In our gospel reading for today, Jesus tears a strip off the scribes and the Pharisees for their “religion” – for the actions they perform in an attempt to please their God. Instead of doing what God has already clearly asked for in the Ten Commandments, the scribes and Pharisees have upheld a stricter set of religious traditions, most of which are concerned with cleanliness. Following these traditions allows the Pharisees to judge others, like Jesus and his disciples, as slackers who are unworthy to be in God's good books. Jesus frees his disciples, and us, from religion that is worthless, and points us back to the heart of our heavenly Father...
What is it that makes God happy? That's a question that people have been wrestling with ever since people have been on this planet – it is the question of religion. What do WE need to do for our God to be pleased with us? And throughout history, there have been some wildly different answers. According to the Bible, there was a god named Baal, who was popular in the time of the prophet Elijah, and he apparently loved it when his followers cut themselves with swords until blood gushed out. A god named Molech, who was popular in the time of Moses, seemed overjoyed to accept the sacrifice of children by their parents, by burning the children alive. Even in our time, even among those who all claim to worship the same God of the Book – Jehovah, Yahweh, or Allah - there is a wide difference in what we think pleases God, from the dietary restrictions of orthodox Judaism, to the five mandatory pillars of Islam, even to Christian Franciscan monks who practice self-flagellation with whips. It's no wonder that the question of religion causes such painful division in the world today – what could be more important to get correct, than the things we do to make God happy?
The question of religion also caused division in Jesus' time. At that time, the scribes and the Pharisees obeyed to the letter, the law of God as given to Moses in the book of Leviticus – laws originally given to a very large group of people camping in a very tight space - laws given for the prevention of pandemic illness. And then, the Pharisees and scribes went several steps further, and created their own system of fence laws – stricter laws that kept you far away from the danger of breaking God's law, the way a fence around a playground keeps children off the road. Many of these human traditions involved washing, because in Leviticus, God seems very concerned about people who are “unclean.” Eating with dirty hands? – there's no way God can be happy about that, and so people who fail to wash up just like the elders are called “defiled”... unholy... not in God's good books. Meanwhile, the Pharisees can impress the community and feel smug about the favour of God they so obviously enjoy with their inflexible and all-encompassing religion.
We as a church are also tempted to set up OUR traditions as the minimum requirements for pleasing God. Now, some of our traditions are just preferences, things that are comfortable for us - like our style of worship music, the way we run VBS, the frequency with which we serve Holy Communion, and so on. For traditions like these, we don't USUALLY judge others with different traditions as “defiled.” And we don't USUALLY see ourselves as holier-than-them.
But there are other traditions that we DO tend to look down upon, even if we don't vocalize it. Like congregations that accompany worship with guitars or drums. Like churches that refuse to baptize infants, or insist their clergy be celibate, or claim ownership of all the church buildings in their diocese. Like preachers that punctuate their sermons with numerous calls for “AMENS”. We have to be very careful that any judging we do is based on GOD's laws and not fence laws of our own devising. And we have to be very careful that our MOTIVE for voicing any judgment is loving concern for the other person, and not just to impress the community or feel smug about how God must favour OUR religion. Or, we will deserve the same condemnation as the Pharisees.