The following sermon was preached on Communion Sunday at Bynum UMC in Pittsboro, NC.

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (NRSV)

7:1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him,

7:2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.

7:3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders;

7:4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash, and there are also many other traditions that they observe: the washing of cups and pots and bronze kettles and beds.)

7:5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?"

7:6 He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;

7:7 in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'

7:8 "You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."

7:14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand:

7:15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."

7:21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder,

7:22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly.

7:23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

When we come together to worship around the altar, we come to be stained. We come to be washed in the Blood, covered in the sacrifice of one who died a dirty death. Now many of us have an aversion to dirt; we don’t like being dirty, and if we have to become dirty for any given reason, we want to be clean again as quickly as possible.

Dirty jobs are seen as undesirable, something you only do if you can’t make it doing anything else. Having a dirty job is often seen as a last resort or a failure to achieve. The only time we wanna see people doing dirty jobs is when it’s on a show hosted by Mike Rowe. Why dig holes when you could sit at a computer all day? Why work in the heat when you could work in the air conditioning? Why work with your hands when you could just work with your head?

I say this as someone who does almost all of my work in air conditioning, sitting at a computer, using my words to talk about things most people care very little about. Last week, when working at my church’s community center building a fence (a skill I learned getting dirty at The Wesley), a woman who hosts dinners for the community came by, and as I was shoulder-deep pulling rocks up out of a posthole, she said something like, “I didn’t know digging holes was part of the pastor’s job.” And what it kinda sounded like was, “I didn’t know pastors got dirty.” But I do. I try to get dirty because Christ got dirty. We should embrace getting dirty in the same ways Christ got dirty.

Jesus does not share our obsession with cleanliness, thank God. Christ does not share the Pharisees’ obsession with purity. Dirty, unclean, or defiled hands are no roadblock to His work. If they were, then He never would have eaten with the sinners, healed the lepers, or raised the dead.

He likely never would have become Incarnate to begin with, because humans are much more disgusting than the Divine Spirit ever could be. We have fluids and squishy parts, we make a mess just by existing. Just being born is an act of Christ dirtying Himself, the Cross is unclean, and the Tomb is downright disgusting.

The things that enter our bodies, and the dirt resting on our skin are temporary. They don’t defile because they are temporary. Pork is only pork till it’s digested, and then it comes out just like everything else. Dirt and mud don't last forever, but only till scrubbed or washed off. But what comes out of our mouths; our thoughts, words, and deeds defile us in such an eternal way because they are matters not just of the body, but of the heart, mind, and soul.

Dirt may stain your hands temporarily, but sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly, and the like – these are things that stain your soul forever. Just like Cain after killing his own flesh and blood, these sins mark us in ways that we can never wash off with our own two hands.

And why are we so averse to dirt? We are dirt. From the very beginning, we were nothing but dirt, breathed into with the Breath of Life. We are nothing but dust, dirt, and mud. Yet, we are so worried about being dirty. So worried about being seen as dirty. So worried about being seen with “the dirty”.

Are we more concerned with appearing clean, or with actually being clean? Some of the people we idolize the most are the most defiled, yet we look up to them because they wear nice suits, drive clean cars, and have large followings. Some of the people we look the farthest down our noses at are simply saints with soiled hands.

Christ was not worried about avoiding dirt when He made mud from His own spit to heal the blind man. He was not concerned with seeming unsoiled when He let Himself be baptized by John the Baptist, a wild man, in the Jordan River, the same river Naaman would not clean himself in because it was so muddy. Jesus was not concerned with keeping clean when washing the calloused, dust-covered feet of His disciples at the Last Supper.

So thank God that Christ does not share our aversion to being dirty, or at least being seen as dirty.

Being a Christian is a dirty job. It means getting your arm deep down into the muddy postholes of this world. Going into unsavory places, joining those that the socially renowned deem as defiled. Entering the places that will leave you with soiled hands. Proclaiming that the wounds of Christ, the very stains upon His Body are what make us white as snow. You may appear dirty, but concern yourselves with being clean. Because soiled hands do not stain your soul.

Touching a dead body and drinking blood are two of the things that would make you the most unclean, the most defiled in the eyes of the Law. Ever since the beginning of the faith, Communion was seen by those who were outside the Church, but take us seriously that this truly is the Body and Blood of our Savior, as disgusting. Eating flesh and drinking blood. But at Christ’s table, dirty hands are the sign of clean souls.

Like the altar in the Temple of Jerusalem, blood spilled out of the chalice onto the floor shows that our repentance is at hand. Hands tearing into the Body of our savior are not defiled, but made pure. Fingers dipped in the Blood of the Lamb are the sign of salvation. The Body and Blood that sits in your hands as you hold the Christ enfleshed reminds us of our sharing in the wounded, dirty, saving work of Jesus.

So whenever you come to the table, let your hands be made dirty and your souls be made clean.

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dirtied Hands, Cleansed Souls: Pete Mace

POWERED BY SQUARESPACE