Loading...I’ve had quite a few opportunities to people watch in the past week and a half. Airports, wedding activities, dining out, and the best people watching on the planet: the Great Minnesota Get Together: the Minnesota State Fair.
People do a lot of strange things in all these places. Sometimes those are things they would not normally do. Maybe because of their fear of flying, or perhaps drinking more alcohol than usual. It could be they are eating too much unfamiliar or very familiar foods. Or it could be that they are braving crowds to wander and experience the varieties of sights, smells and tastes that can only come from a state fair.
In all these places there are norms and expectations for how we behave. In airports, we have a litany of things we must do to even get to the gate. Our luggage can only weigh so much, and its contents are scrutinized for safety. We go through security, following protocols that vary from gate to gate. Shoes on or off? Computers in bags or out? Metal detector or screening? Will a dog sniff me today? We have chosen or assigned seats. Directions to follow in case of loss of cabin air pressure. Life preservers to wear if we encounter an unexpected water landing. And seatbelts must be fastened until the pilot turns off the seatbelt sign.
At weddings we often expect certain traditions that include anticipated scripture and legal language during the ceremony. Speeches and toasts, first dances, seating charts, and cultural traditions, like clinking glasses to get the couple to kiss. We dress up and celebrate.
The state fair is a gathering of people from all cultures and life experiences from babies in strollers to aging adults in wheelchairs. Individuals and groups seeking both favorite fair foods and new fried something on a stick. We gather together to celebrate agriculture and industry, entrepreneurialism and politics, risky midway rides, and people selling something we really didn’t know we needed. All while being observed by state patrol and police officers, trying to maintain a safe environment.
Everywhere we go, we have rules set up that encourage behavior that keeps everyone safe. Rules that teach us how to conduct ourselves. We have customs and practices that can identify our loyalties, from political buttons to crosses or stars of David around our necks, to head scarfs and clothing styles. Even the foods we eat have often been offered based on safety and availability in our cultural or societal contexts.
All these rules and customs come from humans striving to keep one another healthy and safe. And they are necessary, for the most part. I mean, you wouldn’t want to eat shellfish from the sea here in the middle of the country that has not been refrigerated in transit. Or meats or dairy products processed in unsanitary facilities. Or drive on roads without rules and regulations. There are certain rules and laws that make sense for survival.
Jesus and his disciples are called out by the Pharisees for not washing their hands appropriately. Even this past week, when my mom was ready to put lunch on the table, she asked us to go wash our hands. And though we sometimes balk at the request like the dwarves did when Snow White would not allow them to come to the table for dinner until they went outside to wash, we wash. And it makes sense. We wash because we do not want to defile the foods we eat with unclean hands. We do not want to get sick.
Jesus, however, uses this moment to remind us that sometimes we put too much emphasis on the rules. Sometimes the rules keep us from following what is most important to God.
In verses six and seven of today’s Gospel Jesus quotes Isaiah when he says: “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’” Then in verse eight he adds, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Our human tradition or inclination can sometimes make us behave in ways that do not express what Jesus claims God desires most.
Love God. Love one another as you love yourself.
This Gospel is Mark’s turning point in Jesus’s ministry of welcome. It from this point Jesus begins to include people who are not Jewish, or are perhaps from a different tribe of Israelites, he’s including them into his broad embrace of love.
This embrace does not require everyone to follow the laws in a specific way. But it does require everyone to follow the commandments to love God and love one another as you love yourself. He brings the focus away from the head and asks us to focus, instead, on the heart.
Sure, we need to follow the guidance of the legal systems and follow the rules of our faith. But if we do these things in ways that separate us from one another and from God, we are missing the point. If we use these rules and systems to judge and deny, to ridicule and harm, to spew hateful rhetoric, rather than recognize the humanity and dignity of every human being, we are missing the point.
A few weeks ago, Annie gave me a gift. Maybe you’ve seen it in the hallway, hanging on her doorframe. When she gave it to me, she asked if I could handle a little sacrilegious humor. I said yes.
And she gave me this. It’s Jesus, peeking out from behind the wall saying, “I saw that.”
Now, my first response was to laugh. Out loud. For weeks. I mean, don’t we often think that Jesus is watching us? As Christians who have probably experienced embarrassment when we fumble or misstep, don’t we look around us to see who might be watching? Do we feel a little guilty when we misbehave, or behave in an unexpected way? Have you ever feared that Jesus actually DID see you do that?
I know I have.
For those first few weeks of looking at that sign, I felt a little convicted. DID I wash my hands appropriately? Did I speak kindly? Was I judgmental, harsh, or downright mean? Did I speed when I drove? Was the food I just ate healthy or harmful?
Was everything I was doing wrong?
Then, I had an epiphany. You know, one of those lightning bolts of recognition that turns the way you think upside down.
What if Jesus was saying,
“I saw that … and it was awesome!”?
Or “I saw that … and it made me so proud!”?
Of “I saw that … and you showed love when it was really hard!”?
I think that when we look at the Gospel for today, we can hear Jesus saying “I saw that … and I want you to realize that all these human made rules and expectations, cultural and safety practices, worship styles, and the things you “have always done this way” … all those things you are doing because you think they will make you more holy and acceptable to God, aren’t what God wants from you.”
He would go on, “I want you to know that God is more interested in you knowing, loving and thanking God. God is watching to see your kindness and generosity to all people. God sees you when you forgive others. God observes you when you teach and live the way of love. God is watching, and longs for you to let go of the trappings of outdated traditions when they keep you from loving yourself.”
Everything Jesus teaches us is about what it looks like to love God. And humans have twisted that image, like a mirror in a State Fair funhouse, to distort the picture, through rules and regulations that cause us to judge others to be less faithful, less human, less deserving of God’s abundant, life-giving love.
Jesus wants us to know that we have a choice in how we treat one another. In our reading from James, it looks like “caring for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
For when we strive to live in the ways of Jesus, treating one another with love, compassion, and hope, Jesus will say, “I saw that, and I love you.”
Amen.
