Voiding The Word of God

​14th Sunday after Pentecost – B (Proper 16)                                                 LSB #’s 589, 577, 862
Text – Mark 7:13
 
Thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.  And many such things you do.
 
VOIDING THE WORD OF GOD
 
 
Rules are made to be broken.  It’s well-known saying.    It drives some people crazy, & other people love it.   What’s ironic, if you think about it, is that ‘rules are made to be broken’ is actually just another rule.   Some people have more rules than others, but in reality, all sinful human beings live by some kind of rules. 
Each of us appreciates the value of our own rules & how we use them.   If other people agree with my rules, I’m fine with that, but I’m not interested in your rules unless they agree with mine.  In the end, the rules created by our sinful human nature are always about excluding those people who are unwilling or incapable of keeping them. 
For example, I do not appreciate it when people eat in my car.  The rule is meant to exclude those who end up making a mess.   In itself that desire to keep my car clean is neither good nor bad.  My sinful nature will always use it wrongly.   My saintly nature will use it in a God-pleasing way.  The question is, “Which nature is taking charge?” 
Do I use my rules only to satisfy myself?  Or, do I use my rules to bring glory to God?  Are my rules & regulations more important than relationships?  If your rule is something like, “No shooting guns in the house,” someone could really get hurt if it’s violated.  If your rule is, “No eating in the car,” the worst-case scenario is that someone will need to clean up the mess. 
In the Gospel reading from Mark 7, Jesus confronts a problem with the religious rulers of His day.  They treat their own rules as far more important than their relationships.  The shepherds were supposed to care for the sheep, not devour them.   Jesus was healing the sheep.  The small communities of Galilee were seeing the great kingdom work of God.  Whether a village or a town or the countryside, people were bringing their sick out into the marketplaces & Jesus was bringing God’s Kingdom into their lives.  People were seeing God’s gracious rule coming to Galilee in a very powerful way as Jesus brought healing & hope to His people. 
Instead of seeing the great kingdom work of God, the religious leaders were seeing something different.  Rather than look at Jesus & the people who are being healed, they looked at the disciples.  They saw these followers eat without washing their hands according to tradition.  In their eyes, that small infraction of tradition overshadowed the whole point of God’s kingdom. 
To help you grasp the magnitude of it, here’s a broad overview.  God creates the entire universe & everything in it in magnificent perfection.  Adam & Eve fall into sin & corrupt it all with evil.  The Holy Trinity sends Jesus to begin the new creation of the entire universe & of all who would believe it.  Meanwhile, the religious leaders are worried about washing hands. 
They ask Jesus to explain His disciples’ actions.  Jesus, however, does something else.  Instead of explaining the actions of His disciples, He explains the actions of the religious leaders.  He uses Scripture to awaken them to this fact – they loved their human traditions more than, not just God’s people, but more than God Himself.   In fact, they were voiding the Word of God. 
Their rules & regulations had become so important that they were blinded to the merciful work God was doing among His people.  Jesus further explains the actions of the religious leaders by reaching back into Israel’s history.  He quotes from the prophet Isaiah:
“…This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”  (Mark 7:6-7 ESV)  Whether you’re in the 8th century BC, the 1st century AD, or the 21st century, the problem is perennial.  Whenever God’s people gather, they are in danger of putting their human traditions above people & thus above their Creator & Savior.  God does something different.  The Great I Am puts sinful human beings first.  He comes to cleanse not the hands   but the heart.   This leads to Jesus dying so that sinners could live again – without clinging to traditions for their standing before God.  
When Jesus was crucified, the religious leaders had Pilate remove His body before evening.  Why?   Because they wanted to keep the Sabbath.  (John 19:31)  In crucifying Jesus, they lost their God, & the people they were supposed to lead, but they kept their tradition!  Failure to love God’s will was concealed behind the pious appearance of outward conduct. 
Jesus, however, did not stay dead.  He rose & ascended into Heaven.  Now, He rules over all things.  He has borne the consequences for any uncleanness & suffered the punishment for any & every sin.   In Him, you are forgiven.  There is nothing now that can separate you from God’s love.   We are His, with or without our traditions. 
God’s Word teaches that if we love God, we will love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  It’s not a rule to obey just for the sake of obeying rules.  It’s a description of what happens once the Holy Spirit creates faith in your heart. 
To love human traditions more than our neighbor requires suffocating & killing the faith that the Holy Spirit created.  To love human traditions more than our neighbor is to void the very Word of God.  It’s to render that Word ineffective & useless.  It’s the very nature of unbelief.  It is hypocrisy to attempt outward obedience while the heart does not cling to God in faith. 
As we gather in worship today, we do so in the midst of traditions.  Whether our worship is historic   or contemporary, there are traditions that guide our interaction with one another & with God.  Because this is so, it is good for us to hear the lesson from Mark where Jesus calls us to experience the mercy & the love of our Creator & Savior.  
The heavenly Father’s grace is present for you, with or without traditions, because Christ
is present for you, with or without traditions.  The presence of traditions is not the problem.  Trouble arises in how we experience those traditions,   & in how we practice them.   Which is more important, rules or relationships?   Every one of us has broken every one of God’s rules.  That’s why Jesus came to die & rise from the dead, to restore our relationship with Him. 
1 John 3 informs us: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; & so we are.”  (3:1a ESV)   That is the new relationship our Lord has earned for us.  That is the relationship that gains us entrance into heaven.  Human traditions can be a useful teaching tool, but holding too tightly to them also carries a human cost. 
To God, a heart without traditions is better than traditions without heart.  The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had plenty of tradition but no heart.  In following Jesus, God’s people form patterns of life which honor Him & His work in the world.  Those patterns are not wrong.  Often, they are helpful & give shape to our lives.  
But there is something more important to God than these patterns, & that   is His people.  God would rather have people without the patterns of religion than the patterns of religion without people.  To God, a heart without traditions is better than traditions without a heart.  Traditions with no heart for God actually void the Word of God. 
Repentance is God’s gift to us to turn us back to Him that we might receive again a heart that loves Him & therefore loves our neighbor as ourself.  Our sins are forgiven.  Though our sins are as scarlet, our Lord declares us to be holy in His sight.   It’s that news which gives us comfort & courage, not how well we keep our traditions.  Amen. 
 
 
Almighty God, Your Word is cast like seed into the ground; now let the dew of heaven descend & righteous fruits abound.  Amen.  LSB 577:1.