The Rev. Marc Eames
Pentecost XIII
August 30, 2015
We are finally back to the Gospel of St. Mark after a long Johannine interlude. At this point in the
narrative, Jesus was starting to get some notoriety. The crowds were growing larger - the miracles more
dramatic - the teachings more controversial. The Jewish authorities had taken notice, and while they
were able to ignore the Jesus movement for a while, they eventually realized that they had to
investigate the phenomenon. The scribes and scholars sent out were not excited about the prospect. A
team of Pharisees had to travel to Jesus to listen to him teach. Their goal was to discern if he was who
he said he was. This group of Pharisaic scholars were dispatched from the cozy intellectual center of the
mountains of Jerusalem to the Galilee, a backwater at the edge of the territory. The area by the lake can
also be a touch humid for the region, and that is not what you want when it is 100 degrees outside.
There were some Pharisees in scripture who were excited to see Jesus; these were not those Pharisees.
They were cranky, and they just wanted to find a bit of information that they could bring back to their
masters which would prove that Jesus was not to be taken seriously. Even today, it is easier to dismiss
people than to take them seriously and be forced to grapple with the issues they discuss. The Pharisees
just want their reason to dismiss Jesus so they can go home.
You will notice that Mark does not have them listen to a sermon and counter Jesus on a point, as some
others do. These scribes did not even seem to listen to Jesus. They saw that his disciples did not wash
their hands before eating, so they thought they had what they needed. They asked their “gotcha”
question to Jesus about this break with tradition. Jesus gave his response, which might be rendered in
modern English, “Really, Dude. You traveled the equivalent of Boston to Springfield to listen to me, and
your comment is ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’?” Clearly annoyed, he calls them hypocrites, and he
quotes Isaiah – sort off. I will blame this small error in recording on my patron saint, Mark the
Evangelist, but Jesus slightly misquotes Isaiah here. I admit, I didn’t notice this until this past week. It is
a small error, but I think a significant one. Mark has Jesus say, “in vain do they worship me, teaching
human precepts as doctrines.' You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."
Isaiah actually wrote, “Their fear of me is a commandment taught by men.” The first quotation is not
wrong in its lesson. Of course, Jesus did not want the Pharisees, or anyone else, to create rules that
bumped God’s laws to the side. I do not think there would be a great deal of disagreement about that.
The direct Isaiah quote, I find to be more interesting, though. “Their fear of me”, you could also read
“their worship of me”, or “their honoring of me”, is a commandment taught by men.” It is not that they
don’t honor or care about God, they might care deeply about having a relationship with God, but that
relationship isn’t built on the truth. It is something made up. “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” is not in
the Bible. Jesus knows this. There are cleansing rituals for someone who is spiritually unclean, but there
is no law about pre-dinner washing of hands. Jesus is not anti-sanitation, either. He is not a hippy
railing against the ill effects of “big-soap”. He is stating that the Pharisees have missed the message. It
is not that they don’t want to have a relationship with God, but in their pursuit of God, they come to
value the insignificant, and the outward, over the inward, and the more profound. They have become
willfully blind to the movements of God. Earlier in Isaiah 29, this is symbolized by a scribe who is unable
to read the words of God though they are right in front of him.
Jesus, the word of God incarnate, is right in front of these scholars, these well-educated men, but they
can’t see it. They think they have it all figured out. They know all the rules, and they just want to find
Jesus breaking one, so they can go back to Jerusalem.
They think they know everything about God, but they are mistaken, and they don’t want to listen to the
voice of God, even if it is right in front of them.
I encourage you to look at your lives and try to find the places where God is trying to get your attention.
Perhaps, it is a place similar to the Pharisees where you are lost in the minutia and you are prevented
from seeing the big picture, or perhaps you are too focused on the appearance of things and you are not
spending enough time on the reality of things.
Sometimes I have an easier time than others with this big picture issue. One time I got it right, through
the grace of God, was heading down to the Gulf Coast to be a chaplain after hurricane Katrina. 10 years
ago, the levees broke, and a great American city was underwater with thousands stuck on top of houses,
on bridges, or trapped in the Super Dome. I know there have been many tragedies in American History,
but I had, and have never seen, anything like this one in our country. People were just abandoned to
drown. The conditions in the water was something out of Dante. After Katrina, many New Orleanians
had the bumper sticker “3rd world and proud”. The footage really did look like something out of the
third world. Certainly, the greatest superpower in the world was capable of evacuating a city or building
a flood wall. Yet, 10 years ago last night, a reverse storm surge coming from Lake Ponchetraine
undermined the levies in more than 100 locations destroying the city. 80% of which, would remain
underwater for weeks. Some died immediately as the water rushed in during the night, others were
trapped all over the city. The government response was late and uncoordinated. There is plenty to
criticize at the city, state, and federal level.
The people who did show up were thousands of Christians from all over the nation, actually all over the
world. They came to help the people get water and food. They came to muck out houses, and
sometimes to knock them down. They came to offer support and encouragement to people who had
lost everything except their lives. The city flooded in some areas for over a month. This caused
infrastructure problems. When gas and electrical lines were turned back on, fires started. It was so
frustrating to see houses that were mucked out and partially restored, burning. Because the water
system for the hydrants needed extensive repairs, the burning buildings often needed to be put out by
helicopter. You can imagine what a house would look like after 10’s of thousands of gallons of water are
dumped on it from 100 feet up.
The people of the Gulf Coast have used this opportunity to rebuild, but it has been a story of two steps
forward one and half back. African American residents of the city have seen more than their fair share
of the steps back, which is the reason why 57% of black people in the city of New Orleans claim the city
has not yet fully recovered from Katrina. While I was an intern at a church in Hartford, I worked on a
petition campaign to try to convince a grocery store to open in the city. When no grocery stores exists
in poor areas, it leads to high levels of obesity and poor nutrition. Who has time to catch three busses
to have food for your dinner, when you can go to the convenience store and eat their hotdogs for a
buck? (In New Orleans it is fried chicken.) The lower ninth ward, an almost exclusively black
neighborhood, just had their first post-Katrina grocery store open. A few of our youth who went on the
mission trip this year worked in that neighborhood. The people of the city have made great strides with
the help of the Church of the Advent, and thousands of other churches throughout the country. We will
continue to keep New Orleans in our prayers as they honor this milestone in churches throughout the
city and region this morning.
I have been moved by the enthusiasm our youth have demonstrated for mission work down in New
Orleans. They have received so much from our partnerships, but I feel I am sitting with the blind
Pharisees, unable to see the movements of God right in front of me, when it comes to a more local
mission. It is not that we can’t find partners when we have a good project. I have worked well with
Pastor Jonathan and the Baptists on ministries to the Upham house. We have just finished our third
very successful Vacation Bible School working with the Baptists and the Congregationalists. We have
worked with the Unitarians, and other churches, on having discussions on issues of race. So we can play
well with others, but I have not been able to see a mission project that captures the imagination like our
Mission trip does. Looking back in the archives, I know this church has done some great things with
habitat for humanity, but I know there has been some trouble getting projects in our area. Going back
50 years, this church had a fantastic ministry in the prison in Walpole, but it ran out of steam over time.
I want you to help me see where God is calling us to make a big impact. I feel that this is a blind spot for
me. I encourage you to help me, and I encourage you to pray to God for the vision to see your own
blindness – areas where you are perhaps too wrapped up in the fine details to see the broader vision of
God. Lord, grant us the vision to see and the grace to act in every aspect of our lives.
In Jesus name,
Amen.