+ 14th Sunday after Pentecost – August 25th, 2024 +
Series B: Isaiah 29:11-19; Ephesians 5:22-33; Mark 7:1-13
Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
When it comes to school subjects, what’s your favorite? Do you enjoy exploring the past in history? Maybe you prefer exploring the world of words in stories, poetry, or literature? Or perhaps you enjoy exploring the playground and your physical strength at recess or gym class? Whatever the case may be, today’s Gospel reading from Mark 7 reveals that when it comes to theology, deep down we all have the same favorite subject.
It’s not reading or writing…it’s arithmetic. That’s right. Our old Adam, our sinful flesh loves math, and is something of a mathematical wiz – always looking to add and subtract, to multiply and divide – especially when it comes to God’s Word. There’s always that temptation to add to God’s word or subtract from it. To make the Scriptures say more they do by adding our own reason and imagination into the equation…or, taking away parts of Scripture we don’t like or that make us uncomfortable, or don’t fit into our calculations of who God is and how he works.
Our problem isn’t just a mathematical one. It’s a spiritual one. And the trouble is – as we find out in today’s Gospel reading – we’re incapable of solving this. Ours is a problem only the merciful Mathematician himself can solve, and graciously does – by some gracious arithmetic of his cross where he does not count our trespasses against us, but instead cancels our record of debt against him. Where he subtracts all sin from our account to his own, and adds his righteousness to yours.
The Pharisees in Mark 7 were expert mathematicians a well. At the top of their class. And being the typical overachievers they were, as if God’s law wasn’t enough, they added and multiplied their own rules and regulations on top. 613 to be exact. A long list of dos and donts in order to do the righteousness of God.
The issue that comes up in today’s reading is the tradition of the elders regarding hand washing: Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.
The Pharisees weren’t concerned about hygiene, but holiness before God. Problem was they thought God’s holiness was something to be calculated and earned, and sought to equate their righteousness with God’s, rather than a gift given by God. Something achieved rather than received.
They added their own ideas of law-keeping to the Scriptures as if following these man-made laws would multiply their righteousness before God.
Mark gives us a little window into just how deep their corrupt calculations went: For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly,[a] holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. But hands weren’t enough. The Pharisees were walking, talking adding machines – even their cups and copper vessels and couches were washed. So big was their self-righteous arithmetic that they took time from their own computations to check on their neighbors’ work.
“Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
The pharisees were so caught up in religious accounting, micromanaging the dos and don’ts of the letter of the law, that they neglected the very spirit and heart of the law – to love God and neighbor by faith. This kind of love can only come from faith, and by this faith alone does God count one as righteous; without faith it is impossible to please God.
This is how our Old Adam works though – always the mathematician. Always calculating, always comparing, always adding or subtracting from God’s law – like someone lowering a high jump bar to or raising a limbo bar to make God’s laws seem doable. Calculable. Keepable.
Only it’s not. We can’t math our way out of our sinful problem. We can’t calculate our way into God’s righteousness. If righteousness is based on the arithmetic of our keeping of the law, we’re all failures. And if we try – like the Pharisees did – to subtract God’s laws and add in a few of our own – we’re only putting ourselves further in the hole, deeper in debt.
That’s the problem with our Old Adam’s way of figuring out the things of God. We always try to do it ourselves. And that was the error the pharisees fell into. Thinking God needs our sacrifices. He doesn’t That’s how pagans think. That all god needs is to be fed and liquored and kept happy. Only that’s not the way it is with God. He doesn’t need or want anything from us but faith. That’s all He wants. Faith. Trust in His Word and promises. “I desire mercy not sacrifice.” He says it over and over again in the OT. Jesus repeated it to these same pharisees. I desire mercy not sacrifice. Mercy directed to the neighbor in need. Mercy to mother and father. Mercy to the broken stranger in the ditch. Mercy to the least and lost and lowly. Mercy to sinners, forgiveness to those who have wronged you, mercy even to those who hate you and revile you and persecute you.
With all their religious rules and regulations, with all their ritual washings, with all their traditions, they missed the one needful thing. They missed Jesus. They missed the mercy of God that was theirs in Jesus. They missed the cleansing that all their washings could not work. They missed the most wonderful thing God has ever done, and will ever do, for the world – the sending of His beloved Son in the flesh to be our savior.
This is why Jesus comes down hard on the Pharisees – and the pharisee of our Old Adam within each of us as well. He exposes our self-righteousness to give us his own righteousness instead. He points out the uncleanness of our sinful hearts that he would create in us a clean heart. He tosses out all our calculations and cancels the record of debt that stood against him.
On the cross, all the accounting books have been settled in Christ crucified. There, all our sins were nailed to His blood- stained cross, and there, our Lord took all our sins upon Himself and canceled our record of debt against God’s holy law…not counting our trespasses against us. In place of man-made traditions of washing defiled hands, Jesus gives us something better. He replaces our sinful, defiled heart with a new and clean heart. He washes you with pure water. And you are clean, you are forgiven, you are made holy and blameless, all on account of Jesus. There is nothing to add to His cross, it’s all paid. Forgiven. Finished.
This is God’s great and gracious equation of salvation. It’s not our math, or our works, or our holiness, or our man-made traditions that save us – it’s by God’s grace and mercy in Jesus. His grace tosses our math book of self-made-righteousness out the window and replaces it with good news for you in Jesus.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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