isaiah prophesied correctly about you.

Is hypocrisy an issue for religious people? This idea of hypocrisy is to say or have an outward appearance of one way, but have the inside be the opposite way — not be a whole person and to some extent put on a mask or present myself in a way that is different than what’s going on inside. Remember this is Isaiah who He’s quoting here to the Pharisees: “This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me when they worship”

If I could do the baseball national anthem analogy, this is taking a beautiful tradition of standing for the national anthem at the baseball game and saying “God said to do it”. You see? Jesus is not anti-tradition. Jesus is not anti-ritual. You see it in scripture that He engages with a lot of His people’s rituals and traditions. But taking a ritual, tradition, ceremony, cultural expression, and elevating it to “thus sayeth the Lord” — that’s the problem. Are we tracking?

So, when I looked at my wife’s family on our first Christmas, I was having an internal struggle because what was going on inside of me was “They’re not doing it the right way.” Rather, what I failed to see was “Well, I have traditions, ceremonies and rites, and they do, too. And if I’m entering their space, we’ve got to find a way to maybe make some new traditions. Maybe adjust our ceremonies, maybe adjust our rituals so that we can be brought into community together.”

Neglecting the commandments of God, you hold to the tradition of men. He was also saying, ‘You are experts at setting aside the commandments of God in order to keep your tradition. (Verses 8-9)

Let’s keep going. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrine human commands, Abandoning the command of God. You have not only elevated your tradition, your culture, your cultural expression, your rituals, your rites and routines — you’ve not only elevated them to God commands but also in so doing you’ve actually shattered God’s commands. And here’s what we know about the greatest commandment. Jesus got asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” And He said this: “Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Are your traditions, rituals and cultural expressions ceremonies life-giving, or are they life-taking? Are your ceremonies, your traditions self-glorifying or God-glorifying? Abandoning the command of God, you hold on to human tradition. He also said to them – by the way, Jesus gets sarcastic. “You have a fine way of invalidating God’s command in order to set up your own tradition.”

I have a really rough question for you: As you hear this story read and as you read it along with me, who do you imagine yourself to be in this story? Not Jesus, right? I mean are you reading this story and imagining yourself to be the disciples? Or the Pharisees and scribes? When the Pharisees and scribes read Isaiah, they thought themselves to be the righteous, the pure of heart. But Jesus, just for a minute, wanted them to see themselves as the ones who are hypocritical. That might be a good practice for us to engage in. Maybe instead of seeing ourselves just for this moment as like the disciples, maybe we might want to put ourselves in the position of the Pharisee and scribes, with the religious rituals and ceremonies. Let’s just ask ourselves the question: Are our traditions or ceremonies bringing people in, or are they kicking people out? Are they life-giving or life-taking? Are they God-honoring or they self-honoring?

Church family, I think this is important for us to continue to consider. Because if we elevate our way of doing things to “God said so,” then we actually invalidate God’s commands. We fail to love our God and fail to love our neighbor. This is really serious language that He uses.

OK, so rituals. There’s this ritual that we do every week. It’s called singing. Have you heard this before? And I want to encourage you in this. There’s this really beautiful thing that’s happening to us when we engage in the ritual of singing. We are not just following along with the band. We’re not just singing to God. We’re singing to each other. We’re singing to each other the truth of the song. I remember being seated right here so many years ago, and we were singing “It is well with My Soul,” which is kind of an old school classic. One of the lines is “Whatever my lot, you have taught me to say it is well, it is well with my soul.” So, we were singing that song and I was just a few chairs down from a woman who, within the last year of that singing, had lost her baby, who had died. So, I’m singing “Whatever my lot you have taught me to say it as well with my soul,” but in that moment I I could just hear her voice singing with mine. Our voices were merging. And I thought, “Oh man, that’s there’s something really powerful with her voice singing those lyrics.”

When conclude our time together this morning, we’re going to have a moment just to sing together and hear voices raised up. And here’s what I would encourage you to do. If you’re part of Desert Springs, if you’re part of this church family, I would encourage you to sing as a ritual that’s shaping us. This is so cool when if you actually listen to it. You’ll hear the voices start to intermingle and create a unique new sound, a unique new expression of the people of God. It takes all of our voices to do that, just like it takes all our lives, our individual lives, woven together as a bunch of misfits to put on display the manifold wisdom of God in this community. When we sing, it’s kind of like an audible representation of what’s happening with our lives as a church family. We’re putting the glory of God on display, and we’re using a tradition to do it.

But here’s the deal. Remember that I’m asking the question: Are our traditions life-giving or life-taking? Here’s something that we’re leaning into. We’re leaning into a lot in this season, but one thing in particular. There are members of our church family who, because of some sickness and damage to their eardrums, they can’t be around drums. I’m a drummer. I love the drums, but they can’t be around drums. So, we were really wrestling with this and praying. I think the Lord moved in in the conversation. This group of people are not able to participate in our worship, and we said, “That just doesn’t seem like the command of Scripture, right? The love of God and love our neighbor.” And so, on occasion, there will be times where we gather for worship when we won’t have the drums. Because for us, it’s more important to elevate the commands of God over the traditions of humans. So, I brought a little drum track that I put in my ears. Just kidding. So, Jesus here is not talking about traditions, good or bad. It’s when traditions are elevated to “Thus, says the Lord.”

“Jesus got up and went away from to the region of Tyre. And when He had entered a house, He wanted no to know of it; yet he could not escape notice.” (Verse 24)

And I’m actually going to skip a few verses. I would encourage you to go back and read through Mark Chapter 7. I’m just going to get ahead here to this really interesting part. And then Jesus does something which is really powerful. This is what happens next, and this is nuts. He got up and departed from there to the region of Tyre. That is a space that’s not predominantly Jewish. Some people refer to it as Gentile. Gentile is just a weird word that often gets translated in your Bibles. It Is either the word we have for ethnos, which is the Greek word for the ethnic outsider, or the ethnic other. Tyre was peopled by ethnic outsiders. It was a space of ethnic differences where they definitely had different ceremonies, practices, rhythms, and routines.

Jesus entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but he could not escape notice. Instead, immediately after hearing about him, watch this:

“But after hearing of Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately came and fell at His feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of the Syrophoenician race.” (Verses 25-26)

For those of you who’ve been following along, just a couple chapters before you get a sick little girl, you have people falling at Jesus’s feet, and you have a person who’s actually possessed by demons. It would be really cool if you wanted to read all the way through Mark Chapter 7 and see how in this woman, you get a package deal of afflictions that have already plagued all the people before. And she has the same posture as others, and she does what at Jesus’s feet? Falls at Jesus’s feet. Now, the woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit — is this woman in desperate need? She does not know much about Jesus, other than He’s a miracle worker who’s like a rabbi or some sort of Jewish guy, right? He’s from that Judean area. Jesus to her is an ethnic outsider. She knows very little of Him, but she knows something about Him that causes her to come and fall at His feet. The woman was a Gentile or an ethnic outsider, a Syrophoenician woman by birth, and she was asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. Is that a legitimate request? Is that a request that comes from a place of love for her daughter?

OK, what do you think Jesus should do? Should He say yes, or no? He should say yes, right? Well, it’s easy for you to say. Hold onto your hats, kids. This next part is one of the most difficult statements of Jesus, and I’m not going to resolve the tension for us. Real quick, what do we think Jesus is probably about to say? “Of course, I’ll heal your little girl.” Watch what Jesus does.

“And He was saying to her, ‘Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’” (Verse 27)

Here’s what I think is going on in this text. I think when He says, let the children be fed first, I think that He’s saying, “I’m here on mission to my people, the Jewish people.” I think that’s the children. Notice the language of the bread. Jesus will refer to himself as the bread of life. He says let the children of Israel be fed first. It isn’t right to take the children’s bread, and then the miracles I’m giving them are thrown to the dogs. I have read dozens of commentators try to make this not nasty. It’s nasty. Now by the way, Caleb, in Hebrew means dog, so I can relate to this text.

Does this sound like Jesus called this woman, a dog? In fact, He called all the people dogs. This is ethnocentrism, isn’t it? He says my people get it first, and it’s not right for me to give the miracles that I’m giving my people to you and your people now. Does that sound like Jesus to you? Is this confusing? Does this feel like Jesus is putting up a wall? Does this feel like Jesus is setting up a boundary to not invite people in? Alright, see you guys later. (Pastor pretends to be walking off the stage.)

OK, right, we can’t end the sermon there, can we? Notice what happens next. Now you must remember that Jesus is smart and super loving. But Jesus also longs to shape us more and more into His image. And sometimes the tools that He uses don’t make sense. Have you ever endured suffering and wondered, “God, where are you in all this?” And it seems like God is silent to you. And yet maybe, for some of us when we look back at those seasons, we say, “Oh, He was with me. I just didn’t see what He was doing at the time.” This error maybe happened to you.

OK, so at first glance this feels like Jesus is saying no. But watch what the woman does next and then watch what Jesus does next. Also recognize that we’re able to read this in fluid motions. So, watch what the woman does. She replied to him, “Lord …. ***TV time out

*** As far as I could tell, this is the only time that a person refers to Jesus as Lord in the Gospel of Mark. Out of the mouth of an outsider comes a deep and profound truth about who Jesus is. Mark does this all the time, in fact. In one of the last scenes in Jesus’s life, you have a Roman centurion looking at the crucified Christ and saying, “Surely this man is the son of God.” This is kind of a device that Mark seems to use. ***

How does she respond? She doesn’t say — notice — she does not say, “How dare you?” She does not get in a huff and pound the table.

“Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children’s crumbs”. (Verse 28)

Notice what she does. She takes the metaphor, and she enters into it. She views Jesus’s statement as an invitation into a deeper conversation, and she presses back in on Jesus. Have you ever heard of like statements like “pray without ceasing?” Like, pray fervently sometimes. Here’s this really interesting truth that sometimes Jesus is silent in our praying because He’s inviting us to kind of press Him more deeply. Some of the ancients had this idea that they called “the dark night of the soul.” This is when it felt like God’s presence was completely gone, and yet it really was Jesus taking the milk bottle away and asking us to eat real food — to press in to Jesus. I think that is what Jesus has done here. He has taken a reality of the day — rampant ethnocentrism – and He sets the table to invite her to make the argument that He wants to make. Jesus invites her to make the argument He is trying to make. Look at the context. He’s just been saying “Let’s not elevate our traditions to “Thus sayeth the Lord” and therefore exclude people. Out of her mouth comes the argument that He wants to make. And here’s why I think this is right. She said, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs. “

“And He said to her, ‘Because of this answer go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.’” (Verse 29)

Another way that Jesus says stuff like this is “Your faith has made you well.” Jesus, in a hard circumstance, invites the conversation. She makes the argument that Jesus is trying to, and then He affirms this with a blessing and a healing. And then this is the end.

“And going back to her home, she found the child lying on the bed, the demon having left.” (Verse 30)

So, there are times when Jesus’s presence just doesn’t feel palpable. I believe that this text and many others like it are an encouragement to press into that space.

Now we’re going to engage in a ceremony, a tradition. It’s called communion or “the Lord’s table.” In the back of the seat in front of you, if you’re joining us in person, there are communion elements. I encourage you to grab those. If you don’t have any, there are some available on the tables in the back. For those joining us online, if you would please grab some bread and wine or juice or whatever you have available to represent the body and blood of Jesus as we take of this tradition, this sacrament, today. It is a physical, tangible, tactile way for us not only to remember, but also to be shaped. Not only to remember what Jesus has done, but also to be shaped as a community – because we take communion, not as isolated individuals, but together as a church family.

And so, I’m going to pray. Then we’re going to pause and take a moment to reflect. In that moment of reflection, I want to encourage you to consider the things that you’ve heard, to consider the goodness of Jesus as He invites us into a deeper conversation. And then I’ll come back and lead us in the taking of communion.

Would you join me as we pray together? Lord Jesus, in this act we recognize that we are called to live according to the New Covenant. That we are to live as citizens of the Kingdom of God, practicing Your values on earth, as they are in heaven. While prepare our hearts, we recognize that we often fail in this regard. So, Lord, we pray and confess that we have not always lived according to Your Kingdom. That we have often propagated injustice and evil. We have often fostered disunity, practicing favoritism — elevating our own concerns and preferences over others. Moreover, Lord, we have often failed to show hospitality, love and grace. We have often not lived out the fruit of the spirit. We confess these things before You now. We repent from these things, Lord. We turn from these sins and turn back to You, Jesus, knowing that You will never leave us or forsake us. And we ask that Your spirit continue to shape us into Your image. As we take this communion today, Lord, we proclaim Your finished work on the cross — Your death, Your burial and Your resurrection. We cling to You, knowing that You are the one who brings salvation, forgiveness, reconciliation — and that in You, ultimately all that which is broken and marred by sin will be restored. We pray these things in Your name, Amen.