Wash Your Hands Before Dinner

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
August 30th 2009
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Wash Your Hands before Dinner”
Mark 7:1-23

I am part of the first generation raised on television. That might go to help explain a great deal about my generation. But I am not interested in generational theory this morning. Instead, I share this to point out that many of my childhood memories are connected to television. This morning I want to share one of those memories. It was a commercial, or more like a public service promotion. What I remember was watching a child complete a model boat. Completing his project he turned to his father with a mixture of joy and pride. His father looked at the project and said: “Look at the mess you made!” The joy and pride quickly drained from the child’s face and was replaced with sadness and humiliation. The point of the public service announcement was clearly not directed toward messy children but to the father who had missed the accomplishment in the midst of the mess.
Jesus and the disciples have been feeding people, thousands of hungry people. With few resources and no support from the religious community, Jesus feed the poor and hungry. It was a miracle of organization and of deeds. Faced with the new thing that God was doing in their midst the religious leadership demands to know why their hands were not properly washed. As you might imagine, it is clear that the religious folks had missed the miracle in the midst of messy hands.
At first glance this passage can appear as if the conflict is between religious practice and religious outcomes. That is no accident particularly given how the revised common lectionary has chosen to exclude certain parts of this passage. This is why I have chosen to read the whole encounter. Their decision to cut out sections, in hopes of covering more ground, leaves us at risk of missing the heart of this encounter. I do not presume to know the reasons for the decisions about why some parts of the scripture were chosen and others were not in the lectionary. However, I do know that if we follow their lead this passage can quickly be reduced to a treatise on the importance of personal morality over religious ritual. Unfortunately, that interpretation is misguided at best.
The heart of the passage is not the conclusion but the reference to Isaiah and to the practice of Corban. Jesus’ response to the challenge over proper religious ritual is to quote from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah’s message is not about the personal morality of Israel but about the lack of justice for the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, illegal or otherwise. The prophetic oracles cannot be explained away as anything other than a call for social justice. The greatest sin God says, through the prophet Isaiah, is not personal failings but worship that ignores social justice. So, when Jesus quotes this passage it is not merely window dressing but the foundation for his argument. But, just in case the religious folks miss the message Jesus brings in a specific example: “Corban.”
It is the entire section about Corban that the lectionary chooses to skip. Through the practice of Corban, the religious leadership had found a way to increase their coffers. By claiming that financial support was going to the religious leadership, people could take away support from the elderly. Religious purity then was gained through ignoring the most vulnerable in society. Enriching the temple at the expense of the poor had become a cornerstone of religious purity. It was against this religious practice to which Jesus was raging.
Much of religious faithfulness had been reduced to personal religious practice. The overemphasizing of personal purity had led to all sorts of abuse. And into this distortion Jesus speaks very clearly that it is not what we put into our bodies which makes us impure. And on this point Jesus makes an odd turn from social justice to the condition of people’s heart. Just when we are sure that Jesus is focusing solely on social policy he reminds us that social justice and a vibrant spiritual life are intimately connected. Instead of pitting personal faith and social justice at odds, Jesus shows that the two are part of the same fabric.
So I have spent all this time making the case that this passage is not about personal religious practice. Well, it is not. However, it does not dismiss it personal religious practice as irrelevant. Instead, Jesus makes it clear that the great sin of the religious community, then and now, is the tendency to reduce our faith to a short list of personal sins we should avoid. So too, when we work for social justice we are to focus not on the symptoms and but at the root of the problem. We cannot offer charity and forget justice. Charity is essential but it is not the fullness of our calling. Let me see if I can bring this home a bit.
As a people who claim faith in Jesus we are called to build a deep and vibrant spiritual life. But this is not an end unto itself. Instead, we nurture our spiritual life so that we can remain faithful in our work for justice for the poor, widow, orphan, and the immigrant. This week I was moved by the words of a classmate of mine from seminary who is also a pastor. This week he wrote something on his Facebook page. You do not need to know what Facebook is to grasp the power of his words. He wrote:
The churches have to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless. But they have also to remember that the answer to homelessness is homes, not shelters. What the poor and downtrodden need is not piecemeal charity but wholesale justice. The Bible is less concerned with alleviating the effects of injustice than with eliminating the cause of it. One wonders what else the churches are talking about. (Reverend Jonathan Carroll)
I hear his words and it makes we wonder how often Christians have, like the father in the commercial, missed the essential message of the Gospel. Where are the places we get lost focusing on the mess or focused on dirty hands when our call is to rejoice that people are being transformed and lives are being saved? May God grant us the vision to see the good news amidst the mess, and the courage to act. Amen? Amen!

“Difficult Teaching”

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
August 23rd 2009
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Difficult Teaching”
Psalm 84; John 6:56-69

Hearing Jesus words: “Eat my flesh,” reminds me of the movie Alive. That film is a dramatic depiction of a real life plane crash in the Andes Mountains. Beyond the edge of desperation and facing starvation the survivors come to a horrifying realization. In order to survive they must eat the flesh of those who had died. Fortunately Jesus is not calling his follower to become cannibals.
While we can laugh at how ridiculous the idea of thinking Jesus is calling us to eat real flesh, there was a time when such myths were prevalent. It was an ancient version of the current and vibrant myths surrounding the conversations about health insurance reform. Outside the ancient Christian community people heard that Christians ate the flesh of a first born child at events called love feasts. Just imagine the sort of outrage this would have caused at those ancient town hall meetings. Fortunately, reason and fact finally won the day and Christianity was no longer suspected of cannibalism.
So if this is not a call to cannibalism, what does it mean when Jesus says: “Eat my flesh?” Well, despite our focus this month on communion Jesus is not preparing us to practice communion. Jesus is not setting the foundation for sacramental theology. Instead, the call to eat the flesh should be heard in the same vein as when Jesus says: “Pick up your cross, and follow me.” In other words, to eat the flesh of Jesus is to participate in his death to the world. It was not primarily a negative command but a positive one. Jesus is saying: “Follow in the way of living that I have shown.” This call to eat the flesh is a call to participation in the body of Christ. It is a call to be the witnesses of Jesus in the world, to a new way of living.
So far this makes sense or at least it sounds churchy enough to leave me wondering: “What is so offensive about Jesus’ words?” If we cannot find a way to be offended by Jesus at this point, we are not hearing him clearly. The reason I say this has everything to do with who gets offended at Jesus’ words. This encounter is not with the religious leadership but with his disciples. The people who are offended by this call to follow are those who have been with him since the beginning. They have decided that his call to follow is simply too difficult and they leave. So, why is this offensive? Let me see if I can find a way to offend our sensibilities.
I think that the offence in this passage comes for those who are comfortable with Jesus. They know what to expect and have figured it all out. Their working assumption is that the call to be continually converted to the life of faith is meant for other people. The offensiveness in this passage is that Jesus’ call to participate in the life of faith calls into question: All our political assumptions, our values, our theological certainties, our religious customs, our relationships, and our assumptions about the current arrangement of society and life. Living the life of faith is about how we live each day. What Jesus is challenging our tendency to place this stuff into a nice controlled religious box we visit at the proper times and seasons. Can you begin to see why they might have gotten offended at Jesus?
He invites his followers to take up his mantle. Eating his flesh means a willingness to act in similar ways. This way of life was, and is, rather radical. Jesus spoke truth to power. Jesus healed people without asking if they had health insurance. Jesus fed the poor instead of ignoring them. And despite being God incarnate Jesus did not return evil for evil when tortured, unjustly put on death row and executed by the state. This is what it means to eat his flesh, to participate in this way of living. Is it any wonder that many turned back and no longer went around with him? If you are known by the company you keep, Jesus could get us in real trouble. If I am honest I know that there are times when I choose to turn back. The good news is that Jesus’ invitation is never rescinded. We are continually being called to convert to this way of life.
At this point you can almost hear the disciples telling Jesus that this is a poor way to recruit new members. But Jesus response is not to back off but simply ask the disciples who are left if they want to go away too. It is not what I would call a pastoral way of dealing with the disciples. The response to Jesus further challenge is actually quite funny. Notice that Peter does not say: “We do not want to leave you.” Instead, the best Peter can muster is: “where can we go?” It is almost as if he is saying: “Once we have come to believe, to really understand the radical nature of discipleship – getting a little religion is no longer enough.” Where are we going to go once we understand that to follow means all this?
This may not sound particularly like good news. Where else are we going to go? How is that for an invitation to discipleship? However, it is so much more than resignation. When we come to understand that living life to the fullest means to follow in the way of Christ – feeding, sharing, loving and serving others, it is only natural to ask: “Now that we know, where are we going to go?” When we come to this table to eat the bread, or eat the flesh in a metaphorical sense, we are signaling our willingness to follow in the way. Coming to the table does not make us more holy nor are we transformed into super disciples. Instead it is a concrete act which shows our desire to participation in the way of Jesus. And our willingness, our hunger to live in this way is all that is required at this table. So come, let us eat some flesh! Amen? Amen.

Bread of Life

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
August 2nd 2009
Communion Meditation
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Bread of Life”
Psalm 51, John 6:24-35

“I am the Bread of Life.” These are the immortal words of someone who clearly has never heard of Dr. Atkins and his famous diet. After all, if Jesus were around today and marketed himself as the “Bread of Life”, he would not get a favorable hearing from the anti-carbohydrate crowd. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and other books on food, writes about our natural eating disorder. It was in the fall of 2002, he writes, “when one of the most ancient and venerable staples of human life abruptly disappeared from the American dinner table. I’m talking of course about bread.” In his work Pollan talks about our obsession with fad diets and our inability to distinguish food from food-like-product. His interest is addressing the causes of this from the perspective of our public policy and the food industry. As a person of faith, I believe this crisis is also a spiritual one with far reaching implications.
We live in a culture which is obsessed with food in paradoxical ways. Many people count calories while others wonder if the food will last till the next payday or visit to the food pantry. We face a crisis of obesity in the midst of a time where people are obsessed with body image. It is a national crisis for which the followers of Jesus do have something to add.
It would be an overstatement to say that the crisis is spiritual one alone. There are corporate and public policy reasons for the food crisis. However, it is not an overstatement to say that the crisis is rooted in our human hunger for something more, something deeper. And it is directly to this need that Jesus speaks.
Jesus is struggling with those who do not grasp the deeper issues to which he speaks.
“Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
These words show the deeply utilitarian and materialistic nature of Jesus’ opponents. Jesus is speaking about feeding deeper hunger and God’s passion and welcoming for all people. His opponents want to see the evidence of Jesus journey from heaven. They do not understand that Jesus’ decent from heaven is not the issue. What they are missing is the reality of our human need for something deeper than our basic needs.
While this passage is not interested in Jesus journey from heaven, it does raise more difficult questions. These questions are: What does it mean to partake in the “Bread of Life”? What does it look like to never be hungry or thirsty? John Calvin wrote in his Institutes that the beginning of all knowledge of God began with the knowledge of self and the knowledge of self begins with knowledge of God. So I believe it is safe to say that partaking in the “Bread of Life” is an invitation to deeper understanding and knowledge of God and self. This may sound rather theoretical, so let me see if I can bring some clarity.
The ethos of our consumer society is that there is never a way to satisfy our hungers. We are perpetually bombarded by liturgy reminding us that we will not whole people unless we have the latest or newest thing. Advertising is so highly developed that they know us better than we know ourselves. Unless we take a step back and recognize how our basic hungers are being manipulated we will never grasp deeper realities. Until we recognize and make attempts to challenge this thinking we will be unable to imagine that it is possible to never hunger or thirst again. As long as we live as uncritical subjects to the message that our happiness is found in the next thing or newest fad, the idea that we can find satisfaction in this ritual of communion will seem nothing less than foolishness.
The messages of our consumer culture are most often built upon, or feed upon, our anxiety. But the Good News is that the message from the one who calls himself, “The “Bread of Life,” is too. Jesus offers a relief from that anxiety. However, if we are not careful that message can be turned into its own form of anxiety. In other words, believe or you are going to hell. But that is not the message of this passage. Nor is this passage a call to escape life today. It is an invitation to live a deeper life right now.
When we gather at this table and eat bread and drink from the cup we are nourishing a revolution. When we gather at this table we are saying, “No,” to the messages which claim that being human means to buy the next thing. At this table we are nourished by the “Bread of Life” which teaches us that we are beloved children who are invited to know hunger and thirst no more. I will admit that even as I speak these words there is some resistance. And that resistance is to believing that we could truly live without the anxiety. I think that my resistance is simply a reminder of the power of the “other” messages. And because of our anxiety and the power of these messages we need to be regularly nourished by this bread. No matter what Dr. Atkins may say. Amen.