mandag 10. september 2012

Mark 7:1-37 “The problem with the world is me.”

Almost everyone agrees that Jesus was a good man. I mean, who can’t like “turn the other cheek” and the Golden Rule “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Treat others with love and compassion, the way you want to be treated? Yes!

But why, then, is he universally hated, mocked, ridiculed? Why is his name a swear word? Why do his followers get murdered, beaten, attacked, or in Norway, politely ignored?

In tonight’s passage Jesus gives us the answer: the problem is a heart issue. Our hearts are bent, foul, diseased. Evil thoughts, evil actions come from within – and that is why we rebel against God, and his anointed servant, the King Himself, Jesus.

And the problem of the heart is not one that can be solved by religion, by law-keeping, by strenuous discipline or intense effort. That just leads further down the path of self-sufficiency, self-righteousness, self-absorption; instead of reliance on God, accepting God’s righteousness, and loving God.

And here we have the true example of this. The Pharisees were the good guys, the righteous ones, the upstanding in the community, well-respected. They went to synagogue daily, read the Scriptures, followed the law, tithed everything, even their garden herbs. These guys were the best of the best. Yet all their “goodness” drives them to hate Jesus.

They need a miracle. They need to be saved from themselves. They need their deaf ears opened to change their arrogant hearts into humble hearts. They need to approach Jesus in humility and beg him to heal them, acknowledging that they have no right to ask him this, but simply trusting in his mercy.

1. We hate Jesus because we are sinners 

The Pharisees are the best of the best: upstanding citizens, devoted to good works, well respected, loved the Law of God, and knew it very well. They were über-Jews – the cream of the crop of the Jewish nation. They had gone as far as it is possible to go in the direction of obeying God’s Law. They even had new laws to make sure they didn’t break God’s Law – like a glass case around a priceless treasure, they had these laws around God’s Law. And these were the laws Jesus kept breaking!

“They’re not washing their hands before they eat” is the complaint. V5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” They thought that external dirt – dirty hands – could make you spiritually, inwardly, unclean. And therefore, by washing externally you could make yourself inwardly, spiritually clean.

You see, the Pharisees are making a common mistake: they think that by their actions they can make themselves holy. This kind of thinking was stated most clearly by the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, but it’s a trap that we all fall into. Righteous actions will make me righteous. It’s a trap even the church falls continually into, especially so just before the Reformation.

But righteous actions don’t make us righteous. They make us arrogant and superior, if we think we’ve done it – or make us depressed and angry if we can’t achieve the standard of righteousness. Martin Luther, as a monk, dedicated his life to serving God, but found that the more he did for God, the more he strove to please God, the more he hated God because his demands were so high, so impossible.

Let’s say I hate grannies. That’s my problem (hypothetical!): I hate grannies. They’re so slow. So I go to these Pharisees and ask them “how do I learn to stop hating grannies”. What would be their solution? Well, like Aristotle, like the Catholic Church and many other “Christian” churches today, even in Norway, they would say “Help 10 grannies across the road. The way to love grannies is to do granny-loving acts.” The problem is that while helping grannies across the road I will be so enraged by their slowness that the hatred I feel for them will be growing more and more, even as I am outwardly loving them. That is why “religion” is not a solution to loving God. Going to church, serving God, helping in soup kitchens, praying good prayers, reading your Bible, tithing regularly - is all worthless, and dangerous, if not motivated from within, from the grace of God. Otherwise we are like Martin Luther, trying harder and harder, but finding ourselves further and further from God, hating Him instead of loving him. 

Application: You cannot be right with God by following the law, by external acts of righteousness, by being good.

Impossible application: I’m the exception, I can be right with God by following the Law. I’m good enough and perfect enough. It is impossible, because we are sinners.

2. The problem is sin. Sin lies within us, and destroys everything good 

Sin has always been the problem. It’s nothing new for God’s people to reject God – it’s been happening the whole way through the Old Testament! Jesus’ rejection is not, therefore, unsurprising, and is certainly not evidence that he isn’t God! God has always been rejected by his people – and Jesus shows them that by quoting from Isaiah the prophet, who was speaking to the Jewish leaders of his time (about 740B.C.), and applying it to them. 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ (quoted from Isaiah 29:13)

Isaiah was warning of a terrible judgement because of their hypocrisy – claiming to serve God outwardly, but inwardly, and by their actions hating him. It’s people who claim to love God, but then lie and cheat and steal and pursue money, sex and power like everyone else. Norwegian has a great word for this “skinnhellig” – literally skin holiness.

And the result of this behaviour, this honouring with lips but not with heart? Jerusalem was ransacked, the Temple, the symbol of God living with his people – was destroyed, smashed to the ground, and the people of Israel were carried off into exile. Skin holiness doesn’t cut it. God is not fooled by outward appearances of holiness.

And Jesus is bringing the same damning words against the scribes and Pharisees in his day. ’ 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

They claim to serve God – but what really motivates them? God, or their own ideas about God. They claim to know the Law, here represented by Moses – but Jesus says in verse 13 “You nullify the word of God by the tradition that you have handed down”. It’s the garden of Eden all over again – we want to be like God determining what is right and wrong. We decide. We ignore God’s law, and come up with our own. Even the best of us, the most religious, the ones who appear to seek God fall into this trap.

Why? Listen carefully, for this is the reason: 14 “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” … 20 “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Why do we hate God? It’s because we are inwardly defiled, inwardly rotten, inwardly rebellious, inwardly evil. The roots of sin and rebellion are deep, to the very core of our being. That’s why being good and moral does not work – it merely papers over the cracks.

And this explains the world! It explains why good and decent people do such terrible things. It explains why we have a world full of the Utøya massacre, 9/11, 20 years of war in Sudan, Apartheid, murders, theft, adultery, broken families, sexual abuse, abandoned children, etc. etc. We are not morally neutral people, standing above God and choosing between him and evil behaviour.

No, our deepest desire, our underlying longings, are to be our own master, to rebel against God and his good laws of love and self-sacrifice and honour and respect – and so we cannot do anything except choose ourselves. This is what the bondage of the will means. We are free to choose – but we will always choose what we love, what we desire most – and we do not desire God, we do not desire what is good.

We had a dog called Murphy – a big Red Rhodesian ridgeback. Beautiful dog. But sometimes he would roll in horses manure, and would need a bath (which he hated). Ears would go back, and he’d get what we came to call the “Murphy face”. Anyway, eventually we’d manage to get him to stand still for his bath – and while washing him, as he became clean, he suddenly turned into a majestic horse. He would neigh and stamp his foot, then I would leap upon his back and ride for miles. A noble steed. 
How many of you believe that he turned into a horse? Of course he didn’t – he was just a slightly cleaner dog. The horse-transformation is clearly nonsense. But if we won’t believe THAT story, why do we so readily believe that we can change our own hearts by doing good deeds. As Luther famously said on this matter of good works, you can wash a pig – but it’s still a pig. 

Not convinced?

(Gen 6:5 NIV) The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 

(Eph 2:1-2) As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 

(Ro 3:10–12) 10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” 

Jesus speaks the truth plainly. He does not sugar coat it. To make it hit home, I’m going to read it again, with my own name – put yours where mine is in your own mind.

20 “What comes out of Daniel is what defiles Daniel. 21 For from within, out of the heart of Daniel, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile Daniel.”

Application: We are spiritually unclean, evil, rebels against God, sinners to our deepest core.

Impossible application: I’m the exception. Unlike everyone else, I’m not a sinner in my inmost being. I can choose to obey God. I can do what is right. I can earn my salvation through my own efforts.

Possible application: What are the ways in which you’re doing that right now? Maybe it’s your attitude to church? Come if I want to – not understanding that it is your lifeline. Gathering together with other Christians to hear God’s Word is the most important thing you can do – because your heart is bent, you need regular corrective spiritual surgery!

Or maybe there are certain doctrines in the Bible that you disagree with – not remembering that your reason, your mind, is infected with sin, and the Bible is not.

Or maybe you are deliberately sinning, but reckoning that God will forgive you, or excusing it away as not really that serious. Maybe it’s viewing pornography, or reading trashy romance novels; or gossiping about other people (even the “stars”); or being discontented with your life or your house or your husband or your wife; or cowardice in sharing the gospel.

Whatever it is, recognise it as sin against Almighty God, and humble yourself to come and confess it.

We are sinners before the almighty God, unable to save ourselves. We are not the exception. We cannot choose to obey God.

What hope is there? Only Jesus. Jesus brings hope. For he is the one who can heal the unclean, who can rescue the undeserving, who can open the ears of the spiritually deaf, so that we who see but [can] not perceive, and...hear but [can] not understand, [can] turn and be forgiven.
Only by grace. Call out to him for healing.  

3. Only Jesus can save us from sin 

Praise God for these two stories after Jesus’ devastating words to the religious elite of Israel, where he declares a new exile for them and the coming wrath of God (which takes place as they reject Jesus and kill him, and 30 years later the Temple is utterly destroyed and in the 2000 years since, never rebuilt).
Jesus leaves Israel for the Gentile, unclean, region of Tyre and Sidon. There he is sought out by an unclean Gentile woman. She is utterly undeserving of attention by the Messiah. In contrast to the arrogant Pharisees, she does not take offense at Jesus’ words, she does not demand he behaves a certain way, she does not stand in judgement over him, but simply falls at his feet and begs him to help her. That is true faith!

Jesus tests her by using a traditional Jewish word for Gentiles “dogs”. He says, quite rightly, “you are undeserving”.
Her response is humble “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” I am indeed undeserving – but even a crumb of your mercy would satisfy me.

She realises her helplessness and For this statement you may go your way. She receives forgiveness, where the Pharisees, wrapped up in their own arrogance, not realising their spiritual bankruptcy, got nothing, and Jesus left them.

Jesus then moves on to another Gentile area, the Decapolis (where we met the man with a Legion of demons). What hope is there for Israel? What hope for the world that is deaf and dumb to God?

33 And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. 34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

For those of us locked under the judgement of Isaiah 6, a people deaf and dumb to the voice of the Anointed Servant, there is hope. For he can, in his mercy, declare “Be opened!”

Application: We need Jesus to open our spiritual ears. We need to approach him in humility, fall at his feet, and ask him to help us.

Impossible application: I am deaf but I can hear.

Why do people reject Jesus?
Because we are sinners, deaf to the voice of God.

We must understand we are sinners, undeserving and throw ourselves on the mercy of Jesus, asking him to open our ears so that we can hear his voice, and be transformed. The alternative is to try it on our own, striving so hard to be good enough, and falling short, bitterness and anger and depression consuming us.

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