"Why is it that your disciples do not follow the teaching handed down by our ancestors, but instead eat with ritually unclean hands?" (v. 5, TEV)

There’s a grand old hymn I haven’t seen in many hymn hooks, but we used to sing it in my boyhood church. The opening words are these:

My church, my church, my dear old church, my fathers’ and my own.
On prophets and apostles built, and Christ the cornerstone.
All else beside by storm or tide may yet be overthrown,
But not my church, my dear old church, my fathers’ and my own.

Now when we hear this complaining question of the Pharisees as we read today’s Bible text, we might rephrase it and cast it in the terms of the old hymn, "My church, my church, my dear old church: what’s happened to my dear old church?" 

Have you ever wondered what’s been happening to the dear old church today? It seems as though many people are. When some of our own parish members go away on vacation, they have the courteous practice of bringing back the printed Sunday church bulletin from out-of-town worship services. Some months ago one of our members stepped into my office and did just that. She laid a Sunday bulletin on my desk. She explained that it was from her childhood parish. Then she went on to say, "It was a little bit of a shock to go back there, pastor. You see, they’ve replaced the old hymnal with a new one; our long-time minister retired, and now they have a new one who’s still in his twenties; and besides that they’ve gone ahead and moved the altar, and the whole front of the church is remodeled." While she never said it aloud, I imagined that she was probably asking this question inside of herself, "My church, my church, my dear old church: what’s happened to my dear old church?" 

While we can understand how anyone might be sentimentally stirred by a number of things that change in their lives, it seems as though in today’s Bible story Jesus is talking about something deeper than that. He’s pushing the Pharisees here - and us as well - to ascertain again just where it is that the true propelling and motivating force of our religion lies. This morning Jesus is saying to us that we may all have comfortable and acceptable outward practices, reflecting what we believe, but the supreme feature of our religion is that from our hearts we respond to God in worship and in service to one another.

I

Let’s see how this truth develops in this Bible story. It is a brief account, and mostly verbal. Jesus was on the road with his discipies. They were in a make-shift situation, far from the convenient surroundings of their own households. Some Pharisees from the religious capital at Jerusalem had come out to give Jesus a hearing. As they met, the Pharisees noticed that Jesus’ disciples didn’t follow all the prescribed religious rituals of their Jewish ancestors. In particular they were eating their food without having ritually cleansed the food or their hands as religious tradition prescribed. This fact upset the Pharisees to the point that they asked Jesus directly, "Why is it that your disciples do not follow the teaching handed down by our ancestors, but instead eat with ritually unclean hands?" 

In a lengthy response, quoting several Bible passages, Jesus tells them in effect that when it comes to practicing our religion, a clean heart is more important than clean hands. He gently suggests that maybe they’re unduly bothered about the wrong things in this business of worshiping God and doing his will. 

No doubt most of us, tightly bound to some of our religious tradition, need to hear this clarifying answer of Jesus too. Instead of having a perceptive mind and heart, ready in a graceful way to receive some of the understandable changes in church life today, we also sometimes go around fretfully asking, "My church! My church! My dear old church! What’s happened to my dear old church?" 

Let’s take this matter of public worship, for example. As most Christian denominations are experiencing new trends and changes in Sunday morning worship these days, I can just hear a lot of tradition-bound Christians wondering, "What’s happened to my dear old church?" Here in our own congregation we recently adopted a new hymnal. This has meant some changes in our service and lots of new hymns to make friends with. The little round wafers in our Holy Communion have been replaced by freshly baked loaves of bread. During the Communion we now give one another "The Greeting of Peace," a kind of spiritual handshake. We don’t anymore reserve the reading of scriptures in worship for clergy only. Men and women and young people of the parish are now sharing this privilege, as well as assisting the ministers in giving the bread and wine during Communion. 

It’s obvious that some folks greet such changes only with the refrain, "My church, my church, my dear old church: what’s happened to my dear old church?" But if we would view the changes occurring in worship these days with perceptive and trusting minds, we might discover some method to this "madness," some salutary reasons for the recasting of what we do here on Sundays. 

The common worthy theme of most of these changes has to do with personal involvement. Jesus said it all the time, as he was saying it to the Pharisees here: "You’ve got to be involved, folks! Cold observance without heart-felt participation is unacceptable. We’re the family of God in the church, and that means we’re open to one another, sharing the load of bringing Good News to a weary world." 

Many times you and I worship "in the holiness of beauty," when the Bible actually says we should worship "in the beauty of holiness." It’s one thing to appear holy; it’s another to be holy, Jesus is reminding us here that the biggest change most of us need is a change of heart, and to put heart into what we’re doing - especially in church. 

II 

In this encounter with the Pharisees Jesus is maintaining that religion in worship must finally be completed in our lives. The ritual and liturgy we practice are, after all, the symbols and energizing force for what needs to happen in the Christian’s daily life. The crosses on our altars are a perfect example. Before we started using golden crosses, don’t forget, there was first a wooden cross - an authentic beam literally staked down-to-earth, into the ground. On that cross the Man of Nazareth hung his own body. In his body he truly suffered as pain racked his bones. He was a real man at the cross. He suffered in a real world, for real people - for you and me. The wooden cross was there before the gold ones! 

If we want to ask the question, "What’s happened to my dear old church?", we must in fairness ask a parallel question: "What’s happened to my dear old world?" The world has not stood still, folks! Changes go on all around us - many for the worse, sad to say. The "dear old world" has in many respects become a nightmare. Though scientific advances and technological miracles have meant blessings and comforts previously unknown, they have also had a way of changing us for the worse, often forming us into demanding, isolated creatures. 

Our sin and selfishness, ingrained since Adam and Eve, have a way of manifesting themselves in new and changing ways. In most human relationships today there is a lot of greed and deceit. Jealousy and pride are at work. To put it pointedly, sin is having a field day. The need for a true change of heart is obvious. 

In many respects you and I can be grateful today that people are willing to have an open heart about dealing forthrightly and honestly with their human problems. 

Let’s take some of the "hot topics" that have become issues in our day. For example, look at marriage and divorce. While some of the statistics are not too encouraging, still there seems to be a new willingness to get marital problems on the table and to deal with them honestly. More than ever, couples with marriage problems are seeking outside help through the clergy and other counselors. And for those who do decide on divorce, they are realigning themselves with other responsible Christians in sharing and support groups, seeking to carry on their lives in a creative, God-pleasing way. 

Other issues of the day are receiving similar attention and response. Christians are no longer just wringing their hands about such things as abortion, world hunger, joblessness, sexual orientation, physical abuse in marriage and families, or war. They are forming coalitions, large and small, to work out ways in which they can help themselves or others who are caught up in the challenge of these issues. At least there seems to be a new honesty about these things! For such openness we can be grateful. 

In all of this the Church today is facing up to the fact that people in the flock have real problems in a real world and that Christians are called to struggle with all of this, whether for their own improvement as individuals, or for the sake of bringing God’s vision and healing to others. 

In this Bible text today, Jesus is saying that the Church’s worship and its parish program will no longer rest on tradition alone but on a realignment of outlook and practice that brings his saving and rescuing power to those who are openly searching for some mending in their lives. The cross, lifted high in worship, must also be set down amidst a struggling humanity and become the power that saves. 

If our church is helping people, if human beings are being rehabilitated for good, if lost souls are again finding a true home and haven in the Christian community, then we no longer need to complain, "My church, my church, what’s happened to my dear old church?" Rather we can say with grateful enthusiasm, "My church, my church: look what’s happening through my dear old church!"