SCRIPTURE: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
TEXT: 5So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” THEME: Developing our spiritual selves without being religious. INTRODUCTION The next preaching series from now until Thanksgiving will be in the Gospel of Mark and is called “Life Beyond”. Today’s sermon is entitled, “Beyond Tradition”. SCRIPTURE We are picking up in the Gospel of Mark where we left off 5 weeks ago. We used the Gospel of John’s version for he feeding of the 5,000 so we could have a discussion on the Bread from Heaven. Pharisees and scribes have arrived from Jerusalem to check out Jesus’ ministry. Gathering around Jesus they noticed that some of his disciples were eating without washing their hands. In this time of COVID we have had to develop our hand washing routines to insure the stop of the virus. Some of those routines have fallen along the wayside as we succumb to hand sanitizer. If we see someone eating without washing their hands, we would warn them about germs and viruses but we haven’t developed our hand washing to a judgement of moral character as much as we have about wearing a face mask. Like a tea ceremony, the Jewish culture has developed this act of good hygiene into a ritual, making doing the ritual more important than whether your hands were clean or not. And if not, a point of criticism of those less ritualistic. We all do this. When a young deacon asked why they prepared the communion with so many steps, the life timer said, “Don’t ask me why, just do it the way I have told you.” They forgot the reason why but passed on the how. Jesus’ reply was about the emptiness of the rituals, as they were void of meaning and only served as points of critique and not for the fostering a healthy community. It is not what we wear, how much communion bread and wine we eat and drink, meetings we attend or markings we have in our bibles that matter, but how we take the truth of God and try to find a way to live it with our lives and in our community. It is what is in our hearts, the choices that we make that come from good intent or evil. They make holy or defile. The list of evil intent in this passage is long, stemming from selfishness, greed, violence, lust and foolishness. I was doing the premarital counseling for a couple when I asked the groom if there was anything that he learned from his previous marriage. He said that after the divorce he went to therapy and learned something call “noble intent”. This is to assume that the action from his spouse, although awkward and hurtful actually came from a noble intent to help and do good. Looking back upon the events of his marriage, he could see the noble intention in many of the points of conflict even though he did not see it as such at the time. If he had learned about noble intent sooner, he said he probably still be married. This insight of Nobel intent is a perspective that he learned and was bringing with I’m into his new marriage. APPLICATION If we discover the meaning of our traditions, what forms might we leave behind, and what new ones might can we create? At seminary they taught theology but they did not teach us the forms or traditions of worship but the deacons of my first parish did. The deacons of the churches on Molokai were keepers of traditional forms. They took me on home visits to their members. They showed me how to set up communion. They picked the hymns from the Na Himeni, and put the worship services together. They showed me how to pray for the sick and do a hospital visit. They stood in a circle and prayed before each service. Aunty Easter prayed for each moopuna each night before she went to bed. A member was planning her funeral and asked if she needed to have a Friday evening wake, along with the Saturday morning wake, before the Funeral. That was their tradition, with visiting family, no mortuary and often time the deceased was placed in the parlor of the house. I said no because now we have a morgue to keep the body and hotels. The traditional forms could be changed with the modern conveniences we now have, she could have just one service. We made changes in how we administer communion during the COVID pandemic. We are bringing our own elements and sharing them in our bubble, in person and on line. Since taking the PSR class on Spirituality, I have working in times of silence into my day, to spend with God. Like the Zen tea ceremony, I tried using measured steps to Brewing my cup of coffee in the morning, Thanking God for the coffee bean, nourished by the ground, the plant bathe by the sun and the farmer who tended, watered, picked, roasted and packed the coffee. Then I thanked God for the water, living, cleansed, life bringing, from rains held in gathered clouds that cover misty peaks, and aquifers that collects in wells. As the water heat up to drip into the grounds of my cup, I enjoy 4 minutes of silence. When I am done…there is coffee. A new ritual that brings gratitude and closeness to God through a little bit of silence. CONCLUSION Looking at the chapters that are following this one in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus continues to act contrary to how things are. Bringing a change to life beyond what there is; life beyond tradition, beyond boundaries, beyond Human Things, beyond ambition and beyond ourselves. Living with God is beyond anything we have, into to something new for God and others.
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