First Reading:
17Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is
from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is
no variation or shadow due to change. 18In fulfillment of
his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we
would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
19You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be
quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20for your
anger does not produce God's righteousness. 21Therefore rid
yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and
welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save
your souls.
22But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who
deceive themselves. 23For if any are hearers of the word
and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a
mirror; 24for they look at themselves and, on going away,
immediately forget what they were like. 25But those who look into the
perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who
forget but doers who act-they will be blessed in their doing.
26If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their
tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is
worthless. 27Religion that is pure and undefiled before
God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their
distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Second Reading:
1Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had
come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2they noticed that
some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without
washing them. 3(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not
eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the
tradition of the elders; 4and 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.) 5So 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?
6He 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;
7in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.'
8You abandon the
commandment of God and hold to human tradition.
14Then he called the crowd again and said to
them, Listen to me, all of you, and
understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by
going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.
21For it is from within, from the human
heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft,
murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these
evil things come from within, and they defile a person.
You may have noticed that this week's scripture reading is broken up
a bit. It misses twelve verses from the gospel, and I don't know
about you, but whenever I see that, my first response is, Hmm, I
wonder what's so bad that they decided to leave it out.
Way back
before I started preaching, whenever I saw the scripture broken up
like this, I'd pull out a bible and look to see what wasn't there.
There are two sections left out of this passage… in the first, Jesus
was talking to the Pharisees. He called them hypocrites. He said
you abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.
Then what gets left out is the specific example of what he meant. And
frankly I can understand why it was left out. Jesus talked about a
tradition that's a little hard to understand and is culturally so far
removed from our way of life that explaining it would take more time
and energy than any of us really want to spend this morning… if
you want to know, ask me later, but for now, I'll sum it up by
saying… Jesus challenged the Pharisees to examine themselves
and their own priorities instead of worrying about his disciples. You
see the Pharisees were accusing Jesus' disciples of not following
God's will because they ate with defiled hands… but as it
turned out, Jesus said a better picture of defilement was the
Pharisees claiming to do God's will while their actions were in fact
self serving.
You see, the passage really starts and ends with the concept of defilement; both Jesus and the Pharisees were concerned with it, but they had different ideas of what it meant. The Pharisees claimed defilement came from not washing hands, they were concerned with the ritual purity laws... and that's hard for us to understand. We don't have any context for ritual impurity. There's really nothing in our lives that correlates, even remotely. So it becomes relatively easy for us at this point to turn the Pharisees into a sort of scapegoat, a bad guy caricature… they are bad; we are good. They worry only about the outside appearance; we are concerned with what's on the inside. They abandon the commandment of God as they cling to human tradition; but we, of course, are only concerned with God's command and hardly worry about tradition at all. The truth of the matter though is that it's unfair to cast the Pharisees like that… the vast majority of us have never known the kind of dedication these Pharisees had to following God's will. They were deeply devout people trying to obey and please God. The practices they observed and the rituals they followed were intended to help them remember God as well as maintain their identity as God's chosen people.
In fact, the reason they questioned Jesus in the first place is
because they took God's law so seriously: which is ironic, seeing as
how Jesus tells them they've totally missed it. It's what comes
out of a person that defiles, not what goes in.
The Pharisees
were in the middle of claiming duty and ritual as means to draw close
to God, but Jesus in one sentence changed the focus to the right
action of ethical behavior.
It's what comes out that defiles. He goes on to a long list of evil intentions of the human heart and the way the lectionary passage reads, he's speaking to the crowd, which would have included the Pharisees… but the second section that got left out lets us know that by that time he wasn't talking to the Pharisees anymore. He wasn't even talking to the crowd. He was in a house, alone with his disciples, teaching them… Apparently his concern at this point wasn't for the evil in the Pharisees' hearts, but rather in the hearts of his followers. He traced the path of food: in the mouth, through the stomach and out into the sewer. He says what goes into the body isn't the issue to focus on because that isn't what shapes a person. That isn't what makes a person who he or she is. What matters is what's going on on the inside… in the person's heart and mind because that's where the decisions are made.
And it's scary that we're all driven to some extent by unhealthy intentions, for some of us, the list in verses 21 and 22 just about covers it… for others, that list may just be a start. But the point is that there are tendencies in each of us toward destructive and unhealthy behaviors. You certainly know what your tendencies are better than I do. It's what comes out of a person that defiles.
In our cultural context we don't deal with ritual defilement, but then Jesus wasn't talking about ritual defilement. He was talking about the thoughts and feelings that lead to our actions and that guide the choices we make. It's what's already on the inside that matters because sooner or later that comes out. So what do we do when we're faced with the reality that we may not like everything that's within us? I'm sure there are many possibilities, but for this morning I thought of 4 things.
-
We pay attention to what we're putting into our lives. Jesus said
that food doesn't matter because it doesn't go into the mind and
heart. But there are things we do bring into our minds and hearts
every day, and as one author wrote,
Our souls are indiscriminate and relentless consumers.
The books and the magazines we read, the television shows and movies we watch, the images we see, the 24-hour news cycle that breeds anxiety. These things stick with us, they affect us, they shape our values and our world-view. And I'm not suggesting that we cloister ourselves or lock ourselves away from the world. That's not necessarily helpful or realistic, but I do wonder what might be let go of on the one hand and what might be intentionally brought in on the other hand to help us be formed into the image and likeness of Christ? First we pay attention to what we're putting into our lives. -
To borrow a phrase from our first reading, we become doers of the
word. You may have noticed that Jesus talks about the interior
life… What's on the inside matters. He challenged the
priorities of the Pharisees, he talked about the intentions of the
disciple's hearts. In fact just about everything that he talked
about in this passage has to do with what goes on in a person's
interior life. But at the same time, there is the awareness that
the interior always manifests in action. It is true that what's on
the inside matters… and it's also true that what comes out
matters. Over time, our actions are a reflection of the intention
of our hearts. We may, in fact we will make mistakes. There's no
doubt about that, but every time we consciously make the decision
to actively follow the good intentions, the choice to do so again
becomes easier to make in the future. Let me say it another way.
Choosing to follow God's lead makes it easier to choose to follow
God's lead. So study the word and become doers of the word.
-
We invest in community. Sooner or later, we will all face the
spiritual issues of loneliness, boredom, anxiety, guilt, shame,
apathy, inadequacy, the list could go on and on… and it's
when we're in the midst of those crises of one sort or another that
those evil intentions of the human heart that Jesus talked about
seem to have the most power. But community can help… just
about everything we might go through has been gone through by one
of our Christian brothers and sisters. Support in those times of
trouble can help maintain a sense of identity and strength of
character. A strong sense of community can help remind us of who
we are and what we believe, and that in turn helps to draw us into
right relationship and right action. So invest in community.
-
Is probably both the most simple and the most difficult thing I'm
going to tell you… maybe ever. Trust God. The Pharisees in
our lesson were concerned with tests… who's in and who's
out… who's washing their hands right and who's not washing
their hands at all… Our passage tells us that it's from
within the human heart that evil intentions come and anyone who's
ever done an honest self-assessment knows there's truth in that
statement. But life isn't a test, and evil isn't the only thing
that's in our hearts… For we were created, exactly as we
are, in the image of a God who loves us more than we can know.
Before we were born, Jesus gave his life so that we can live fully.
And in the midst of everything that troubles us, the spirit is
right here journeying with us. The nature and the beauty of God's
grace is that we don't have to have everything right; we don't have
to have everything together before we come to God. We can come
just as we are, trusting that God will create in us a pure heart,
trusting that God will change us inside and out. There's nothing
we can do and there's nothing we must do to earn God's love. It's
already been given and the transformation has already begun.
Thanks be to God.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on August 30, 2009.
© 2009 Daniel Holland
