Whose Rules are They, Anyway?!

Reverend Debbie Cato
Mark 7:1-8; 14--23
Fairfield Community Church
September 1 2024 

Let us pray:  Gracious God,  we know we don’t see things clearly.  Your Spirit offers clarity, wisdom, and understanding.  Open our eyes so that these words of Scripture may bear witness to your true Word of God.  In Jesus name we pray.  Amen.

 

 

Whose Rules are They, Anyway?!

 

 

One Sunday, (by the way, not at this church), a member of my congregation came up to me after church and complained. The reader that day was someone who had never helped during the service before.  That Sunday, this new person led the Call to Worship and the opening prayer.  They also read the scripture passage as was the tradition at this church.  This member of my congregation was complaining because they did not like how this person led worship.  Apparently, they mispronounced two words when they read the scripture passage.   Honestly, I had not noticed.  This individual just looked so happy to be a part of the service and here was this member complaining about mispronounced words.  She wasn’t just complaining, she was angry.  They told me it disrespected God to mispronounce things in the Bible and only people that could pronounce things correctly should be leading worship.  She wanted to make sure that I never let this person lead worship again.

 

I had a different take.  I was thrilled someone wanted to lead worship – it was hard for me to get readers in that church.  No one, including the one complaining, wanted or were willing to be a part of the service.  When I checked, the two words she mispronounced were inconsequential to the meaning of the passage or understanding the passage.  The mispronounced words were names of a person and a place.  Both were hard to pronounce.  Even Biblical scholars did not agree on the pronunciations. 

 

I told this member that I was grateful this person had wanted to help, clearly enjoyed doing so, and I would continue to ask them to be a reader.  The pronunciation was not important.  I asked this member if she would like to be a reader. (Apparently, she could pronounce everything correctly!  But of course, I didn’t say that to her!)  As I suspected, she said no, and she literally stomped off and started talking with other people about this person and the mispronounced words and my response.

 

Friends, this was getting caught up in the wrong thing.  This member was missing the spirit of worship and the importance of including everyone.  She was so focused on the pronunciation of ancient names and places, she probably missed what the passage meant and intended to teach us.  You miss the point when you are focused on finding errors.

 

I think this is what Jesus is trying to teach in this passage.  These passages are a critique of how, as religious creatures, we too often elevate our rituals or form of worship above our ethics. Enamored with the religiously superior identity that we think we gain through the participation in our community’s particular rituals, we get hung up on their symbolism and importance.  We overlook the deeper truth of what living out the heart of the gospel really means.  What it should look like. 

 

Instead, we get wrapped up in the symbolic ways our faith tradition stands out from another.  How our way of doing things is better than this other denomination.  We overlook the deeper demands of our faith to serve God

 by doing good to other people, controlling our own selfish desires so that we might better direct our energies toward the welfare of others and the larger community. We miss the subtle teachings.  We ignore the important stuff.

 

I’m going to use the joining of Zion Lutheran Church with Fairfield Presbyterian church into one congregation as an example.  Now, I was not here, so I may be talking out of school.  Pastor Paul led you through that – and it seems to me he did an excellent job.  But I do understand there were many compromises for both congregations in coming together and deciding what you were going to look like, how you were going to govern yourselves, and what the worship service looked like.  I do understand how incredibly difficult it is to do things differently when they are part of your tradition.  I get it. 

 

I understand that it was hard for the Presbyterians to lose their church building and worship here in this building.  It was hard to have an altar in the front of the sanctuary.  In fact, I know one member who stopped coming just because of the altar! I understand that the Lutheran’s lost parts of their Sunday worship that were important to you because you grew up with them, they were part of your tradition of worship.  I would guess you still miss some of those things.  I understand that there are parts of the worship service that Fairfield Presbyterian church did not do, that you all choose to include in the combined worship service.  We say an Affirmation of Faith every Sunday and I understand Fairfield Presbyterian did not.  We have communion twice a month instead of just on the first Sunday of the month like the majority of Presbyterian churches do. So,

 some of you miss having it every Sunday and some of you wish communion was just once a month. Some of you have told me how much you miss the rail that was in the front of the church; the rail where you knelt to receive communion.  Some of the Presbyterians have told me that they miss passing the bread and the cup in the pews and not coming forward.  I hand bread to each of you versus you breaking off a piece yourselves. But those were compromises you made when you came together as one church.  No more kneeling at a rail and no more taking communion in the pews. 

 

I know how important and meaningful certain parts of a service are to me.

Without minimizing the things from your own faith tradition that were important but are now done differently, I would say those things are not important to God at all.  All those rituals, including church buildings, were implemented by men who found fault in the church and started a new denomination.  Men who wanted to make religion more complicated and elite than Jesus intended, men who thought the church should be powerful.  Men who argued over things and began a new denomination when no one would concede to their ideas of what was important.  Creeds and doctrines were written that we are to follow in addition to what’s taught in the Bible.  It’s why we have so many denominations and so many different ways of doing things.  We argue about them, we hold them tight, and yet, when it comes down to it, we all worship the same God.  We all have the same core beliefs. 

 

God told the Israelites in the Old Testament that he didn’t want their sacrifices.  He didn’t want animals or blood or crops from their harvest.  He wanted their hearts to be right.  He wanted the people to worship Him in their hearts and minds.  Acts of sacrifice meant nothing to God if their hearts and minds were not right. The prophet Hosea, in 6:6, tells the people that God said, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”  Jesus is reiterating that when he tells the Pharisees and Scribes that it doesn’t matter if you eat with dirty hands.  It does not matter how they eat.  He quotes Isaiah 29:13 which says: 

And the Lord said:

“Because this people draw near with their mouth

and honor me with their lips,

yet, their hearts are far from me,

and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men…

It was humans who set the rules about what to eat, how to wash dishes and food, and many other traditions that were hard for people to follow.  It made the leaders of the church feel superior that it was so difficult to follow the rules.  That was the problem with the pharisees and the scribes. It was more important for them to follow strict, very hard to follow rules than their own behavior.  Their own hearts.  Jesus is saying, that is not what matters to God.  I wonder if Jesus was even a little angry when his disciples were called unclean.  After all, they had sacrificed a great deal to follow Jesus.  Some of them gave up family, others gave up careers, and others gave up status.

 

What matters to God is what comes out of our hearts, not rules or ways of

doing things that are human prescribed.  All evil that humans perpetuate, all our sins come from within our hearts.   If we have an angry, vindicative heart, that is what will come out.  That is how we will treat people and talk about people.  Our behavior will reflect our angry, bitter, vindicative heart. 

 

But if we have a good heart; if it is full of the love and grace and mercy of God, the same love and mercy and grace that God pours on us each and every day, if we give to others the way God has given to us, then that is what will come out of us.  It’s how we will behave.  It is how we will treat people.  If we have a heart full of gratitude, we will act out of gratitude to others.  Our behavior, or actions is what reflects how godly we are or aren’t.  Our actions and behaviors reflect the condition of our hearts.  What comes out – our behavior, attitude, how we treat others – that is what reflects how deeply God’s truth has sunk into our hearts and stayed.  That is what God is looking for.

 

Those compromises you made coming together as one church were hard. I am not minimizing them.  But even worshiping in a different building, doing without parts of worship, doing things in worship you didn’t do before, even taking communion differently, did not change who you are.  You are still followers of Christ.  This is still a Christian, Godly church. In fact, making compromises so that both bodies could remain healthy and vibrant, so that neither community died, was the right thing to do for a community of Christ followers.  I think Jesus would say, “good job good and faithful servants.  You all gave up unimportant things to follow me.  Way to go!”  Amen.