The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)The most interesting part of this text is the definition Jesus provides for sin. It turns our usual way of thinking on its ear.
5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”
21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
Christians have tended to define sin as a "thing", an external entity. Dancing is a sin. Playing cards is a sin. Drinking, talking to a divorced woman, using the internet...the list goes on. Some infractions are greater, some are lesser, but all are objectified. The key to avoiding sin in this scenario is to stay away from the contaminating objects. Don't dance, avoid the computer, cross to the other side of the street when the divorced woman comes your way. As long as you don't touch the offensive material you will remain clean.
This definition is convenient for us in many ways. It's simple. It allows us to define ourselves as inherently not sinful. It allows us to paint the world black and white, sinful or good. It also allows us to judge others in a snap. That person dances. Those two are living together but aren't married. This guy is a communist. In an instant we can tell good people from bad, separate ourselves from the bad ones, and create a community convenient to us and acceptable to God.
Except that it's not acceptable to God.
The Pharisees employed just this definition of sin when they called Jesus' followers to task. "Why are your disciples eating with defiled hands?" Contamination was all around. Evil abounded. Why weren't the disciples engaging in the holy rituals which would push away the sin and keep them clean? They must be evil people, having let sin into their lives so easily!
Jesus replied that the only sin that mattered was the one the Pharisees themselves were engaging in: judging, condemning, pushing away God's people with their bigoted accusations. When you use the word of God to divide people from people, attacking those who are not you, you have heard it but it is far from your heart. True sin comes from within: the self-centered misuse of God's good gifts to promote greed, deceit, envy, arrogance, and folly. Sin isn't an external contaminate. The potential (and really, the reality) of sin is with us, inside us every day.
Put another way, every time we say, "They're the sinners!" we prove that we are the sinners.
Almost nothing in life is inherently "sinful". Things can be used to promote life, health, togetherness or they can be misused to advance selfishness, division, and death. The classic example is the very first. Confirmation students often ask me, "If God didn't want there to be evil, why did he put that tree in the garden? Didn't he create evil then?" The answer is no! There wasn't anything wrong with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in itself. It was perfectly fine, sitting there and fulfilling its purpose. When Adam and Eve took the fruit and used it to replace God--attempting to become gods themselves--that's where the evil came in.
Dancing isn't bad. How, when, and why you dance can be good or bad. Alcohol can be good in some situations, bad in others. The internet works for good and ill. The list goes on. How you use something--not just your intention but how it affects the world and the people around you--determines how sinful or holy it is. This is true from the lowliest pebble on the ground to the word of God itself, as we see in this passage. Good things used bad ways (like God's word used to divide and hurt) become bad. "Bad" things used good ways (like our fermented beverages at Theology on Tap) become good.
This answers a whole host of thorny questions. How can we offer a beer to a 44 year old but tell the 14 year old not to do that? Is beer bad or good? Aren't you being hypocritical? No...in the first situation (absent mitigating factors) it's fine. In the second it's harmful. Granted it's hard to imagine using some things in a helpful manner no matter what the environment. Illegal drugs come to mind. In those cases a shorthand, blanket "no" is probably acceptable. But the "no" comes from having examined all the possibilities and saying, "I don't see how this helps," not from looking at a substance and saying, "Bad! Bad thing! Which of you sinners touched this?"
Understanding this gospel forces us to consider people and situations instead of objectifying the world and making isolated, snap judgments about everyone and everything. We're not free to point fingers at our neighbor. We may decide that what they did was wrong but we have to be able to show how and why based on the negativity it brought into the world and not just our own culture, tradition, or opinion. Sometimes we have to admit that what they did was right or helpful, at least in their case. Either way the question of sin brings us closer to understanding our fellow human beings instead of driving us away from each other.
We're also called upon to examine our own sins more thoroughly, which includes admitting that we actually engage in them every day. Eating a banana is not a sin. Buying a banana that was picked by a third-world worker earning a starvation-level wage forced to live in a company camp where the only outlets are drug use and the prostitution of young women may be a sin. How do we know? Part of it is being more aware of the things we do. But the other part is admitting we don't know and can't catch every sin...that we commit plenty without intention. When we realize this--that we may have committed six sins just starting our car and driving to work today--we begin to have more empathy for our fellow sinners instead of of condemning them offhand. We also begin to realize the magnitude and importance of God's love for us, his patience, his forgiveness, and how miraculous it is that he claims us and saves us despite all of this.
That's a lesson worth learning.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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