What Is Clean?

What Is Clean?

Mark 7:1-23

One play that I really like is Fiddler on the Roof.  In the opening scene, you hear that famous music and you see a fiddler on a roof, then Tevye walks onto the stage, points to the fiddler and say: " A fiddler on the roof.  Sounds crazy, no?  But in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck.  It isn’t easy.  You may ask, why do we stay here it it’s so dangerous?  We stay because Anatevka is our home.  And how do we keep out balance?  That I can tell you in a word -- TRADITION ----.  Because of our traditions, we’ve kept our balance, for many, many years.  Here in Anatevka we have traditions for everything -- how we eat, how to wear clothes.  For instance, we always keep our heads covered and always wear a little prayer shawl.  This shows our constant devotion to God.  You may ask, how did this traditions start?  I’ll tell you -- I don’t know.  But it’s a tradition.  Because of our traditions everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do"

Then the whole village comes out and sing that haunting song, Tradition.

Traditions for Tevye was important even though he didn’t know why or where the traditions came from.  They were important.  This fact is seen throughout the whole play. Tevye was a religious man in that he kept the traditions even when they did more harm than good.

Our story today is about traditions that the Jews held regarding cleanliness.  Many of those, according to Jesus, were doing more harm than good because they were  keeping people from a relationship with God.  In Mark, chapter 7, a group of Pharisees confront Jesus and His disciples about hand-washing.  That doesn’t seem like much, to you or I, but to them it marked a huge gulf between those who were clean in God’s sight and those who weren’t.    In our text, from Mark 7, we see these questions ...

Are You Washed?  (vv. 1-5)   

Who’s Rules Do You Follow?  (vv. 6 - 12)    and ...

Where Does Cleansing Begin? (vv. 14-23)

1. Body
1. Are You Washed?  (vv. 1-5)
1. We often try to solve our problems with sin by focusing on the externals.

1. Pharisees:  The Keepers Of The Rules
1. The Pharisees believed that every person ought to strive for the same level of godliness that God required of the Jewish priests who served in the temple in Jerusalem  They believed that if Israel was to be a nation of priests as the Old Testament claims, then God required all people in Israel to live by the same standards he required of the Jewish priests. So the Pharisees expected a higher level of obedience and commitment among the people than the Old Testament required of people. If we say, "A person’s home is his castle," the Pharisees would say, "A person’s home is his temple." In the Old Testament law God required the temple priest to go through a special washing ritual before eating a meal that came from the temple offering. Now the temple priest only had to go through this washing ritual when in the temple and eating a temple sacrifice as a meal. But the Pharisees expanded that requirement to apply to all Jewish people during all meals. They believed that all Jewish people ought to follow the example of the temple priests by ritually washing before each and every meal.The Concept Of Being Clean
2. So now, the hand washing law became something like this: Before one ate, one must pour 1 1/2 egg-shells of water over his hands, but not just in any manner, but in this prescribed manner. He must hold the hands with the finger-tips upwards and pour the water over them until it ran down his writs; he must then cleanse the palm of each hand with the fist of the other; he must then hold the hands with the fingertips pointing downwards and pour water on them from the wrists downwards so that ran off at the fingertips. This was not a matter of hygiene; it was a matter of ritual, even if the hands were spotless it must be done. To do it was to please God, to fail to do this was to sin.
3. Now it’s very important for us to understand that these washings had nothing to do with hygiene. The categories of "clean" and "unclean" in Old Testament Jewish thought don’t refer to observable categories of cleanliness or dirtiness . These categories of "clean" and "unclean" referred to ritual purity. 
4. This is kind of hard for us to understand today because we don’t have anything like ritual purity in our culture. In ancient Israel, you had to be in a state of ritual purity to worship God. But if you were ritually impure, you had to go through a purification ritual to become clean again.
2. Who Is Clean In God’s Eyes?
1. “washers?”  -- those with loads of rules for God … or
2. “followers?” -- those who follow after JesusWho’s Rules Do You Follow?  (vv. 6 - 12)
3. When we focus on the externals, we often confuse our ideas for God’s

1. The Exchange Of Charges
1. Unclean vs. Hypocrites
2. Follow men or God?
3. You prefer your teachings of what you think God wants over what God says He wants.
4. A story that sums up what we have been trying to say;
   Young Tommy was saying his bedtime prayers as his mother was listening, She heard him say. "if I should die before I woke . . . If I should die . . .
   "Wait a minute," said Tommy as he scrambled to his feet and ran downstairs. Within a short time he was back; dropping to his knees again, he continued the prayer where he had left off.
   When Tommy was safely tucked into bed, his mother asked why he had to run downstairs. He said: ’Mom, I thought about what I was saying.
   I had to stop and put all of Danny’s wooden soldiers on their feet. I had turned them on their heads just to see how mad he’d be in the morning. If I should die before I wake, I wouldn’t want him to find ’em like that. "  Where Does Cleansing Begin? (vv. 14-23)
1. The heart of the matter:  The heart is what matters
5. Externals Do Not Defile
6. Issues of the heart defile
7. The heart of the matter:  The heart is what matters
8. You want to wash the outside
1. What others can see
2. Perhaps more importantly — Where others can see you washing.
9. God wants to wash the inside
1. Those things hidden from others
2. Clearly visible to God
10. Listen carefully to these verses where Jesus lifts up the fact that our relationship with God is a matter of the heart - "it's what's inside that counts."
1. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." Matt. 5:8
2. "...where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matt. 6:21
3. "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." Matt. 22:37
4. "...{Jesus} looked around at {the Pharisees} with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart." Mark 3:5
1. Conclusion 
1. Jesus and the Pharisees were arguing a very basic point. What do faithful people do to be faithful? What are the interests of God and how do we serve them? Tradition is important and so is the manner and the degree to which we are distinct from the world around us. There can be no doubt about that. The thing is — Pharisees have a good point. But… Jesus seems to be saying that the Pharisees have misunderstood true cleanliness.
2. The problem with the Pharisees is that they were trying an outside-in approach to solve the sin problem. They thought sin could be rooted out by doing outward actions, things like religious rituals, watching what you eat, and so forth. Many, many Christians believe this as well. If we just pass the right legislation, or elect the right politicians, or control the media, or get all of the stuff that we don’t like  off the air, then that will root out the sin that’s destroying our culture. What we fail to realize is that the human heart’s condition remains the same even if we do those things. These things are the symptoms, not the cause of human evil.
3. The primary message in today’s text is that God looks within each of us to see where our affections truly lie. When we place the Lord at the center of our lives and make our hearts the place where God reigns, then we can be described as having "a heart for God."
4. Nothing that we do externally can create that. No outward practice we engage in, no religious rite or ritual can create a heart for God. The examples from the Old Testament are witness to that fact.
5. The Christian faith provides a different approach to the problem of sin.  Jesus has always provided an inside-out approach to solving the sin problem. Unless and until the human heart undergoes a radical transformation, all the outward efforts and legislation you can imagine won’t be enough. Deep within — at the level of the human heart — that is where the change needs to begin.
6. What about you?  Do you have a heart for God?  Perhaps your approach is wrong?  Instead of an outside-in approach, how about trying Jesus’ way - cleansing from the inside out?