Jesus gets to the heart of the problem … our heart

Mark 7:1 The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and ² saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed. ³ (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. ⁴ When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.) ⁵ So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?" ⁶ He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. ⁷ They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' ⁸ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men." … ¹⁴ Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. ¹⁵ Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.'" … ²¹ For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, ²² greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. ²³ All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'"

Our world is filled with sick and sinful souls. Sometimes those sinful souls are just a little bit silly, as they try to pull off their wrongdoings. For example, the police in Boston were called to investigate the case of a stolen car. During the initial report, the vehicle’s owner shared that in his vehicle were two tickets for that night’s Red Sox game. Thinking they had nothing to lose, the police went to the game and, sure enough, found the thieves, sitting in the man’s seats. They had driven to the game in his stolen car.

Or how about the bank robber who was caught because he had written his hold-up note on the back of his birth certificate? Or the disgruntled ex-employee of a computer company who was so upset at being dismissed that he returned to his office to steal some equipment. The fellow was arrested because the paper he used to jam the door open was part of a parking ticket he had received a few days earlier.

My favorite story is about the fellow who was captured trying to break into a store. His method wasn’t the most subtle. He threw a concrete block through the store’s front window. The only problem was that the window was made of Plexiglas. The block bounced off the window, hit the would-be burglar on the head, and knocked him out.

We laugh at these people because they are so incredibly not smart in their sinning. At least, when we sin, we know how to cover it up. We know how to be intelligent about it. We make sinning look good.

You and I are very much like the Pharisees and teachers of the law who confronted Jesus. They were very concerned about their traditions. They were very big on ceremonially washing (literally in the Greek – “baptizing”) everything to make them clean – hands, cups, pitchers, kettles, dining couches and people. They felt that by doing all of this baptizing and washing that they would look good on the outside and therefore be good and acceptable to God on the inside.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law were trusting in themselves. Their own good works. Their own outward righteousness. They made it seem like sin is something outside ourselves. Something we can take care of by washing off or changing our clothing, ridding ourselves of our changing our behavior.

But Jesus gets to the heart of the problem by saying that our heart is the problem. He chastises them firmly, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”

Jesus calls them hypocrites. The Greek word “hypocrite” literally means “one who wears a mask.” It refers to an actor in a play.

A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection. The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration, as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her cell phone and makeup.

As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He read the woman her rights as his partner searched her car. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, “I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him.  I noticed the “What Would Jesus Do” bumper sticker, the “Choose Life” license plate holder, the “Follow Me to Sunday-School” bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.”

How often don’t we act like hypocrites? We clean up our act. We cut down on the swearing. We refrain from over-indulging on the eating and drinking. We act all sweet and nice to our brothers and sisters when our parents are watching. We dress up nice. We send our children to a Christian school. We show up to church once in a while. We look pretty good on the outside. We act and speak one way but are totally different on the inside. That is the definition of a hypocrite. And it applies to every one of us – pastor, teacher, parent, student.

But Jesus isn’t concerned with your outside. He could really care less if you wear shorts or a suit to the church picnic or whether you have lean turkey or a Johnsonville brat for lunch or wash it down with cranberry juice of a beer. He doesn’t care if you wash your hands before eating or not. Jesus isn’t concerned with how clean you look or act on the outside. He is only concerned with one thing – your inside – your heart.

Jesus explains to the crowd, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.' … For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.  All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'”

Maybe you’ve “cleaned up your act” and you haven’t committed adultery, theft or murder lately, but I want you to take a few moments right now to think about a few of those things that you have done or said over the years, the ones you deeply regret, the ones you hope no one ever finds out about. The times when you’ve behaved foolishly, hurtfully, wickedly, destructively. It felt almost like something was inside of you, driving you, controlling you.

Go ahead and take a few moments to think about your faults and failings.

Pretty painful isn’t it? That’s why our Lutheran Confessions say about our sinful heart, our original, inborn sin: “Original sin is not a minor corruption. It is so deep a corruption of human nature that nothing healthy or uncorrupt remains in man’s body or soul, in his inward or outward powers. This damage cannot be fully described. It cannot be understood by reason, but only from God’s Word” (Epitome of the Formula of Concord, I. Original Sin, paragraphs 8,9).

But that’s why you are here today. In His Word, Jesus invites you to come clean. Not by washing your hands, but by baptizing your soul. “Come clean” doesn’t mean what the Pharisees taught or many people today think – that you have to clean yourself up before you can come to God, before He’ll accept you. No! Come clean by coming to God unclean. Admit your filth. Own up to all of your sin and guilt. Don’t cover up your sin any longer. Take off your mask. Show God who you really are.

Let Christ make you clean. And He does! He washes you with His baptismal waters. He strengthens your weak flesh with His own flesh and blood in the Lord’s Supper. He fills you up with a steady diet of the blessed food of His holy Word – read in your homes, taught in our classrooms and preached from our pulpit (and picnics).

Someone once was going through a rough patch in her marriage, so she and her husband had stopped coming to church. She told me, “When we get everything fixed, then we’ll be back in church.” No, no, no. She had it all backwards. Come to church, come to God. He’ll fix you. He’ll repair the broken relationship between you and your God. He’ll heal your ailing marriage. He’ll restore the shattered bond between you and your children. Christianity is not a “do-it-yourself” faith. It is a faith based on Jesus doing it all for us.

Jesus loves you just the way you are. But He also loves you too much to let you stay that way. He wants you to improve. He works in you to not only listen to His Word but also do what it says. No matter how hard you try or how well-intentioned you are, you cannot change from the outside in. Acting good will never make you good. You cannot change yourself. You must be changed from the inside out. That is the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit – working through Word and Sacrament; repentance and forgiveness. He’ll make you into the kind of Christian husband your wife needs you to be. He’ll make you into the kind of Christian mom your children need you to be. He’ll make you into the kind of dependable Christian employee your employer pays you to be.

Our once crucified but now living Savior comes to us today, in water, in Word, and in bread and wine. God’s Word is not about instruction, but transformation. It is not telling us to change, but changing us. We don’t decide to start over and promise God to be better, but we actually die to sin and we are raised in Christ to a new life in Him.

We can’t do any of this on our own. It is what our Savior does for us. Coming to us. Living in us. Forgiving our sins, turning our minds, cleansing our hearts, loving the unlovable, curing the incurable, saving the damnable, rescuing the lost, sanctifying the hypocritical.

Being a Christian doesn’t mean that you are perfect. Being a Christian doesn’t even mean that you have to act perfect. Being a Christian just means that you are forgiven. You are forgiven in Christ for your lack of perfection. It is repenting and believing the good news that God has done it all for you and saved you. Jesus went to the cross for you so now your sins are now on Him and no longer on you. Now when you see your Savior on the cross, humiliated, bleeding, and dying, you are truly seeing the heart and love of God for you. There is no greater revelation. God loves you so much that He would rather He die than you die. And so He did, thus banishing your sin and death that you might live. Not so that you can act the part of a Christian, but so you can be a Christian. And so you are.

People have said to me, “I don’t want to go to church because it’s full of hypocrites.” I’ve said to them, “You’re right. The church is full of hypocrites. So why don’t you come so there’ll be one more.”

Don’t just be really good at sinning. Covering it up and hiding your shame and guilt from everybody else. Instead, be really good at coming clean. Come unclean and be cleaned by your Savior. Come repent and be washed over with His forgiveness. Come broken, so He can heal you. Come filthy with your sin, so He can make you pure. Come hungry and He will feed you with His body and blood. Let Jesus repair your broken, sin-filled heart. Let Him set up shop in your heart. Yes, that sinful nature will still be alive and well within your heart and soul. But now Jesus is also there. He is there forgiving all that sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander and folly. Yes, even with Jesus in your heart, you will still be a sinner. But now you will be a forgiven, blood-bought, redeemed and heaven-bound sinner.

We don’t come to church because we are perfect Christians. We come to church so that we can be forgiven Christians. Come with your sin. Jesus comes with His words of forgiveness. He gets to the heart of the problem … by changing your heart. That is Lutheran worship. That’s all we do here. Amen.