How Do They Know?

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23; James 1:17-27

How do people know that you are a Christian? A follower of Jesus?

 

Or how do you know that someone else is a disciple, a Christian?

 

Do you just say it outright? “Hi, I’m Emily. I’m a Christian.”

Or use that as an answer when someone asks “and what do you do?” in a get to know you conversation?

I’ve seen a lot of t-shirts in the grocery, in airports, wherever, that proclaim that the wearer is “Team Jesus”, or something like that.

 

Or do you know by some kind of action?

Showing up at church every Sunday? Crossing yourself before you step up for an athletic endeavor or to make a presentation in a meeting?
Because you imitate Jesus by something like working as a healer or turning over tables in the marketplace?

 

Or maybe it’s as simple as that mid-century hymn that tells us

“They will know we are Christians by our love,

by our love.

[Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.]”

And that claim is based in scripture, when Jesus tells his disciples shortly before his death that “…everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn 13:35)

 

So there’s our answer. Simple.

Right until someone asks about what it looks like to love. 

Love one another, or love God.

And has a different opinion about what that looks like than you do.

 

Which is a bit of what’s going on in Mark’s gospel story this morning.

When the Pharisees demand to know how Jesus and his disciples can love God’s law and honor God if they don’t wash their hands before eating.

 

Specifically, that’s not a concern about hygiene; it’s a ritual handwashing, an imitation of the Torah law that instructs priests to wash as a symbol of holiness before entering the sanctuary and offering sacrifices at the altar. 

What our translation calls “defiled” hands aren’t sinful. They’re just common, ordinary; just not set specially apart for the worship of God.

 

But the Pharisees are on a campaign to make all of God’s people in Israel as holy all the time as the priests are when serving at God’s altar. God called Israel a “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation”, so they think we should act like that.

Mark may be exaggerating when he claims that “all the Jews” wash hands before eating, but probably – given the influence of the Pharisees – most people would know that’s a custom all the “really holy” people do. And some of them – certainly the Pharisees – would be shocked and worried when this miracle man who claims to be holy like God doesn’t do the simple holy rituals, or teach his disciples to do them.

 

So are these Jesus-followers really holy? Is Jesus himself really close to God?
If they aren’t doing this basic and popular ritual of respect for God, of keeping oneself ready to worship and honor God at all times?

 

Without this visible sign, how will anyone know that Jesus and his followers respect God? Love God?

 

Jesus, of course, has an answer for that.
And, as usual, his answer comes at the question a little sideways.

 

Answering “how will we show we love God?” With the declaration that nothing about these ritual practices, nothing about these signs, can separate us from God.

Whether we wash our hands for ritual holiness, whether we cross ourselves at certain prayers, whether we fast before receiving communion, whether we light the candles or forget, none of those ritual actions of holiness - done or left undone - can separate us from God.

(They might help us feel more ready to worship and pray, but Jesus isn’t teaching about helpful spiritual practices today. He’s insisting that omitting them can’t cut us off.)

 

Instead, he says, it’s what comes out of us that makes us “unholy”; what comes “out” of us that can separate us from God. He waves aside concerns about ritual purity, and insists on deep, unfakeable, spiritual purity – of being like God in our hearts, instead of being ritually prepared to encounter God.

 

The things that separate us from God, Jesus says, are harboring, displaying, and acting on evil intentions. Theft, deceit, slander, excess, arrogance, greed and all the forms of the desire always to have more.
When those “come out of us” in our words and in our actions, then we’re separating ourselves from God, from the holiness and love of God.

Those words and actions that come out of us are the things that show we are not with God.

 

He explains this in detail to his closest followers, who – like the Pharisees and the big crowds that follow Jesus – are a little puzzled by this insistence that ritual purity doesn’t matter. (Any of us who’ve watched a cherished church tradition that’s spelled holiness to us be overturned by new teaching can sympathize with how they feel!)

It’s not the holy rituals that make us holy and ready for God. It’s what we let out into the world that can pull us away from God.

 

Jesus doesn’t go on to the corollary that “what comes out of us” can also show how close we are to God, but that’s a natural progression. And an idea that’s picked up by James, writing to Jewish Christians after Jesus has died, risen, and returned to the heaven that he came to us from.

 

Be “doers” of the word of God, James says, not only hearers. Bring out of you the actions and words of holiness, of love, of being close to God. If the goodness of God is not coming out of you, it’s not enough. It’s not full, complete, whole.

 

It would be easy to read James as claiming that we have to do good works in order to get close to Jesus – more of those outward signs, like handwashing. But James is telling us the opposite – that those “good works” – generosity, care for others – come from the “implanted word”, from the holiness and love of God that are already rooted in our hearts. He’s just trying to make sure we don’t ever make the mistake of trying to keep that love of God only in our hearts.
James – like Jesus – wants us – and all God’s world – to see, and benefit from, that love “coming out of us” in words and actions that heal, build up, and pour love on God’s people and the world.

 

James doesn’t want us to smother, stifle, or ignore the love and word of God implanted in us; he wants us to set it free – to let it be seen, and memorable, and effective.  So that the holiness of God, of Christ, is known through us, rather than our holiness known to God.

 

So maybe the question I should have started with – is not how others will know we are Christian, but do others know we are?

Do others know – do we know – that we are living the love of God, pouring out from inside us, not to make us holy, but to celebrate God’s holiness in us, and pour it out, for all to know God’s love.