Something New

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23.     Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 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;

in vain do they worship me,

teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

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There is a movie that came out in 1998 called Pleasantville – remember it?  It was a silly concept about time travel.  Don Knotts played a magical TV repairman, so that gives you an idea of how silly.

Two teenage kids, David and Jennifer, are leading fairly unpleasant lives in late-1990’s America.  They’re coping with the complications that confront middle class youths: social status and fitting in, drug and alcohol use, parents who have their own troubles and are mostly unavailable to their kids.  Each of them is coping in their own way, but David seems mildly depressed and spends most of his time watching reruns of an old 1950’s sitcom, Pleasantville.  It’s a “Leave It to Beaver” kind of program, and it just seems to David that life is better in Pleasantville, so he uses it as an escape from his own life.  One day, catastrophe strikes – the TV remote control breaks. 

A mysterious TV repairman appears.  No one called him, but he’s there.  He sees the trouble Jennifer and David are in, more than they themselves can see.  He gives them a new remote control, which magically transports them right into the TV show.  Suddenly, David and Jennifer are characters in a black & white 1950’s TV show…

…where life is perfect.  The family all sits at the breakfast table together eating a breakfast made to clog your arteries.  Mom stays home and dotes on Dad and the kids, Dad goes to his 9-5 job that always has him home by dinner, except maybe on bowling night, and the kids, Jennifer and David, who are now called Bud and Mary Sue, trundle off to high school in their penny loafers and poodle skirt where they have to learn to navigate life in this black and white TV town.  It’s not as perfect as it seemed.

For one thing, there are no bathrooms.  Think about it – did you ever see Donna Reed or June Cleaver step into the powder room?  Nope. 

There are other difficulties too.  David and Jennifer basically clash with the people of Pleasantville because they are different.  They have been shaped by the real world – the real, 3-dimensional world.

And interestingly, their mere presence in Pleasantville begins to change the place and the people.  They begin to have subtle influences on people they interact with.  The changes show up when the characters begin to take on color.  In this black and white world, one by one, people begin to show some color, as they take on some depth in terms of their emotions, their values, their perspectives on the world.

Then there is the predictable backlash. Those who have not been colorized lash out angrily against the coloreds, victimizing them. There is definitely a nod here to the real clashes that were occurring in our country around that time having to do with skin color.  But the issue is even broader than that.

It has to do with sexuality, gender roles, openness to cultural differences and new ways of seeing things, doing things.  They are introduced to books, art, music and ideas that are all new to them.  It has to do with becoming more fully human.  And this blossoming into full humanity is threatening for some who can’t understand it.

You might be wondering what this extended recap of the movie Pleasantville has to do with the scriptures.  It’s all about how sometimes a new thing can be very challenging or threatening for some, even while it is ripe with new possibility for others. 

The people in Pleasantville were learning that there was a whole big undiscovered world outside their town limits.  They were discovering that there were other possible ways of being outside of the well-worn routines of their lives. They were discovering that there were other ways of seeing life.  They were discovering the limitations of Pleasantville.

But at the same time, David and Jennifer were learning to appreciate the genuinely good qualities of Pleasantville.  Again, it wasn’t all black and white.  New things were happening for everyone.

And basically, newness was what Jesus was bringing to Israel.  He had been traveling around the Galilee and surrounding regions teaching, healing, and feeding, and doing these things in radically new ways.  As the Pharisees watch him, they are less joyful about the good things he is doing than they are concerned about the ways he is doing them because, to use a well-worn phrase, “We’ve never done it that way before.”

They say to him, “Why don’t you follow the traditions of the Elders?  Why don’t you all wash your hands the way you are supposed to?”  To the Pharisees, their carelessness about this detail is an ominous sign of the errors of their ways, the bad things to come.  They can’t see the amazing new things that are happening because they are fixated on the old.

The Pharisees are seeing all these things Jesus is doing through the parameters they have set for defining what it is to be a Jew.  Jesus doesn’t fit in these parameters – even though he is as authentic in his faith as a man could be.  It’s the challenge of encountering something new.

The church is full of Pharisees, too, when we encounter something new.  We pull out all the old rebuttals, like –

We tried that before and it didn’t work.

That will never happen here.

This isn’t a _____ kind of church.  And if it becomes one, I’ll go somewhere else.

Like the Pharisees Jesus encountered, behind these remarks there is genuine perplexity about why people don’t just follow the old traditional ways.  But sometimes when people try to squeeze themselves into the old traditional ways, they just can’t make it fit – like David and Jennifer trying to squeeze themselves into the world of Pleasantville.  There are times when the Holy Spirit is moving us into a new age, when all things are considered anew.  Some of the old ways will be dusted off and carried into the new age, but some will be left behind because, while they have served us well, their usefulness has passed. 

Just like in Pleasantville, when David and Jennifer discovered what was truly valuable in that little town, but also what should be let go to make room for something new.

It’s a challenging process, discerning the “something old and something new” that we will bring with us into the church for the future.  And it’s a process that each one of us needs to be a part of – for ourselves and for the good of the church as a whole.  The Spirit moves in our midst and calls to each one of us to listen and respond.

Listen to the words from the Song of Solomon:  The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.  The Spirit calls us toward something new.

So I ask you today:  What is one thing God may be inviting you to let go of?  It could be anything.  It may be a notion about how the church exists in relation to the rest of the world.  It could have something to do with how you would describe your congregation.  It might be some aspect of your own spiritual life or the spiritual life of the church. It might also be something that is deeply personal to you and you alone. 

Then I ask you to consider this: What is one way God is inviting you to be a part of something new?  You may not know yet what it is.  Often we live in the in-between space of waiting for the Spirit to speak.  Even so, try to keep listening, and remember – for all things there is a season, and the Lord is always creating something new.