Urgent But Not Important
Sermon Text for September 3, 2006: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15
Things were hectic at Mary’s house and that was an understatement. She was happy to be a stay at home mom, but sometimes she missed the orderliness of her job in a law firm. Hardly anyone went screaming up the halls there, and as far as she could remember no one had thrown wet toilet paper at anyone either.
She was in one of her moods today, wishing for a more orderly existence when a blood curdling scream came out of the girls’ room. Her older two children were harassing the baby again. He wasn’t really a baby, but a three year old – who usually could give as good as he got. But today they had tied him down with the bed sheets that Mom had just put on the bed that day. He struggled and screamed when they told him that they were going to pull the hair out of the bottom of his feet with the pair of tweezers. His oldest sister was gleefully clicked the tweezers together for emphasis. This had been going on all day – one thing after another. Chrissy fell into the pond, or maybe Bobby pushed her. The dog made a mess on the hall carpet, the ladder to the tree house broke while Bobby was still up there.
And poor Mary was close to tears. She ordered everybody into a time out in a different part of the house and when all was quiet she covered her eyes with her hands and took some deep breaths trying to regain some control. But she did not have time for this. Guests were coming to dinner, the table wasn’t set, and the meat had to be tended too. This was an important dinner for her husband because the guests were new clients he was trying to woo. And everything right down to where people sat was critical. Mary used a special calligraphy program on the computer to write each name card beautifully, and then she put them in the exact spot that her husband told her.
Mary thought she had everything prepared. The kids were upstairs with a baby sitter. She called husband to come and carve the prime rib roast, only to discover that in the midst of all of the craziness she neglected to turn on the heat. The roast was raw and the dinner ruined. Tears of embarrassment stung Mary’s eyes. How could she ever face these people again? How could she make it up to her husband who was counting on her?
It is a crazy story, but my guess is that some of us here have had nightmares that parallel Mary’s dilemma. And in some ways the story of Mary is a retelling the story of Jesus from Mark chapter 7. In Mark’s gospel there is almost always a large crowd around Jesus and now they are once again surrounded by a large crowd and everyone is eating. And the Scribes and Pharisees notice that the disciples had not washed their hands before the meal. For observant Jews washing before meals was an important ritual. It involved prayers and the washing of the hands all the way up to the elbows. They knew nothing of germs so what they were guarding against was the possibility that they might have touched someone in the market who was ritually unclean. That is someone whose life made them something you would not want to touch. Ritual washing guarded against the consequences of having made one’s self ritually unclean.
Jesus responded to the criticism rather harshly. He quoted Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrine.” Jesus is saying that sometimes we get so wrapped up in things that don’t matter that we miss the point. And sometimes we take those things that do not matter and elevate them to the point of law and try to make everyone else do the same thing. In reality touching a pagan would not make a Jew unclean, nor would accidentally touching a woman – one’s wife or someone else disqualify a man from worshipping God. And if one is somehow made ritually unclean, that is having a stain on the soul, washing the hands won’t change that. But the law said it did.
Jesus knew that sometimes believers get so busy worrying about things that seem urgent like ritual hand washing; that we fail to take care of that which is important – building relationships with one another. I sometimes wonder if some of the arguments we have had in the church over the last forty years have been over what seems urgent and that we have not taken care of what is actually important.
So what is happening in the church or your life right now? Are you rushing to take care of what seems urgent only to allow important things to go unattended?
This morning as we come to the communion table we are taking care of what is important, though I fear some of us might miss the point altogether because our hearts are a million miles away worrying about things that seem urgent. Let me encourage you to focus here. There is nothing happening anywhere else that is more important than what we are doing. Here we do away with what is false and take part in the truth. Here we stop washing our hands up to the elbows and accept the cleansing that comes from Christ himself. It is easy to let events in life distract us, so take a deep breath and tell Christ that you are here, and ready to receive him. That’s it. That is all that you have to do right now.
Copyright © 2006 by Dwight R. Blackstock
Things were hectic at Mary’s house and that was an understatement. She was happy to be a stay at home mom, but sometimes she missed the orderliness of her job in a law firm. Hardly anyone went screaming up the halls there, and as far as she could remember no one had thrown wet toilet paper at anyone either.
She was in one of her moods today, wishing for a more orderly existence when a blood curdling scream came out of the girls’ room. Her older two children were harassing the baby again. He wasn’t really a baby, but a three year old – who usually could give as good as he got. But today they had tied him down with the bed sheets that Mom had just put on the bed that day. He struggled and screamed when they told him that they were going to pull the hair out of the bottom of his feet with the pair of tweezers. His oldest sister was gleefully clicked the tweezers together for emphasis. This had been going on all day – one thing after another. Chrissy fell into the pond, or maybe Bobby pushed her. The dog made a mess on the hall carpet, the ladder to the tree house broke while Bobby was still up there.
And poor Mary was close to tears. She ordered everybody into a time out in a different part of the house and when all was quiet she covered her eyes with her hands and took some deep breaths trying to regain some control. But she did not have time for this. Guests were coming to dinner, the table wasn’t set, and the meat had to be tended too. This was an important dinner for her husband because the guests were new clients he was trying to woo. And everything right down to where people sat was critical. Mary used a special calligraphy program on the computer to write each name card beautifully, and then she put them in the exact spot that her husband told her.
Mary thought she had everything prepared. The kids were upstairs with a baby sitter. She called husband to come and carve the prime rib roast, only to discover that in the midst of all of the craziness she neglected to turn on the heat. The roast was raw and the dinner ruined. Tears of embarrassment stung Mary’s eyes. How could she ever face these people again? How could she make it up to her husband who was counting on her?
It is a crazy story, but my guess is that some of us here have had nightmares that parallel Mary’s dilemma. And in some ways the story of Mary is a retelling the story of Jesus from Mark chapter 7. In Mark’s gospel there is almost always a large crowd around Jesus and now they are once again surrounded by a large crowd and everyone is eating. And the Scribes and Pharisees notice that the disciples had not washed their hands before the meal. For observant Jews washing before meals was an important ritual. It involved prayers and the washing of the hands all the way up to the elbows. They knew nothing of germs so what they were guarding against was the possibility that they might have touched someone in the market who was ritually unclean. That is someone whose life made them something you would not want to touch. Ritual washing guarded against the consequences of having made one’s self ritually unclean.
Jesus responded to the criticism rather harshly. He quoted Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrine.” Jesus is saying that sometimes we get so wrapped up in things that don’t matter that we miss the point. And sometimes we take those things that do not matter and elevate them to the point of law and try to make everyone else do the same thing. In reality touching a pagan would not make a Jew unclean, nor would accidentally touching a woman – one’s wife or someone else disqualify a man from worshipping God. And if one is somehow made ritually unclean, that is having a stain on the soul, washing the hands won’t change that. But the law said it did.
Jesus knew that sometimes believers get so busy worrying about things that seem urgent like ritual hand washing; that we fail to take care of that which is important – building relationships with one another. I sometimes wonder if some of the arguments we have had in the church over the last forty years have been over what seems urgent and that we have not taken care of what is actually important.
So what is happening in the church or your life right now? Are you rushing to take care of what seems urgent only to allow important things to go unattended?
This morning as we come to the communion table we are taking care of what is important, though I fear some of us might miss the point altogether because our hearts are a million miles away worrying about things that seem urgent. Let me encourage you to focus here. There is nothing happening anywhere else that is more important than what we are doing. Here we do away with what is false and take part in the truth. Here we stop washing our hands up to the elbows and accept the cleansing that comes from Christ himself. It is easy to let events in life distract us, so take a deep breath and tell Christ that you are here, and ready to receive him. That’s it. That is all that you have to do right now.
Copyright © 2006 by Dwight R. Blackstock
posted by Dwight Blackstock | 8:01 PM
3 Comments:
That was a very touching story and so true.
Patty
I'm sitting here in the hotel lobby in Vandalia, Illinois, waiting for Jamie to wake up, so we can move in the direction of Columbus, Ohio, for her 2nd year at Otterbein. This was exactly what I needed to see today; thank you.
Wow, those scenes with the kids--wet toilet paper, pulling hair out of the bottom of the feet--where do you get such ideas? Ha.djb
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