Lectionary Reflections
by Various Authors

Creeds or Deeds

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Rev. David Chadwell posed a rather interesting question: 
Which would you prefer for a next-door neighbor: 
a person of excellent habits or a person with a good heart? 
Which would you prefer for a good friend: a person of excellent habits, 
or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer 
for a husband or a wife: a person of excellent habits, or a person 
with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a child: 
a child with excellent habits, or a child with a good heart? 

It is wonderful to have a neighbor who conscientiously cares for his property 
while respecting your property. It is wonderful to have a friend 
who always treats you with consideration. It is wonderful to be married 
to a husband who always is thoughtful and courteous, or to a wife 
who always is gracious in her comments and deeds. It is wonderful 
to have a son or daughter who shows respect and uses good manners. 

As wonderful as those situations are, none of them compare to having 
a neighbor, a friend, a husband, a wife, a son, or a daughter with a good heart. 

When you discuss good behavior, you are discussing the quality 
of a person's self-control. When you discuss a good heart, 
you are discussing the quality of the person. 

This is the focus of today’s Scripture. Pharisees and teachers 
have come down from Jerusalem and, interestingly, they are gathered around Jesus 
watching the disciples. The disciples, it seems, are eating lunch. 
They have come in from the day’s work. Too tired and too hungry to care 
that their hands and faces were dirty, they immediately sat down to eat without washing. 

The Pharisees cease upon this ceremonial oversight and question Jesus: 
Why don’t your disciples live according to the traditions of the elders 
and clean their hands before they eat? This is all that Jesus needs to hear. 
He sticks up for his disciples, turns on these teachers and says in essence, 
"Why do you not live according to the traditions of God and clean your hearts?" 

What mistake did these Pharisees make? What is Jesus trying to convey, 
not only to them, but to us as well. For you see, it is just as easy for us to fall 
into a good habit and leave behind a good heart. What is Jesus' warning to us? 

 We prefer creeds rather than deeds. 
 We look at the outside not the inside. 
 But God requires good Creeds, Deeds, and Hearts.




Seeing Only the Smoke, Never the Fire

In Luke 7:32, Jesus observed that this generation is like school children 
who pipe and their friends won't dance, who wail and their chums won't cry. 
"There is no pleasing you!" We simply find something wrong with everything.

John Wesley pointed out that every gift God gives man is quickly sullied 
by human hands. He said every revival comes with defects. 
So he'd pray, "Lord, send revival without the defects." 
But then he told the Lord, "If you won't do it, then send the revival 
with the defects."

Pharisees only see the smoke, never the fire. They complain about defects, 
never seeing the revival. Negative, critical persons, they are judgmental.

(by Stephen M. Crotts from Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing)


 
Tradition Is a Powerful Thing

Years ago Harry Emerson Fosdick told about a church in Denmark 
where the worshipers bowed regularly before a certain spot on the wall. 
They had been doing that for three centuries -- bowing at that one spot in the sanctuary. 
Nobody could remember why. One day in renovating the church, 
they removed some of the whitewash on the walls. At the exact spot 
where the people bowed they found the image of the Madonna under the whitewash. 
People had become so accustomed to bowing before that image 
that even after it was covered up for three centuries, people still bowed.

Tradition is a powerful thing. The Pharisees had learned to substitute tradition, 
custom, habit for the presence of the living God. Traditionalism rears its head 
in many ways, in many times and in many places.

(by King Duncan from Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com)


 
Fault-Finding

Shakespeare said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, 
by any other name would smell as sweet." Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? 
I'm sure it would. You see, the truth is that the thing is what it is, not what someone calls it. 
Names are assigned to us, based on our outward circumstances by ourselves and other people. 
"Sinner, Failure, Stupid, Dummy, Unclean" all are names which label us. 
But what we are called, either by others or by ourselves does not determine who we are. 
It might speak of those external circumstances, but it might be wholly inaccurate. 
You see, a failure is not someone who fails. In reality, the people who fail the most 
are the ones who succeed. You only get to success by taking risks and risk-taking 
brings many failures along the way. A failure is someone who simply doesn't try. 
No, names do not determine who you are. You are who you are on the inside.

So, the first important lesson is that we must cultivate the inner person.
The inner person is the person who counts. The apostle Paul desired that we
be strengthened in the inner man.

It boils down to relationship. We are only as strong as our personal relationship with Christ.

(by J. David Hoke from The Inside Story, Mark 7:14-23)



The Shoeshine Boy

A certain downtown businessman became fond of the little boy 
who shined his shoes every day. He did such a good job that one day 
the businessman asked him, “Son, how come you are so conscientious about your work?” 
The boy felt complimented. He looked up to the man, and said, 
“Mister, I’m a Christian and I try to shine every pair of shoes 
as if Jesus Christ were wearing them.”

The businessman saw something genuine in the shoeshine boy. 
Soon after that he began reading his Bible. When he decided to be a Christian himself, 
he credited his decision to the little boy who shined every pair of shoes 
“as if Jesus Christ were wearing them.” That’s a blessing.

(by Charles R. Leary from Mission Ready!, CSS Publishing Company)



Which Flowers Are Real?

The queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, and one day she put him to the test. 
She brought artificial flowers so perfectly formed that no human eye could detect them 
from real flowers. She put them in a vase on Solomon’s table, 
in his throne room next to his flowers. As he came in, the queen of Sheba 
is reported to have said, "Solomon, you are the wisest man in the world. 
Tell me without touching these flowers, which are real and which are artificial." 
It is said that Solomon studied the flowers for a long time and spoke nothing, 
until finally he said, "Open the windows and let the bees come in."

There are ways to tell the artificial from the real—let the bees come in; 
they will know where the real is. If we live with the authentic Jesus long enough, 
we will recognize the artificial when we see it.

(by Brooks Ramsey from When Religion Becomes Real)



Humor: A Tradition of Fighting

There is a story about a young, newly ordained minister who went to serve his first church. 
He noticed that on the first Sunday, when he said the prayers, 
the congregation on the left side of the church stood at the beginning of the prayers, 
and the congregation on the right side remained seated. 
The young minister thought this was a bit odd, but he kept going in the prayers—
until he began to hear some murmuring between the two sides, 
then the murmuring turned into grumbling and then people yelling at each other, 
proclaiming that they were doing the right thing when came to the tradition of the church.

Distressed by what he had seen and all that was taking place, the young pastor 
went to seek the council of the former, now elderly pastor, 
who had served this congregation for years. He asked him, 
“So is it the tradition of the congregation to stand during the prayers?”

The older minister, whose memory was now failing, stroked his beard, replied, 
“No, that is not the tradition, as I recall.”

“So, the tradition is that they remain seated during the prayers?”

To which the old minister responded, “No, that’s not the tradition either.”

The young pastor threw his hands in the air in exasperation, and said, 
“There must be some solution to this! The way things are now, 
half stand and half sit and all end up screaming at one another during the prayers.”

The old pastor’s face lit up in a smile…Yes, that is the tradition I recall.



Melting Mountains of Ice

William Lloyd Garrison was the greatest abolitionist this country has ever known. 
He was a publisher of a newspaper called the Liberator, an antislavery publication. 
Garrison was an angry man, angry with indignation caused 
by the unbelievably inhumane treatment many of the slaves experienced. 
He hated slavery with everything that was in him. One day one of his best friends, 
Samuel May, tried to calm him down. He said to Garrison, "Oh, my friend, 
try to moderate your indignation and keep more cool. Why, you are all on fire." 
Garrison replied, "Brother May, I have need to be all on fire, 
for I have mountains of ice around me to melt." Well, the only way any of us 
can melt mountains of ice is to be on fire.

The only way Christ can use any of us is when we are driven by a great passion, 
when we feel or hear his voice within our heart showing us a great cause 
that needs to be championed. Nothing is accomplished in this world by people 
who have no passion. That's one reason we need God in our hearts as well as on our lips.

(by King Duncan from Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com)



Lip Service

According to the story, Queen Victoria was once at a diplomatic reception in London. 
The guest of honor was an African chieftain. All went well during the meal until, 
at the end, finger bowls were served. The guest of honor had never seen 
a British finger bowl, and no one had thought to brief him beforehand about its purpose. 
So he took the finger bowl in his two hands, lifted it to his mouth, and drank its contents--
down to the very last drop!

For an instant there was breathless silence among the British upper crust 
and then they began to whisper to one another.

All that stopped in the next instant as the Queen, Victoria, silently took her finger bowl 
in her two hands, lifted it, and drank its contents!  
A moment later 500 surprised British ladies and gentlemen simultaneously 
drank the contents of their own fingerbowls.

It was "against the rules" to drink from a fingerbowl, but on that particular evening 
Victoria changed the rules---because she was, after all, the Queen. 
It is "against the rules" not to wash your hands before you eat and on that the Pharisees 
called the hand of the disciples who follow Jesus. But Jesus recognizes their hypocrisy 
and he quotes from Isaiah, "These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me."

(by Brett Blair from www.eSermons.com. Thanks to Winfield Casey Jones for this story.)



This is communion Sunday for us, so we don't do a children's sermon. But the Mark passage 
offers an opportunity to do what I call the 'toothpaste sermon' with kids.

Bring a (empty) garbage bag, some newspaper, the largest tube of toothpaste you can find, and a spoon.

Spread the newspaper on the floor. Then show the tube of toothpaste to the kids. 
"Today we are going to do something you have always wanted to do, but you have to promise me 
that you will NOT do this at home. Okay?" After kids agree, ask who would like to squeeze 
all the toothpast out of the tube. Pick a child, and have them squeeze as much of the toothpaste 
as they can onto the middle of the newspaper. When they are done, say something like, 
"Makes quite a big mess, doesn't it?" After comments about that from the kids, pick up the empty tube 
and the spoon, and ask, "Now, who would like to put the toothpaste back into the tube?" 
If you are lucky, they will say, "you can't do that; that's silly; no one can . . ." after which you say, 
'that's like the words we speak. Once they are said, we can't put them back inside us." 
Then roll up the newspaper, put the mess in the garbage bag, and have a prayer with the kids.



The Rabbi and the White Horse

A young man once came to a great rabbi and asked him to make the younger man a rabbi. It was wintertime then. 
The rabbi stood at the window looking out upon the yard, while the rabbinical candidate 
was droning into his ears a glowing account of his piety and learning.

The young man said, "You see, Rabbi, I always go dressed in spotless white like the sages of old. 
I never drink any alcoholic beverages; only water ever passes my lips. Also, I live a plain and simple life. 
I have sharp-edged nails inside my shoes to mortify me. Even in the coldest weather, 
I lie naked in the snow to torment my flesh. Also daily, I receive forty lashes on my bare back 
to complete my perpetual penance."

As the young man spoke, a white horse was led into the yard and to the water trough. 
It drank, and then it rolled in the snow, as horses sometimes do.
"Just look!" cried the rabbi. "That animal, too, is dressed in white. It also drinks nothing but water, 
has nails in its shoes and rolls naked in the snow. Also, rest assured, it gets its daily ration 
of forty lashes on the rump from its master. Now, I ask you, is it a saint, or is it a horse?!?!"

Which is more important - what goes into us or what comes out of us? Which defines us more - 
our outside behavior or our inside motivation?

(by Carla Thompson Powell from Insides vs. Outsides? What Really Matters?)