Did You Wash Your Hands?

Proper 17B

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

September 2, 2018

St. Matthias

           I’m going to let you in on something of a liturgical secret this morning.  If you want to know the theme of the scripture lessons on any Sunday, look at the Collect of the Day.  This prayer gets its name because it is both a collection of our prayers AND it collects the thoughts for the day.  So, this morning we prayed that God will “increase in us true religion.”  Now why this is important is found in the Gospel of Mark and the story of the Pharisees who were terribly concerned because the Disciples were eating, and they had not washed their hands.  How many of you just heard the voice of your mother?   My mother would ask if I washed both the front and the back and if I used soap?  They demand to know why the Disciples did not follow the Law of Moses – the tradition of the elders – and wash their defiled hands before touching their food.  And Mark makes it pretty clear that Jesus is quite annoyed by this question.  He called them hypocrites and I don’t think Jesus was smiling.  Let’s remember that in Jesus’s time, the Pharisees were supposed to be the most religious people around.  They were the leaders of the Jewish people.  The Pharisees were supposed to be the example of a faithful follower of God.  But along the way, something went wrong and the Pharisees became more interested in religious rules than faith in God.  The Pharisees came to depend – not on God – but on just how holy they thought they could be!  And eating anything without washing your hands was a definite sin.  The Pharisees were fanatics about cleanliness.

           When I was in seminary at Sewanee – we had chapel every day.    And on Thursday mornings, we used incense.  Now the seminary community was divided into basically 3 distinct groups when it came to incense.  There were the Anglo-Catholics who loved it.  The thurifer – that’s the person swinging what is called the thurible which is the rather ornate container for the charcoal and the incense – the thurifer would come into the chapel swinging the thurible with all kinds of smoke pouring out.  The Anglo-Catholic students loved incense.  I remember Scott Lee saying that incense just made everything smell like Jesus. 

           On the other side of the chapel were the Evangelicals who DID NOT love incense – AT ALL.  When the thurifer appeared swinging incense and making lots of smoke – the Evangelicals would all start coughing and hacking and making quite a lot of noise. 

           I was in the 3^rd group – we sat on the back row – and we thought it was just fun to watch it all.  Especially the day that Buddy Oliver was scheduled to be the thurifer.  Buddy was from Alabama and had been a Primitive Baptist Minister until – as he said it – he saw the light and became an Episcopalian.  Buddy was about 6 foot 3 and probably weighed about 63 pounds and today Buddy came into the chapel swinging the thurible.  The Anglo-Catholics started bowing and crossing themselves while the Evangelical students immediately took to coughing and hacking.  And with all that bowing and crossing and hacking and coughing – it took a few minutes but those of us on the back row started laughing.  Buddy had a big smile on his face as he swung the thurible.  There was nothing coming out – no smoke at all.  The Anglo-Catholics were furious – the Evangelicals called it outrageous bordering on sinful.   Those of us on the back row just thought it was funny.

           And I bet the disciples enjoyed it that day when Jesus told the Pharisees that they needed to spend less time worrying about ritual and washing hands and spend more time believing in what God can do.  The problem is that the Pharisees don’t even realize they are the problem.  They are constantly the ones saying that you can’t do this or that because it has never been done that way before.  And Jesus proclaims that God can do all things when we believe.  The Pharisees declare that God only works through a few specially chosen people and Jesus proclaims that the Holy Spirit can do great things when have the faith of a mustard seed.  The Pharisees loved things the way they were and Jesus challenged the disciples to spread the Word that the Kingdom of God is HERE now and everyone is invited to live and love and minister in this Kingdom.  In our collect for today we prayed, “Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord”.  No where do you see the words, CAN’T or DON’T or WON’T.  Do we believe what we pray?

Now so far no one has asked if we can have incense at St. Matthias.  I also want you to know that if you feel like crossing yourself do it in faith.  We are all Evangelicals and Evangelists every time we share with others all the love and fellowship they will find at St. Matthias.  And if you feel like laughing at any point in the worship – Go right ahead!  God may well be laughing with us.  AMEN.