Deuteronomy 4:1-9
Ephesians 6:10-20
Mark 7:1-8,14-15, 21-23
Psalm 15
Tippet, my raccoon, always washes her hands before eating.
In fact, she washes her food and her toys and anything else she can get her little hands on.
But it's not because she's a pharisee or a scribe, or because it's "the tradition of the elders."
She doesn't do it because she saw some older and wise raccoons doing it.
(I'm sure of that because she literally doesn't have any eyes to see anything with.)
This "washing" is not a learned behavior for raccoons. It seems to be instinctive and it is done by captive or tame raccoons rather than wild ones. Wild raccoons fish for frogs and shellfish by feel. Captive raccoons deprived of this activity still try to do it with their food, though it soils their water and ruins (from a human point of view at least) their birthday cake. What once was a necessary activity for survival becomes, in another time and place, useless or even a problem.
Circumstances change. But basic needs do not change. In changed circumstances, the best way to meet those needs may also change. Raccoons always and everywhere need food and water. Wild raccoons need to feel around in the water to catch their food. But captive raccoons, washing everything, end up spoiling their source of clean drinking water. (Unless, of course, they happen to be smart enough to have trained some gullible human like me to keep bringing them fresh, clean water.)
Now I'm not going to be able to convince Tippet the raccoon that her health would be better if she stopped washing her food in her swimming pool.
But I do think that Jesus is trying to convince the pharisees
that their lives might be better if they
stopped putting so much energy into keeping the laws of ritual purity
and focused their attention on the basics of survival,
that is for us humans, on God's commandment rather than human tradition.
Tradition, of course, is important. It helps us know who we are and is one of the "three sources" we Episcopalians turn to when trying to figure things out ... things about God, about ourselves, and about relationships. That's how we "do theology." The "three sources" or "three-legged stool" that supports our theology, help us figure out what those "basics of survival" of God's commandments really are.
We look listen to all three: to Scripture, to Tradition, and to Reason. And on occasion, just like in today's gospel reading, there is tension among the three. (Maybe that's why we have three ... tension or disagreement between two is harder to resolve.)
We know where to find "Scripture." That's the Bible. It's where we look first. But if you study it in detail, as the scribes and pharisees did, and as we would do well to do also, the answers aren't always as clear as we'd like. And when we start looking at "The Law" in the Bible it's especially confusing. There are five big books of it. And there are lots of little details, especially in the purity code in Leviticus that Jesus is talking about. If we took it literally, we couldn't eat shrimp or wear mixed fabric clothing, like this polyester-cotton blend alb.
Of course, look carefully, and you can find places in the New Testament where the food laws seem to be canceled out. So maybe the shrimp's okay, but a true literalist would still have a hard time finding anything to wear today. Scripture all by itself is at times extremely difficult.
The "Scripture" part of being an Episcopalian is our "Protestant" part. But we Episcopalians are "Catholic" too – though "Anglican" or "English" Catholic rather than "Roman" – so we also listen to "Tradition" That's pretty easy for us to find, because our tradition is summarized in our Prayer Book. Our Tradition brings us the wisdom of many other Christians to help us with "doing theology" -- with understanding God, ourselves, and our relationships. Tradition is a way of recognizing that God has continued to speak to God's people even after the Bible was all written down. So we do listen to the "tradition of the elders."
But didn't Jesus just tell the pharisees not to do that? Is this were we also become pharisees, who "abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition." I suppose it could be just that if we end up valuing the Prayer Book more than God, so that the Prayer Book becomes an idol. We can do that with Scripture too, paying more attention to it than to God, and making the Bible itself an idol. When made into idols, tradition and scripture can be as dangerous and destructive as that Baal of Peor.
That's when that third source, "Reason." comes in. Whether we admit it or not, all Christians, not just those of us in the Anglican tradition who admit it, use our reason to figure out what Scripture and Tradition is trying to tell us. "Reason" is not just logic, though that may be part of it. "Reason" here includes our own experience. It includes "listening with the heart." Because the heart not only is the source of those "evil intentions" Jesus talks about. The heart is also the source of wisdom and the place where God has written God's law. Listening to Reason in Christian community affirms that God still speaks to us today.
"Scripture, Tradition, and Reason" are the gifts or the "tools" that God has given us for the times when we face those hard questions, large and small, like:
The details of the Law are not the fundamentals. I confess here to being a radical fundamentalist. That may surprise some of you who label me as a "progressive liberalist" or at least as "skeptical and misguided." Though I don't usually interpret Scripture literally, I do here interpret "radical" and "fundamentalism" literally. "Radical" means going to the roots, going back to the basics. In this case, literally to the fundamentals of our Christian faith, to which I hold as firmly and as stubbornly as anyone who dares to call themselves a "fundamentalist."
The hitch, of course, is deciding which of the things that one believes are "fundamental" for Christians faith. When I try to define what is really fundamental, my REASON tells me to listen to both SCRIPTURE and TRADITION and to go back to the basics, to the "radical" roots.
In the "tradition of the elders," our worship today began with scripture,
with the decalogue in the ‘traditional' Rite I words.
And then we heard Jesus's "Summary of the Law,"
that does tell us the basic fundamentals:
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all they mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
Any "law" that doesn't "hang from" love of God and love of neighbor, is about as necessary for survival as a raccoon's washing her birthday cake in her swimming pool. And any "law" or action that actually obstructs the love of God and love of neighbor has become a sin.
Listen. Listen to Jesus. Listen to him speaking in the bible, in the church, and in your heart. The voices of Scriptpure, Tradition, and Reason are all in harmony on the fundamentals of human survival: "Love the Lord, your God" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." "There is no other commandment greater than these."