The boys had just gone down for the night, about four years ago, when Cameron came into the living room terribly upset and holding a small piece of paper.  “What’s wrong?” I asked.  Griffin, older brother, had just told him he was in terrible trouble.  “The police are going to come and arrest me,” Cameron cried.  “Whatever for?” I couldn’t wait to hear.  “Because,” he said, “I tore this tag off of the mattress and it says, ‘Do not remove under penalty of law.’”

Now, there were a couple of dynamics going on in that moment not unlike the  ones at work in this encounter of which we have just read in Jesus’ life.  For one, there was a sensitive little boy who interpreted all of life in literal terms of black and white extremes.  He couldn’t have known that the mattress tag rule is for those who manufacture and market mattresses, not for consumers.  Things for him were (and sometimes still are) either all bad or all good or all right or all wrong.  There’s very little middle ground for maneuvering the tricky and murky waters of moral reality.  And, there was an older brother who knew that about him and thoroughly enjoyed playing the role of the accuser.  Cameron knew that he had broken the law and, accepting his brother’s sentence, all but had his wrists laid out for the cuffs.  He had yet to learn what I hope his baptism this morning indicates he is coming to learn, that there is a higher voice of moral authority to which he must learn to listen. 

If nothing else, the scripture we have read this morning teaches us that this has been a problem from the beginning of time.  This may all seem terribly ridiculous to us but it was very serious business to the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.  They had caught the disciples eating without first washing their hands.  Their repulsion makes me wonder if any of them ever had teenage boys.  But, to them, this was morally repugnant.  Their well-developed religious system taught that to eat with dirty hands could pollute one’s soul.  “’Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’” they asked Jesus. 

Now, Jesus’ response to their indignation is what ought to get our attention.  We may have never struggled with the ethical dilemma of whether or not to eat before washing our hands.  Though we have learned a great deal about biological factors that make that a wise practice, certainly none of us has ever felt that we had to confess sin if for some reason we failed to wash before we ate.  But, since creation, one of the most fundamental struggles of the human experience is about who will have the ultimate voice of moral authority in our lives.  Too often, we lazily default to majoring on minors by trusting in traditionsand rules that keep us in good standing with our fellowman but often have very little to do with anything about which God concerns himself.  And, that is what is obviously of gravest concern to Jesus.

His words, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!”  (Mark 7:9)  Then later he said, “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 . . ..”  So, this is what Jesus says we must finally come to settle.  Whose voice will ultimately be our guide?  Will we be guided by that which keeps us in good standing with the moral trend of the day or will we, at all cost, be more concerned about the character of our heart?

The specific word Jesus uses to describe religious people who are more concerned about looking good than being good is “hypocrite.”  A hypocrite is a play-actor.  Someone who appears to be something he or she is not.  Like someone who is more concerned about clean hands than a clean heart.

This temptation to hypocrisy is big hole into which it is easy to step.  Let me see if I can explain from personal experience.  One of the most difficult things about being a pastor is the temptation of living a certain way that I know will please people whether or not I personally believe with deep conviction that a certain behavior is best or not.  It’s a very dehumanizing thing when I allow my fears of what people might think of me become my moral guide more than the voice of conscience.  It’s just so terribly important for me to make everyone happy all the time.  Please understand, this is my problem, not yours.  Cliff Temple is one of the most liberating families of faith I’ve ever known.  But, it is still too important to me that you always like me.  And, when it becomes too important for us to have the approval of others then we have turned the reins of our consciences over to them.  We have done the same thing these Pharisees did when they, as Jesus accused, abandoned “the commandment of God and (held) to the tradition of men.”  Let me illustrate.

On any given Sunday, someone can walk out that door and say, “that was one of the best sermons I ever heard,” or, “that sermon really helped me.”  Then, someone else can walk by and make the slightest critical remark.  Which of the two do you think I listen to most?  Which of the two do you think I dwell on most?  The answer is, both.  I’m too worried both about criticism and approval, just as the Pharisees were who didn’t want to be seen by their fellow religious types as having eaten with dirty hands.  Of course, the comment that bothers me the most at the door after worship is the one like I got recently.  After we had a guest preacher that morning, someone walked by, shook my hand, and very sincerely said to me, “that’s the best sermon I ever heard you preach.”  But, that’s a subject for another day.

Jesus, in not caving in to the pressure of the Pharisees to make his disciples adhere to custom, was saying that what ought to concern us most is whether, in our hearts, we are more concerned with following the voice of God than the voice of public or private approval.  When what others think of us is more important than what God knows about us, then we are, according to Jesus, a “hypocrite,” even if what we are doing looks really good.

So, how much more concerned are we with following the voice of Jesus than that of others?  Let me give you one clarifying question for your consideration.  A question brought to my attention this past week by the plight of Parkland hospital.  Parkland is Dallas’ only publicly funded hospital.  It is the only place where people without medical insurance and the indigent and homeless in this city can receive medical care of any kind beyond the emergency room.  And, the hospital is facing a real crisis.  One of the ways in which our nation has achieved this phenomenal economic boom has been at the expense of public funding for health care at a Federal level.  Even for profit hospitals are suffering as never before.  Now, the Dallas County Commissioners are considering even further funding cuts for Parkland.  So, here is the question.

How has your faith in Jesus shaped your attitudes toward other people?  Specifically, how has your faith in Jesus shaped your attitude about other people who break the rules, even the rules of good morality and living? 

One of the Dallas County Commissioners who is working hard to further cut funding to Parkland was reported to have said that, if the poor would just stop buying booze and cigarettes they’d be able to afford health insurance.  That sounds good and it plays sweet notes for those who love to dance to the tune of the extreme religious right.  But, beyond being boringly banal, that comment, at a minimum, demonstrates terrible and dangerous ignorance and insensitivity.  You’d have to drink a lot of booze and smoke a lot of cigarettes to burn up the equivalent of the annual premiums for even minimal health insurance.  At worst, if turned into policy, that attitude will victimize the most innocent.  A two-year-old baby has no control over the morality of her the parents.  And, if Parkland’s funding is further cut or the hospital, as some hope, is privatized and sold to a for-profit hospital system, then health care for the needy in this city and county will be gutted and the poor will, literally, go begging even for basic life-saving medical care.

But, what really bothers me most is the fact that the commissioner who made that statement is himself an avid churchman.  Do you hear what he is saying?  “If everyone would just behave better this would be a better world and we wouldn’t have to support those victimized by their own stupidity or the mistakes others make!”  Excuse me.  But, my response to the commissioner’s comment is the equivalent of a sarcastic, “Duh!”  What if Jesus had said that?  When called to the cross, what if Jesus had protested to his father, “If all these people would just straighten up I wouldn’t have to do all this dying!”  And, my question is, how can someone who worships Jesus on Sunday turn his back the next day on the poor and needy?  Isn’t that the very person Jesus would call a hypocrite?  Not so much someone who plays golf on Sunday but someone who says they love him and then turns a deaf ear to the cry of the broken and hurting. 

Jesus, speaking of his own mission to this world said, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  (John 3:17)  If we are more concerned with passing judgment on people’s behaviors than with loving them as Jesus did then our faith in Jesus hasn’t done much to change us.  When will we ever learn that we will not affect change in this world by passing resolutions of condemnation on the morality of others at religious conventions or by attempting to put this society in a moral straight jacket?  As repugnant as any other person’s morality may be to us, the voice of Jesus calls us to love that person as the fellow human for whom Christ also died even if all the other voices of our political party or our religious affiliation call on us to condemn him for his failure to live up to the standards they believe are right.

In elementary school, when we were dismissed every day for recess, we couldn’t wait to get outside.  However, the rule was that we weren’t supposed to run in the hallways.  When dismissed for recess, we were supposed to walk, not run, to the door.  But, we pushed the rule to the limit.  We’d walk as fast as possible without actually breaking into a run.  The principal would stand at the door every day and call aside those who just couldn’t resist and started running.  One day, he called me.  I protested that he had no right to do that since, in my mind, I was just keeping up with the pace the crowd had set.  Needless to say, that didn’t go over well and I received a lecture, well reinforced, that I find coming back to mind this day.  No matter what keeps you up with the crowd, you must always know who has the ultimate authority in your life and follow that voice no matter what it costs.  Even if it means getting left behind.

I couldn’t help but laugh that night Cameron brought the mattress tag to me.  It’s not that I want him to be a rebel and live with disregard for the rules.  And, I do want him to know that, sometimes, God uses other people to be his voice to our hearts for sure.  That can be one of the most significant roles of the church in this world.  And, sometimes the distinction between right and wrong can be hazy.  The question about who may tear off the mattress tag even made it onto Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

But, what I want him to remember is the bigger question.  The one he was asked this morning before he was baptized.  “What is your confession?” we asked him.  “Jesus is my Lord,” he said.  Now, just like the rest of us, the rest of his life, he will have one opportunity after another to prove how much he means that.  One of the greatest proofs will come with the maturity of learning that, however you answer the mattress tag question, when Jesus is really your Lord, you become increasingly less concerned as time goes by about who has the right to tear off the mattress tag and far more concerned about how to love and care for those people for whom Christ also died who don’t even have a mattress on which to sleep.