18 Pentecost, Year B

Proper 21 -- Esther 7: 1 – 10; 9: 20 - 22; Psalm 124; James 5: 13 - 20; Mark 9: 38 - 50

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Saturday, September 29, 2012, and Sunday, September 30, 2012.

“JUST WHOSE MINISTRY IS IT, ANYWAY?”

(Homily text:  Mark 9: 38 - 50)

In today’s gospel text, Mark records John’s voice as he comes to Jesus and says, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.”  (Italics mine)

John’s strange comment raises questions:  Just who was this mysterious man?  What – if any – connection did this man have to Jesus….had he heard about Jesus and knew what Jesus had been doing, or was he a follower who went out on his own, doing the same things that Jesus had done?

Alas, Mark doesn’t tell us the details that would fill in some of the missing information about this mysterious miracle worker.  We will have to content ourselves with living with the unknowns of the exact nature of this individual’s work.

But we do know some important facts about this man’s activities:

·        He is using Jesus’ name to effect the work he is engaged in,

·        He is apparently successful in the ministry he was engaged in.

It’s important, I think, to focus in on John’s discomfort, for therein lies an important lesson for the original disciples, and for us.

If we back up just a little in chapter nine, we see in verse 18 that the disciples themselves had not been able to cast out a demon.  They had failed in the ministry they were engaged in.  So, naturally, they seem a little miffed, having seen someone who has no visible connection to the Lord doing successfully the very same task they had been unable to do.  (I would assume the connection that John has in mind is one in which a follower of Jesus would travel around with Jesus, like the disciples did…the mysterious man apparently was unknown to John).

John’s comment leads us to believe that he believed that he and his fellow disciples were the exclusive owners of Jesus’ ministry.  As if to say, “Ministering in Jesus’ name belongs to us, exclusively.”

Funny, isn’t it, that John doesn’t say to the Lord, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he wasn’t following you.”

There is no doubt that the original twelve disciples (minus Judas, plus Matthias) had a central role to play in Jesus’ plan to spread the good news to all the world.  After all, it was these twelve who would be transformed from being disciples into being apostles, that is, they were the ones who were sent out (which is the root meaning of the word “apostle”).

But others were engaged in a ministry in Jesus’ name, as well.  For example, early on in His earthly ministry, Jesus calls together 70 others, and commissions them to go out, carrying the good news with them (see Luke 10: 1).  For another, we know that many women played a various roles in Jesus’ ministry, as well.

So the fact is that the original disciples-become-apostles, though they played a central role in spreading the gospel news and in founding the early Church, didn’t own the ministry that had been given to them as a sacred trust.

The points that John seems to have missed are these: 

·        The results of ministry activity will verify the faithfulness of that ministry activity to Jesus’ message…this unknown man was effectively using Jesus’ name to deliver those who were afflicted,

·        The true connection to Jesus lies in the consistency of the ministry to Jesus’ words and actions.

Thus, John seems to miss the fact that the man he saw was successfully carrying out the same ministry that Jesus was, and he was using Jesus’ name to do so.  Therefore, this man was truly engaged in a faithful ministry.  That ministry was connected to the Lord through that faithfulness, even though there was no visible connection to the Lord’s physical presence.

Time has passed, and we are now almost 2,000 years removed from Jesus’ time on earth.  Any physical, visible connection to the Lord has long since passed into history….we are no longer able to walk with Him in the flesh, and to witness what He did.  So what lessons might lie in today’s incident for us as 21^st century believers?

Perhaps these observations are worthy of our reflection:

·        When we encounter a Christian ministry, the gauge of its trustworthiness is its faithfulness -  in its entirety - to Jesus’ ministry.  Since what we know about Jesus’ earthly ministry is to be found in Holy Scripture, then we can be safe in saying that the gauge of any ministry is its consistency with the scriptural accounts of Jesus’ teaching and work.

·        All ministries remain the Lord’s possession.  We can never own a ministry we are engaged in.  The best that can be said is that we have been trusted to carry out a ministry.  In that sense, a ministry is a sacred gift that has been given to us to accomplish for awhile.

·        The Lord is to be the focus of attention.  John’s comment smacks of a desire to be the center of things.  Too often, Christians seem to want to occupy a similar position, right in the center of things.  But if that happens, then the Lord’s presence and power can be eclipsed.  It’s important for us to remember that no ministry will ever be successful if it depends on human ability alone to accomplish it.  The Lord’s presence, the Lord’s name, are the ultimate sources of power to do the things that He did.

 

One final observation is in order:  We live in a time of tremendous change for Christians everywhere.  The old way of doing things is crumbling before our eyes.  Gone is the time when individual churches could try to claim that they alone had the truth of God as their sole possession.  Thankfully, churches across the spectrum of Christianity are beginning to see the Christ in other Christian bodies, other than their own.  As a result, cooperation in various ministries has involved Christians who, not too many years ago, would never had associated with other Christians.  In part, these positive developments have been possible because Christians are coming to the realization that Christ must be paramount in any ministry that we undertake.  We are servants of the Lord, nothing more.

May the Holy Spirit enable the Lord to increase, and our estimation of our own importance to decrease, so that Christ may in all, and above all, and through all.

AMEN.

 

17 Pentecost, Year B

Proper 20 -- Proverbs 31: 10 - 31; Psalm 1; James 3: 13 – 4: 8; Mark 9: 30 - 37

 

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, September 23, 2012.

 

“TEARING US DOWN TO BUILD US OVER AGAIN”

(Homily text:  Mark 9: 30 - 37)

(Here’s a song we used to sing, from my days in the United States Army Chorus, Washington, D. C.)

                        “I wouldn’t give a bean, to be a fancy-pants Marine,

                        I’d rather be a Dogface Soldier, like I am.

                        I wouldn’t trade my old O. D.s. for all the Navy’s dungarees,

                        For I’m the walkin’ pride of Uncle Sam.

                        On all the posters that I read, it says, “The Army Builds Men”,

                        So they’re tearing me down to build me over again….”
 

“On all the posters that I read, it says “The Army Builds Men”, so they’re tearing me down to build me over again….”

In the Bible that I read, it says the Lord builds Christian men and women (and boys and girls), so He’s tearing us down to build us over again.

Now – all humor aside – you may be wondering what connection the last phrase of this old Army song has to today’s gospel, from Mark, chapter nine.

Allow me to make the connection:  The song talks about – in the phrase I’ve focused on – the process of being torn down to nothing, so as to be remade. 

·       In the Army (or any military service), one goes through some sort of initial training, be it Basic Training, or perhaps a service academy (like West Point, e.g.) or perhaps Officer Candidate School (known as “OCS”).  Essentially, in all these things, a person goes down to practically nothing, to being a “nobody” in comparison to the way they were in civilian life.  This process of taking away aspects of a person’s previous identity is necessary in order to install a new identity and a new way of being as a member of a military force.

·       In today’s gospel, Jesus says to His disciples, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”  To underscore the concept of allowing oneself to become nothing, Jesus takes a child in His arms and says, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me by him who sent me.”  To understand what Jesus is saying, we need to return to the culture of the first century in Judaism…there, a child was a “nobody”.  Oh, yes, children were important, for they were a guarantee of the future, but in the estimation of the culture of Jesus’ day, they had no status at all.  That’s the point that Jesus is trying to make:  To be a disciple, one must allow oneself to become nothing, to be the last, to be of no account.

This is not the first time Jesus has made this point about emptying oneself, about taking the last place, about becoming a “nobody”….we heard Him make it last week, when  He made His first passion prediction (a prediction of His suffering and death). There, he told His disciples (in Mark 8: 27 – 38) that “Whoever would follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Here we encounter a spiritual truth:  In order to allow God to come into our lives, we must be willing to let go of everything, to empty ourselves.

That is the precise point of baptism:  By entering the waters of baptism, we allow ourselves to undergo a sort of death, a burial in the waters of the font.  Here we rely on St. Paul’s description of baptism, for in Romans chapter six he says that we are “buried with Christ in a death like his.”  As we enter the waters of baptism, we die to ourselves, we die to our old way of life.

And then we are raised to a new life, in a resurrection like Christ’s (here again, St. Paul’s vision as we read it in Romans chapter six is in view).  So the process begins with a self-emptying, a self-denial, a death.  Only then can a new identity, a new life begin.

 But it would be easy to say to ourselves, “OK, I’m baptized….I did that once, on whatever date/time/place….So now, there’s no need to repeat that self-emptying process….it’s done.”

But the spiritual truth is that we stand in need of a continual self-emptying, self-denial.

Why?

The reason is that the forces of evil that we have said we would renounce at the time of our baptisms don’t give up on trying to separate us from God’s love and God’s fellowship so easily.  These spiritual forces will try anything and everything to come between us and God.  They will appeal to our sense of pride, our sense of thinking that we can succeed all on our own.

Whenever we think that we can make it spiritually on our own power and by our own wisdom and insights, the ugly head of the Pelagian heresy raises its head…Recall from my September newsletter’s “Rector’s Rambles” column the description of Pelagianism:  It was a belief that we can save ourselves all on our own, without a need for God’s grace and power to bring it about.

Pelagian beliefs are appealing, aren’t they?

After all, we’re intelligent, sincere people, aren’t we?  We try to do the right thing, we try to live good and godly lives, don’t we?

If those things are true, we might ask ourselves, ‘Then what’s the problem?”

The problem is that we human beings are so easily deceived.  We can be deceived into thinking that what we think, do or say is just fine.  But we forget that our ability to see ourselves as God sees us is clouded…..our vision is imperfect.  We have spiritual cataracts which block our sight.  We cannot see as God sees us.

So, we must rely on God’s vision of us, God’s view of our level of righteousness, God’s measuring stick of holiness.  In order to do so, we must allow ourselves to undergo the painful process of self-denial, self-emptying.  Only then can the Holy Spirit enlighten and empower us to see ourselves as God sees us.

May we allow God to “Tear us down, so that He can build us all over again.”

AMEN.

 

16 Pentecost, Year B

Proper 19 --  Proverbs 1: 20 – 33; Psalm 19; James 3: 1 – 12; Mark 8: 27 – 38

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, September 16, 2012.

“GOD’S WAYS, NOT OUR WAYS”

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor my ways your ways, says the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.  For as rain and snow fall from the heavens and return not again, but water the earth, bringing forth life and giving growth, seed for sowing and bread for eating, so is my word that goes forth from my mouth; it will not return to me empty; but will accomplish that which I purposed, and prosper in that for which I sent it.”

(A portion of the canticle known as the Second Song of Isaiah, taken from Isaiah 55: 6 – 11)[1]

In today’s gospel reading, we hear that Peter took the Lord aside and began to rebuke Him for saying that He was going to go to Jerusalem, where the elders, the chief priests and the scribes would reject Him.  He was to be killed there, He said.

Peter had a major problem:  He knew how to say the right things at the right time.  After all, he was the first to confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, God’s anointed one. But he also had the ability to turn right around and say the totally wrong thing.  (Fortunately for Peter and for us, after the Lord’s resurrection, Peter no longer had this awful tendency to say the wrongs things at the wrong time – Peter became, after the resurrection – a powerful and eloquent spokesman for the good news of Jesus Christ.

It might be easy for us - distanced as we are by time and space – to wonder why Peter and the other disciples failed to see God’s purposes as they are at work in Jesus Christ.  It was easy for the disciples to see God and work in the miracles, in the healings, and in the teachings of Jesus.  It was impossible – before the resurrection – to see God at work in Jesus’ death.

But we shouldn’t be too hard on these first disciples, who would soon become apostles, sent out to carry that good news to the whole world.

After all, God was doing a new thing in sending Jesus Christ to be the world’s Messiah.  This new thing had to do with showing God’s power over disease, over nature, over death itself.  But part of God’s plan had to do with His plan to purposely limit His own power, and to allow Jesus to become vulnerable to death, even death on a cross.

This new thing involved miraculous healings, a demonstrated power over the forces of nature, and the raising of the dead.  The powers at work in Jesus Christ were like nothing anyone had ever seen before.

Maybe that’s why the disciples – Peter chief among them – couldn’t understand why the Lord would say that He was going to Jerusalem, where the powers-that-were would succeed in killing him.

Let’s put ourselves into their shoes for a moment…..If we had seen the Lord do all these wonderful and powerful things, wouldn’t we assume that that same Lord had all power, even over the rulers of the people?  Wouldn’t we assume that God was ushering in a new kingdom which would root out all sources of corruption, all occupying powers of the Romans, and all causes of disease in the world?  I must admit to you, that if I had been one of those original disciples, I would have assumed that Jesus was going to conquer all these things, and I would also have assumed that I was going to be on the Lord’s winning team.

So, it doesn’t make any sense, does it, for the Lord who had all these powers to say that He wasn’t going to win once He got to Jerusalem.  In fact, the Lord told His disciples, you, too, need to “take up your cross and follow me.”

The Lord’s prediction of His coming death, and the call for all of His followers to take up their own cross to follow Him, must have sounded a whole lot like losing, not winning.

But we began this homily with Isaiah’s wise words:  “For your ways are not my ways, nor your thoughts like my thoughts, says the Lord.”

Surely, this sort of an idea lies behind Jesus’ rebuke of Peter as He says, “Get behind me, Satan, for you are not on the side of God, but of men.”

Put another way, Jesus is saying to Peter that he is thinking like normal human beings do.  The way of human beings is to gather power, enough power to conquer the things and the enemies that stand in our way.  That’s the way of the world.  That’s the way of the world in which Jesus, Peter and the other disciples lived.

But God purposely stays His hand, allowing His Son to go to the cross, and to the grave.  Could God have prevented these things?  The answer is “Yes”.  Could God have banished all the forces which allied themselves against God and against His Son?  The answer is, again, “Yes.”

But a spiritual truth emerges here….God’s power is made perfect in weakness.

It’s important for us to hear that truth again…..God’s power is made perfect in weakness.

Before you think that I have come up with that truth on my own, allow me to disavow you of any such notion….No, that thought isn’t one of my original ones…it comes to us from the hand and the mind of St. Paul, who writes in II Corinthians 12: 9b.

If we look ahead to the events of Good Friday, Jesus’ death looks a whole lot like a complete and total defeat…hung on a cross, abandoned by His disciples, the victim of a horrible death which was reserved for enslaved peoples, He died a criminal’s death.

Indeed, it is St. Paul again who describes the complete and total disconnect between Jesus’ death and the sensibilities of those who heard the gospel preached to them….Paul says that the cross is “a stumbling block to Jews, and folly to the Gentiles (Greeks).  (I Corinthians 1: 23b)

For the Jews who heard the gospel message from Paul’s lips, the idea of a man who had died on a tree was preposterous to their way of thinking.  After all, Deuteronomy 21: 22 – 23, we read, “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the next day, for a hanged man is cursed by God.”

For the Gentiles (Greeks) who heard the gospel message, the idea of following as Savior and Lord a person who had died a criminal’s death was silly.

But God’s power is made perfect in weakness, as we said a moment ago.  Moving forward from Good Friday to Easter Sunday morning, we can see the power that was manifest in Jesus Christ clearly….After all, the powers of evil devoted everything in their arsenal to the purpose of defeating Jesus Christ on that awful Friday.  But everything that the powers of evil had to bring to that battle wasn’t enough to achieve victory, for the victory belongs to Christ and to God the Father, as the Lord emerges from the grave, with His body intact and complete.

It would take the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday morning, taken together, for the disciples to recognize God’s true power, at work in Jesus Christ.  The “defeat” that Jesus suffered on Good Friday is made all the deeper by His victory on Easter morning.

No, God’s ways aren’t our ways.  They are higher than our ways.  They are different than our ways.

But the lesson of Good Friday and Easter Sunday morning is that God’s power is supreme above any obstacle that can come before it.  Even the obstacle of death itself cannot stand up to God’s power to create life, or to create life anew.  Sometimes, God’s power isn’t apparent right at first.  It may take awhile to see it clearly.  But see it, we will.

That same Lord of all life allowed Himself to be subject to suffering, pain and death.  That is the great and enduring mystery of the cross, and of the Lord’s prediction, heard today, of His coming death.

For you and me, we can be assured that no matter what suffering might lie in our life’s pathways, the Lord has already walked the path we may be called to walk.  For the Lord whom we worship and who we love is also the one who emptied Himself, taking on the form of a servant, the one who allowed Himself to be subject to death, even the death on a cross.  Therefore, God has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth.  (I am paraphrasing Philippians 2: 5 -11 here).

God’s willingness to walk our life of pain, disappointment, rejection and death is the distinctive marker of the Christian faith.  No other system of believing in the entire world sees God this way.

Thanks be to the all-powerful God, whose power is made perfect in weakness, whose power conquers every force of sin, evil, pain, and even death.

AMEN.

---

[1]  This canticle, which is known by the title “The Second Song of Isaiah” can be found in the Book of Common Prayer, 1979 at page 86.  It is used in Morning Prayer, Rite II.

15 Pentecost, Year B

Proper 18 -- Proverbs 22:1–2, 8–9, 22-23; Psalm 125; James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37

 

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John's Church, Centralia, Illinois, on Sunday, September 9, 2012.

“YES, NO, OR NOT NOW”

 Is it alright to tussle with the Lord when we are asking Him for something?

Perhaps the idea of struggling with the Lord, praying intensely or even passionately, isn’t one that many of us are comfortable with.

But the account of Syrophoenician woman’s sparring with Jesus, the text from Mark which is before us today, might cause us to rethink the possibility of passionate struggle with God in our prayer life.

Before we consider some of the possibilities of this text, we ought to set the stage for the encounter which Mark lays before us today.

Jesus has been ministering in the region of the Galilee, and now leaves that area, traveling north and west to the coastal area of what is now modern day Lebanon, to the region of the cities of Tyre and Sidon (which are about 20 miles apart).  Apparently, the reason Jesus has gone away is to escape the crowds, which have been growing as word of His ministry spread.

But even in this Gentile region, a Greek-speaking area, Jesus’ reputation is known.  The woman who comes before Him today has heard of His ministry, and makes her request to Him.  She asks Jesus to rescue her daughter from the power of an evil spirit.

Jesus’ response seems terse and even insulting.  He says of her request, “Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

We need to explain this remark:  Jesus is saying that the blessings of God belong to the chosen people of God, that is, the Jews, and it is they who should receive those blessings first.  Moreover, in the ancient near eastern culture, dogs were considered by many to be unclean animals; Jews, for example, thought they were totally unclean.

So Jesus’ retort comes off as an insult.

But the woman apparently understands Jesus’ remark completely.  She responds, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

It is a masterful response, which takes Jesus’ words and turns them to her advantage.

This unnamed woman is gutsy!

But let’s linger with Jesus’ statement, and with the woman’s response just a moment longer, for there are details in both statements that might escape our notice unless we read carefully, and unless we know some of the details of the word “dog” each speaker uses.

 Here, again, is Jesus’ response, with my own emphasis shown in italics:  “Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the puppy dogs.”

 Jesus’ use of the word “first” might escape our notice.  But most translations miss the fact that the word for “dog” that Jesus uses is actually better translated as “little dog” (or in my translation “puppy dog).  The dog that is in view here is a household pet, apparently, not a stray dog that wanders the town looking to forage for food.  The woman’s retort which mentions this “little dog” being under the table seems to confirm that the animal is a part of the household.

What are the implications of the two aspects of the verbal exchange (Jesus’ use of the word “first” and the reference to a “little dog”) that affect our understanding of the meaning of the event before us?

 First of all, Jesus’ says that the bread (of God) is to be given to the children (of God) first.  Implied in that idea is that there can be a second feeding.

Secondly, the reference to an animal that is, apparently, a member of the household, implies a relationship of some sort with the other members of the household.

 It’s possible that the woman to whom these remarks were made caught the implications of these two aspects of Jesus’ statement.  She responds to the possibility of someone other than the children being fed by using the common image of the canine members of the household getting to clean up the scraps which fall from the table.  Put another way, she seems to be saying,

“Yes, Lord, but even the puppy dogs are members of the household, just not first class members.”

 

 (An aside which I cannot resist adding is that a reference to the woman’s statement finds its way into our Book of Common Prayer.  In the American 1979 edition, the prayer which is known as the “Prayer of Humble Access” begins this way:  “We do not presume to come to this, thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.  We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table…” (Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 337))

Here, a question arises:  Was Jesus’ testing the woman, to see if her faith was sufficient for Him to grant her request?

Quite possibly, the answer is “Yes”, He was testing her.

For one thing, it’s possible that Jesus was testing her to see if the nature of His response would cause her to turn and go away.  (She didn’t!)

 For another, we know that she was listening closely, and picked up on the nuances of Jesus’ statement (about the children of God being fed first, and about the nature of the dog).

For yet another, her response seems to show that she believed that the Lord could grant her request.  At least I think we can be sure of that….all she asked for was some small portion of the goodness that flowed from Jesus’ ministry to the Jewish people.  In essence, that is the core of her response.

What about you and me?  Can we wrestle with God in our prayer life as we present our petitions to Him?

 If we look for answers from Holy Scripture, I think we can be assured that, at times, seeking God’s favor with endurance and with passion is alright.  Two examples from Scripture will support this argument:

1. Abraham’s attempt to save Sodom and Gomorrah:  In Genesis 18 (verses 22 - 33), Abraham asks God to save the two cities, if even a small number of righteous are found there.  Abraham begins with the number 50, then reduces it to 45, then 40,  then 30, then 20, and finally, if only ten righteous are found there, Abraham asks, would God destroy the city?  We know the ending of the incident:  Not even ten righteous were to be found.  But the point to be made here is that Abraham continually asks the Lord to grant his request, time after time, as the number of possibly righteous persons declines.
2. Gideon’s request to know God’s will:  Gideon asks the Lord to show him with clarity that he has been chosen to lead the people of Israel.  In Judges 6: 36 – 40, Gideon lays out a fleece of wool, asking the Lord to make that fleece alone wet with the dew of the morning.  Then, Gideon reverses the test, asking the Lord to make the fleece dry, while everything else was wet.  God did as Gideon asked in each case.

In each of these cases, the issue at hand was an extremely important one….In Abraham’s case, people’s lives hung in the balance.  In Gideon’s case, the issue was to know whether or not God had chosen Gideon to lead the people and to remove the idols that many were worshipping so that God alone could be worshipped.

Sometimes, our life experience presents us with critical decisions, matters of life and death perhaps, or decisions about our future employment or some other choice. We are talking about the “really big stuff” of life here.

At times like that, it is especially important to seek God’s will and to ask for God’s favor.

Perhaps our earnest prayers will also lead us, assisted by the Holy Spirit, to reflect on the importance of the matter.  Maybe, over the course of time, we will come to realize the rightness of our request, and be fully convinced in our minds and hearts that our request is good, right and proper.  At other times, maybe the Holy Spirit will provide a different vision of the matter’s importance.

 And as we make our requests known to God, we can be assured that our prayers will be answered.  The answer will take the form of “Yes, no” or “Not now.”

No matter what God’s answer will eventually be, we can be sure that His answer is – in the long run – the best answer for us.

May we, aided by the Holy Spirit, be able to make our requests known to God, and to discern God’s answer, knowing that His answer will always be best for us.

AMEN.

 

14 Pentecost, Year B

Proper 17 -- Song of Solomon 2:1-8; Psalm 45:1–2, 7-10; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1–8, 14– 15, 21-23

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, September 2, 2012.

“CLEAN ON THE OUTSIDE, OR PURE ON THE INSIDE?”
(Homily text:  Mark 7: 1 – 8, 14 – 15, 21 - 23)

 Rules are very important.  Having rules gives an organization – be it the Church, a fraternal organization, a government, etc. – structure and identity.  Having rules provides a way for leaders of organizations to be accountable to the organization’s membership.

But rules can take on a life of their own.  They can become important simply for the sake of themselves.  When that happens, oftentimes people can’t remember why a rule ever came into existence in the first place.

Rules can take on a life of their own…that is the bottom line of the exchange that we read about between Jesus and His enemies, the Pharisees and the Scribes, in this morning’s gospel text.

“Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders (italics mine, of course), but eat with hands defiled?” the Pharisees and the Scribes ask.

The way these questioners ask the question provides the basis for Jesus’ response:  He separates out the commandments of God from the traditions that human beings have created, in this case, the traditions of the elders of the people.

The picture that the New Testament paints of the Pharisees and the Scribes isn’t a pretty one:  They seem to be entirely focused on details of ritual.  Remember that ritual is something that can be seen.  So, we can honestly say, I think, that the Pharisees and their allies are concerned with putting on a good show.  They seem to be concerned mainly with the way things look.

Doing things for show must have been a hallmark of these religious leaders…Jesus takes them to task in another passage when He says, “They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries (phylacteries are the small boxes with scriptural sayings inside them that are worn on the forehead and on the left arm) broad and their fringes (these are the fringes at the corners of outer garments) long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men.”  (Matthew 23: 5 – 7)

Jesus’ attack in the same chapter (Matthew 23) contrasts the outward actions and appearance of the Pharisees and the Scribes with their inner spiritual condition.  The Lord says, “Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and rapacity.”  (Verse 25)

How did things get so far out-of-order in the Judaism of 2,000 years ago?

One reason for the imbalance is due, I think, to group identity…God’s chosen people had had their identity threatened for over 300 years.  Ever since the conquest of the Holy Land by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, Greek influence had threatened to engulf and submerge Jewish identity. Following Alexander’s death in 323 BC, his empire was divided up and the Holy Land came under increasingly dangerous occupation. These Greek occupiers tried to completely stamp out Jewish identity and belief.  In response, the Maccabean Revolt succeeded in throwing off the oppressive occupation in the middle of the second century BC.  The successes of the Maccabeans lasted until the conquest of the Holy Land under the Roman general Pompey in 63 BC.  With the arrival of the Romans, Jewish identity was, once again, threatened.  The people of Jesus’ time lived with the constant presence of, and threat from, Roman occupation.

So, given their recent history, it was natural for the Jews to try to find ways to preserve not only their identity, but their religious beliefs.

One way to do that was by making an outward demonstration of one’s Jewish identity.  Adherence to the Torah’s commandments in things like the Sabbath observance and the dietary laws was one way.  Another way was to avoid as much contact as possible with non-Jewish persons.

Yet another way was to observe the categories of what was considered to be clean, and what was considered to be unclean. These categories stem, in part, from the Law of Moses, the Torah.

But in today’s incident, it appears that the categories of clean and unclean have become even more sharply defined, going far beyond the requirements of the Torah.  The distinctions that the Pharisees and the Scribes complain about seem to have been created the leaders of the people, referred to in today’s passage as “the elders”.  Jesus distinguishes between the requirements of Torah and the traditions that are added to it.

We said earlier on in this homily that rules can take on a life of their own.

That seems to be the case in the situation before us:  The rules have become more important than just about anything else, including the importance of allowing God’s law to permeate into the innermost parts of a person’s heart and mind.  Jesus sums the condition up this way as He says (quoting Isaiah), “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.”[1]

Jesus is aiming at a holistic approach to a relationship with God:  Proper worship is important, but so is the inner disposition of one’s heart.  One’s behavior is important, but so is the love we must have for God and for others, a love that must govern our behavior.

Rules can take on a life of their own.  Worship which incorporates a formal liturgy, which is governed by established ways of doing things, can also take on a life of its own.

Ever know someone whose main focus seems to be on doing liturgical worship properly?  Such persons seem to know all the fine points of liturgical worship practices.  Some can even cite the origins of liturgical practice, or can cite rubrics to show that they know how worship ought to be done.  I used to sing with a person like that.

But even if we aren’t liturgical experts, the beauty of worshipping in a rich tradition such as that of the Anglican Church can be an attraction all its own.  Here, the temptation might be to think that enjoying beautiful, well-done worship is all that is required of us.

If that happens, then our focus is removed from the totality of what God wants of us:  to worship Him in beauty and in truth, and to allow our worship to shape and redefine who we are as Christians, so that everything we think, say and do will reflect a quest for God’s holiness in our lives.

Put another way, God wants our minds, our hearts and our hands to reflect the love that we have for Him, and for others, as well.  Living the Christian life is a “package deal”.  Our Christian identity flows from our heart and our minds outward into our hands and onto our lips.

May the Holy Spirit enable us to be devoted entirely and completely to the work God has given us, showing by our actions, by our words, by our attitudes and our thoughts, that our outsides match our insides.  Only then will our actions reflect God’s holiness, matching the purity of the heart that only God can supply.

AMEN.

           

 

           

 

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[1]   Jesus is quoting Isaiah 29:13 in the Greek version of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint.