I share this joke because it is an easy way to see how we can get caught up in tradition. We can get so caught up that we think tradition is the right way, and even the only way.
Tradition is one of the subjects in our text today. In the passage, some of Jesus’ disciples don’t wash their hands before eating, and the Pharisees and scribes are outraged. These are the folks responsible for keeping the ritual laws, and one of the most important ritual laws is about washing your hands before eating. Not only are the Pharisees and scribes put off by the actions of the disciples, they are extremely annoyed with Jesus because he does not seem to care that this ritual law is being disobeyed.
We have come to recognize this scandalous behavior from Jesus, and it comes as no surprise to us that when the Pharisees confront him, Jesus does not give them a straightforward answer, nor does he say anything to his disciples. Instead, Jesus calls the Pharisees and scribes hypocrites. He tells them that they spend more time worrying about human traditions than they do following the commandments of God.
Now to be clear, Jesus doesn’t say that traditions are a bad thing, and I don’t think that Jesus is saying forget all traditions including washing, and it is fine to eat with dirty hands. Jesus uses this time as a teaching moment. He doesn’t say that washing is bad, but he does give them a lesson on what washing can and cannot do.
Jesus helps those who have gathered to understand that the point of washing is not to make us clean before God. No amount of water can make us clean before God. Our cleanliness before God is not function of our physical cleanliness. The point of washing is to remind each of us every day and at every meal of the acts that have dirtied us before God.. Being dirty is a problem, but true cleanliness is an issue for Jesus. True cleanliness is not something that we can resolve with soap and water. The problem is much deeper than that.
Jesus gives us a list of the things that we do that dirty us; immorality, robbery, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride and folly, bad judgment.
As we listen to the list, maybe we think Jesus can’t mean me, I have never committed robbery or murder or adultery. I am sure that this is what the Pharisees and scribes thought. But then, Jesus gets toward the end of the list – greed, deceit, jealousy, slander, pride, folly and bad judgment. Maybe now the Pharisees and scribes are not so sure. How many of us don’t fit in any of those categories? Jesus includes every item on the list in the circle of the defiled. When you get right down to it, the human condition sounds pretty dire.
But there is good news. The good news is that we can lay claim to a clean new life. The book of James tells us what it looks like when we are in the process of becoming clean. There are signs of a clean new life. But, becoming clean is more than coming forward with open hands and mouths to receive the bread and the juice of Holy Communion.
The book of James tells us that the signs of new creation are “generous acts of giving” and a people who are “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger”. God’s new creation is not an invisible activity. It can be seen in people who embody the word. As God commanded, they care for the widow and orphans.
And so we ask, Who are the orphans and widows of our age? Who are the poor, the needy, the lonely, and the oppressed of our time? What are we doing, and what is our church doing to pray with them, to reach out to them, and to welcome them into this community? James tells us that part of becoming clean is caring for those that God cares for.
For James, cleanliness in the eyes of God is caring for others. It is not simply a faith of the heart but also the works of the hands. James writes that a faith without works “is dead.”
John Wesley, founder of the Methodist faith wrote: “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness.”
What the Pharisees and scribes did not understand is that following tradition is different from transformation. Jesus desires us to be transformed individually and as a community, and he wants us to act accordingly, taking care of all those that God loves. This was the thrust of the message that John and Charles Wesley preached. The message of good news that called for prison reforms in Britain; that opposed slavery; that supported women’s rights and minority rights that built colleges and universities across the land. This is the kind of Christianity that was outward looking and served the world
The sign of a new life in Christ cannot be obtained only by washing. The sign of new life in Christ is in knowing that however unclean we may have been, we are truly loved by God. And in having this knowledge, being grounded in this truth, we become capable of loving others. It is the love God has for us —and what that love can do in our lives—that, not tradition, is the cornerstone of our faith, and the guide for our actions. May it be so. Amen.
Queen Anne 
