Sermon; Proper 23B; Mark 10:17-31

“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 

So begins today’s gospel passage.  I would guess it’s a question that we have all considered or asked at one time or another.  Jesus answers the man by rattling off a list of Commandments:  Don’t steal . . . Don’t murder . . . Don’t defraud . . . Don’t bear false witness . . . Don’t commit adultery . . . Honor you father and your mother.

“Yes, yes, I’ve done all that.  But what ELSE can I do?”

Jesus looks at him and says, “Go, sell all you own, give the money to the poor, and then come and follow me.”

“Oh . . . well . . . um . . . wow . . . Really?  Let me go think about that . . . hoo-boy . . . that’s . .  um . . . Wow.”

Here are a few things to know about today’s gospel passage. 

First, Jesus’ admonition to “sell what you own and give the money to the poor” was directed to that man.  As we move into pledge season, aren’t you glad for that?  As I’ve said before, “Context is everything,” and the context of this exchange is that Jesus is speaking directly to this particular man, not to his disciples, and not to a wider audience, including us.

Now, if you have discerned that God is calling you to sell all your possessions and help the poor, ala Saint Francis, that’s one thing; but neither Jesus nor I are telling you all to do that.  So now that we have that out of the way, what is going on here.  Why would Jesus put this requirement on this man?

The primary issue Jesus is addressing is attachment, and this is something that is addressed to all of us.  The man went away because “he had many possessions.”  Even though he has led a morally upright life, even though he has kept the commandments, even though he is interested in obtaining eternal life, his priorities are still his possessions, for in reality, they mean more to him than anything else.  The real issue for this man was his inability to make God a priority.  As one commentator says, “The man has a greater desire for his possessions than he does for eternal life.”

A second point is that it’s not only our possessions that get in the way of a right relationship with God, it’s what those possessions mean socially.  Wealth tends to convey status and power, whether intentional or not.  People will buy or build homes to symbolize or show off their wealth and status.  They do the same with cars, clothes, and jewelry.  Besides giving up his possessions, the man was loathe to give up the status and social position they represented or had led him to.

A third part of this interaction is the man’s assumption or expectation that this is a transactional relationship.  “What must I DO to inherit eternal life?”  If I keep the commandments, then I will inherit eternal life.  If I feed the hungry, then I will inherit eternal life.  If I attend worship services every Sunday, then I will inherit eternal life.  And the list goes on.  But our relationship with God is not transactional.  We don’t do those things in order to inherit eternal life.  We do those things because God loves us and that is how we show our appreciation.

While this passage is not telling us to sell all our possessions, this passage IS asking us to evaluate our relationship with our possessions and with God.  By many standards, we are wealthy.  We need to take an honest look at our wealth, our lives, and our practices and evaluate how those possessions hinder or help our relationship with God.

As we make those evaluations, we must also be reminded that we do not and cannot do anything to be saved.  “Who can be saved?” the disciples ask each other.  Jesus’ response is basically, “It’s only through the grace of God that people are saved.”  What we are asked to do is to continually evaluate our priorities and work to make sure that our possessions don’t possess us.

And then Jesus closes out with something interesting.  How many of us have heard the prosperity gospel preached?  That is something like, “God will reward you with all kinds of blessings if you say the words and commit to him.”  Things like the Prayer of Jabez, which was popular several years ago.  Or a belief that following Christ will automatically set you up to be rich and powerful.  That message is a heresy that has no basis in scripture.

But look closely at what Jesus does say:  those who leave homes, family, income, for his sake will receive a hundredfold all those things – and persecutions.  Following Christ will lead to persecution.  And not those claims of persecution because you weren’t allowed to put up the Ten Commandments in a courtroom, or because teacher-led prayer was removed from schools, or because of any other faux Christian outrage.  We probably won’t be killed because of our faith, but we may experience modern-day persecutions because you choose to follow Christ instead of society, or because you choose to feed the hungry in opposition to government edicts, or because you give homeless people shelter and access to personal hygiene, or because you choose humbleness over power.

This gospel passage isn’t telling us to sell all our possessions; but it is telling us to honestly evaluate our priorities.  It is asking us to evaluate whether we own possessions, or our possessions own us.  It does remind us that the gate to eternal life isn’t based on what we do, but that what we do is a generous response to God’s love for us.  And it reminds us that following Christ will not be easy.

Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?  What you can do is to evaluate your life so that your actions match your words, ensuring that God really is your first priority.

Amen.

Sermon; Proper 22B; Mark 10:2-16

When quoting scripture, what is the most important thing to remember?  Context is everything.  I said this a few weeks ago and pointed to Matt. 18:8 (“If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away”) as an example.  I also said, to borrow a phrase from Emily, you shouldn’t be playing Bible roulette.  Context matters.

The context of a verse within a passage matters.  The context of the passage within a chapter matters.  The context of the chapter within the book matters.  And the context of everything in life matters.

I bring up context again because today we are faced with one of the more difficult passages in the gospels – that being Jesus’ teaching and discussion on marriage and divorce.  This is one of those passages I can hear someone, most likely a church leader, say, “The Bible clearly says divorce is a sin and should not be allowed.”

It’s hard for me to say that.  I am a child of divorce.  My sisters have each been divorced.  I’ve had parishioners, friends, and colleagues who have been divorced.  But the Bible clearly says . . .  So as hard as this passage is, let’s spend some time looking at it.

Jesus is now beginning his journey to Jerusalem and his eventual crucifixion and death.  Crowds once again gather around him and he begins to teach.  During his teaching, some Pharisees show up to test him.  That word, test, is the same word, by the way, that is used when Jesus is in the wilderness and tested/tempted by Satan.  And as we have seen before, these confrontations are designed to bring dissention and allow for charges to be brought up against Jesus.

I won’t go into details, but there were two religious camps around the idea of divorce.  On one side, the only valid reason for divorce was infidelity.  On the other side, any fault a man found with his wife was grounds for divorce.  The Pharisees threw Jesus into the middle of this argument in a game of “gotcha” hoping he would alienate at least half of his followers.

So Jesus is asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  His first response is legalistic:  “What’s written in the law?”  Going back to Deut. 24:1-4, the Pharisees say that Moses allowed for divorce.

But Jesus was never one to be legalistic.  He says, “It was because of your hardness of heart that Moses wrote this.” 

Hardness of heart.  This is a phrase that comes up several times in scripture.  Pharaoh’s heart was hardened when he refused to let the Israelites worship God, resulting in the Exodus.  Hardness of heart is used to show the Israelites’ unwillingness to follow God completely.  And Mark uses the phrase to show Jesus’ anger toward the religious leaders and their lack of compassion when Jesus heals a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath.  When we are more concerned with ourselves or how people aren’t meeting our expectations, our hearts have been hardened.

In other words, divorce laws are necessary because we are obstinate, self-centered, stubborn, hurtful, or reflect any number of other behaviors not grounded in God.  It is these human tendencies that lead to relational ruptures.  Rather than get mired in the legalities of divorce, Jesus redirects the discussion from man’s legal issues and concerns to what the will of God actually is.

Laws for divorce are necessary because of our hardness of heart, which is in direct opposition to how God desires we live.  There is no description of warm-heartedness in scripture, but something that comes close is Paul’s list of the gifts of the Spirit found in Galatians.  These include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  By applying these gifts to our lives and our relationships, including marriage, we begin to live as God intended us to live.  Relationships, all relationships – friendships, marriages, families, etc. – become life-giving, nurturing, and healthy when we operate as God intends.

Unfortunately we do not always reflect those gifts of the Spirit.  We can become selfish, self-absorbed, and inwardly focused to the detriment of those around us.  It’s important to evaluate the relationships we are in.  Do we love others?  Are we loved?  Do we nurture the other person?  Are we nurtured?  Do we provide a safe place?  Are we safe?  Among other questions.

When it comes to weddings, and Joelene knows this, I only have one sermon.  Some of the details change, but the overall sermon is this:  What is 1 + 1?  One plus one equals three.  You, your spouse, and the marriage.  You need to care for all three for it to work.  You need to nurture all three for it to work.  You need to love all three for it to work.

As I alluded to earlier, this passage has been used over the centuries to inflict great harm on people, primarily women.  Can you imaging being in an abusive marriage and have your priest tell you that you couldn’t leave because Jesus said so?  That’s how women die.

But as I said earlier, context is everything.

Abusive relationships are sinful.  Self-centered relationships are sinful.  Manipulative relationships are sinful.  And if we know one thing about Jesus, it’s that he came to free us from the bondage of sin.

The ideal marriage is a life-long union between two people that nurtures, cares for, and strengthens those people who have entered into that covenant.  This is the ideal of what God has brought together.  It is that ideal that no one should separate, and it is that ideal to which Jesus appeals.

Divorce can happen for any number of reasons – abuse, infidelity, financial malfeasance, addiction, growing apart, and the ever-popular “irreconcilable differences.”  Some of these reasons are more valid than others – I would never tell an abused spouse to try and work it out.  But I’m convinced that all divorce is based on self-centered, selfish reasons.  My needs aren’t being met.  I found someone else.  They aren’t being obedient to me.  And the list goes on.

Even so, divorce, on some level, damages us.  It terminates a union begun under the auspices of God’s desire for us.  It causes children to take sides.  It can leave us with deep scars.  It ruins friendships.  The ripples caused by divorce spread far and wide.  And this is what Jesus is getting at.

If we loved others as God loves us, if we loved others as we love ourselves, if we nurtured, cared for, and worked for the well-being of others AND the relationships we enter into, then we would be that much closer to living into God’s ideal, and we would be that much closer to ending divorce.

May we all have our hard-hearted hearts warmed to the point where we value our relationships as much as we value ourselves.

Amen.

Sermon; Saint Michael and All Angels

Today is the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels.  If you don’t know, Michael is one of four Archangels named in scripture, the other three being Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel.  I don’t know much about Raphael and Uriel, but Gabriel seems to be the chief messenger or spokesperson for God.  It was Gabriel who announced the births of John and Jesus.  Scripture doesn’t say, but I’m betting it was also Gabriel who told Joseph and the wise men to get out of town before Herod found them.

Michael is God’s general.  He is the one who leads the heavenly host into battle against Satan and the other fallen angels.  He is often depicted with a sword doing battle, as you see on your bulletin.  And there’s a great movie about him starring John Travolta called, “Michael.”

Besides being the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, today is also the day we welcome a new person into the household of God as we baptize Hope.  These two events, the Feast of Saint Michael and the baptism of Hope, go hand in hand.

As I said, in Christian tradition Michael is the leader of the army of God and does battle with Satan and his minions.  This battle of spiritual forces is twofold.  First, we must recognize that this battle has already been won.  On Easter Day Christ destroyed death, opening for us the way to life and salvation.  And while a lot of people see Revelation as a glimpse of a coming battle filled with death, destruction, and terror, it is really a history book of what has already taken place – namely that Satan has already been defeated, cast into the Pit, and God wins.  According to Revelation, it was Michael who threw Satan out of heaven.

Secondly, we must also recognize that this spiritual battle is ongoing.  This is why we promise to fight against spiritual forces that rebel against God.  It’s why we promise to fight against evil powers in this world that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.  It’s why we promise to fight against sinful desires that draw us away from God.  The game may be fixed.  The war may already be over.  God may have won, but Satan will do everything in his power to keep it close and/or convince us that it’s not over.

In this both/and scenario where the battle is both over and yet continues, it is good to have Michael standing with us doing battle against those evil spiritual forces.

But it is not only good to have Michael with us, it is also good to have all of us with us.

Christianity is a faith based in community.  We believe in a Trinitarian God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  One in three and three in one, separate but unified.  That image of God is itself based in a community of the godhead.  When Jesus began his ministry, he didn’t do it alone.  He called twelve people to be with him – to travel with him, teach with him, heal with him.  When he sent them out on their first mission, he didn’t send them alone, he sent them out in pairs.  And in the Catechism, we are told that the duty of all Christians is to come TOGETHER for corporate worship.

We are all in this together.  Together we create a community of God.  Together we minister to the needs of both our small community of Saint Luke’s and the larger community of Buffalo.  Together we support each other.  Together we share in both our sorrows and joys, our trials and our triumphs.

There is also something vitally important to know about this community of believers, and that is that we are not a closed system.  There are certain expectations and values to which we hold, but anyone is welcome to join us in this particular branch of the Jesus movement.

Today we welcome new people into our midst.  Today we welcome Bill, Lenore, Joshua, and Hope.  We invite them to join us in this community of believers as we work, pray, and give for the spread of the kingdom of God.  And while we welcome them all, today we are focused on Hope.

Today Hope will be baptized into the family of God.  Today she will be sealed by the power of the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own for ever.  Today we will welcome her into the household of God and we will promise to lead her, guide her, care for her, teach her, and protect her.  Hope and her family will know that this is her spiritual home.

Today the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, and the baptism of Hope, go hand in hand.  Today we remember Michael and the angels who fought in a battle already won and who continue to fight for us today in our ongoing spiritual battles.  We also baptize Hope into the household of God – a household with a room already prepared for her, as well as a household that is constantly being worked on.

May this day remind us all, whether we are longtime members of this church or people who are brand new, that we are in this together and that we are never alone.

Amen.

Sermon; Proper 20B; Proverbs 31:10-31, Mark 9:30-37

When quoting the Bible, what’s the most important thing to remember?  Context is everything.  It doesn’t do any good to quote scripture without knowing the context.  For instance, it would be incredibly harmful to quote Matt. 18:8 – “If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away” – without understanding the context in which it’s being said.  Which, by the way, is a whole monologue from Jesus about protecting and caring for vulnerable people.

Nor should you use the Bible for blind advice.  You can’t open it, point to a verse, and expect that to answer your question or problem.  Doing so may very well result in that old joke where a guy, depressed about a bad decision he had made, closed his eyes, opened the Bible, pointed, and found himself reading Matt. 27:5 – “Throwing down the pieces of silver, he went and hanged himself.”  Thinking that was a bit extreme, he opted to get a second opinion.  So he closed his eyes, opened the Bible, pointed, and read Luke 10:37 – “And Jesus said, ‘Go and do likewise’.”

Context is everything.

Which brings me to our lesson from Proverbs today.  Just reading or hearing today’s passage you might think this is a passage about the perfect wife.  Or maybe you see it as a biblical aspiration for young girls or women.  And those are some lofty aspirations:  trustworthy, productive, a good cook, a shrewd businesswoman, physically fit, generous, well-dressed, and happy.  It reminds me of that old commercial for a perfume:  “I can bring home the bacon . . . fry it up in a pan . . .”

These are lofty aspirations to be sure.  But read in context, it really has to do with healthy relationships.  Overall, Proverbs reflects the generational wisdom of a community designed to instruct people in how to lead a wise and upright life.  And since schools as we know them didn’t exist, Proverbs often served as the home-school curricula, or life lessons, passed down from one generation to the next.

In this final chapter of Proverbs, a mother imparts these words of wisdom to her son, the prince, before he grows up to be king.  What we miss in our lectionary is the first part of what the mother has said, which is primarily about avoiding strong drink and remembering to speak up for the lowly, the poor, and the needy.

In context, Chapter 31 of Proverbs is about the relationship of a king to his people.  This bit about a capable wife reinforces the fact that if your personal relationship isn’t strong, you can’t serve well as king.

The verses we hear today are focused on finding a capable wife because the mother wants her son to be a capable king.  In context, these verses are about finding a capable spouse.  And that changes the meaning.  This is no longer a list of traits that women need to have to be a suitable wife, this is now part of the wisdom of healthy relationships

Trust your spouse.  Do good not harm.

Do not spend your time getting drunk.

Be an advocate and a voice for those who are voiceless.

Invest wisely.  Maintain your health.

Care for your family.

Learn of wisdom and pursue kindness.

In all of this, we must remember to keep things in proper perspective.  Part of that is to see others not as how they can benefit you, but how you can serve them for the good of all.  This is sage advice for everyone, not just for a guy looking for a capable wife.

While the lessons today weren’t designed to go together, they actually do rather well.  Proverbs discusses what is useful for a good relationship with your spouse.  The gospel addresses what is useful for a good relationship in community.

While on the road to Capernaum, the disciples argue over who is the greatest among them.  When they get to the house they’re staying at, Jesus says, “What were you arguing about back there?”  Nuuuthinnn.

So he says, “Look, here’s who is great in God’s eyes – those who serve others.  See this kid?  Welcome him.  Welcome the questions.  Welcome the energy.  Welcome the chaos.  See him in others.  Treat others as innocent, inquisitive, energetic, chaotic children.  That is, treat them with love and patience.”

I’ve said this before and it seems to be the one thing you will always remember about me:  Families are weird.  That includes biological families, adopted families, and definitely church families.  Both Proverbs and the Gospel give us an idea of how to behave.  In our own families, have a level of mutual respect, love, and care for each other.  These are not only the qualities of a capable wife, they are the qualities of capable people.

In our church family, let us look to serve those both inside and outside our parish.  Let us welcome the child, those with questions, those with energy, and the chaos that will inevitably bring with love and patience.

And let us do all this in the name of the One who welcomes us, our questions, our energy, and whatever chaos we each bring to the family of God. 

May we strive to be capable people of the Lord.

Amen.

Sermon; Proper 19B; Mark 8:27-38

We have reached that point in Mark where the overall focus takes a dramatic turn.  Up to now the focus in Mark’s gospel has been to show the power and authority of Jesus which can be found in the various miracle and teaching stories we have heard/seen so far.  But beginning today, things change.

Jesus still heals people, and he still teaches people.  But between here and the Holy Week story we are given three Passion predictions, the Transfiguration, and a call to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells us what kind of Messiah he is.  He first asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”  They give a variety of answers:  the prophet, John the Baptist reincarnated, etc.  He then asks, “Yes, but who do YOU say I am?”  Peter proclaims, “You are the Messiah.” 

Peter is right in identifying Jesus as the Messiah; the problem is that Peter has a different idea of what/who the Messiah is or should be than does Jesus.

In response to Peter’s proclamation, Jesus give his first Passion prediction.  In that prediction Jesus says that he will suffer, be rejected, killed, and rise again on the third day.  But Peter, and a lot of us, don’t want to hear that first part.

The Messiah Peter, and a lot of Christians today, desires is a powerful, take-no-prisoners, triumphant, warrior king.  We want someone to crush our enemies and restore our kingdom.  This, though, is one of the same temptations from Satan that Jesus faced in the wilderness:  “If you bow down to me, I will give you all the kingdoms of the world.”  Satan tempted Jesus with ultimate worldly power, giving him the power to crush his and restore his kingdom. 

And this is why Jesus calls Peter, “Satan” – not because Peter is Satan incarnate, but because Peter’s desire for worldly power, the restoration of the kingdom, and to crush his enemies is in direct opposition to Jesus and his earthly destiny.  “Satan” is a Hebrew word for “Adversary.”  In this scene, Peter is taking an adversarial role against Jesus.  This opposition to Jesus, what he stands for, and how he will accomplish his mission, continues today.

There are churches, pastors, and political leaders who are fond of saying that Christians need to take up arms, to fight for Christ and make this country a “Christian nation” by any means necessary.  But you know what?  Posting the Ten Commandments in government buildings and schools didn’t do a damn thing to stop the school shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia last week.

Jesus isn’t calling us to take up arms.  Jesus is calling us to take up our cross. 

We must remember that taking up our cross, or bearing our cross, is a voluntary act of submission.  It doesn’t mean that we passively accept random trials or difficulties that are foisted on us through outside forces.  Your “cross to bear” is not chronic pain.  It’s not a bad mother-in-law.  It’s not any number of other things that we have to deal with while dramatically proclaiming near our fainting couch that this, “Is just my cross to bear; oh my.”

Taking up our cross is a willful act in which we choose loyalty to Jesus over the world.  Taking up our cross doesn’t mean that we will crush our enemies.  It doesn’t mean we will trample down those who oppose us in favor of restoring a kingdom made in our image. 

But it does mean we will die.

To take up our cross is to take up serving others with grace, compassion, humility, and sacrificial love.  To take up your cross is to choose to give your life for the sake of the gospel.  It’s to choose to live beyond what the world says is sensible.  It’s to choose to live in abundance not scarcity.  To take up your cross is to choose a worldly death that leads to a reinvented, reincarnated, life in Christ.

I believe we got a small glimpse of this when we look back at the Harvest Hoedown.  This event has, over the years, been used to help fund our budget.  With the fires we’ve experienced in NE Wyoming, the Harvest Hoedown Committee proposed sending 25% of proceeds to local fire relief.  The proposal was sent to the Vestry for approval.  After much discussion, which included thoughts that this is what we should do as a church and concern the budget couldn’t handle it, the proposal was accepted.

The idea for doing this, as well as its ultimate approval, was an understanding that we needed to live  what we preach.  We needed to live beyond what the world says is sensible.  We needed to live in the abundance of God’s love.  The decision led us to live, at least in this instance, in a reinvented life in Christ.

I get it.  There are days when Peter’s vision of a Messiah is what I want.  There are days when I would love nothing more than to see Jesus on that war stallion riding over the hills with the army of heaven laying waste to all that stood in his way.  But that is not the Messiah that Jesus proclaims.  That is not what Jesus came to do.

Jesus came to lay down his life so that in his death we might have abundant life.

Our faith is a paradox:  if you want to save your life, then you must lose it for the sake of Christ and the gospel.  What are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of the gospel?

Amen.

Sermon; Proper 18B; Mark 7:24-37

Doctrinally speaking, what TWO things do we claim to know about Jesus?  1)  He was fully human; and 2) he was fully divine.  There are other aspects about him, but those two – fully human and fully divine – are at the core of who we believe Jesus was.

Today’s gospel passage is a direct continuation of last week and it, more than any other place in the gospels (with the exception of the birth stories) shows the human side of Jesus.

If you remember last week’s gospel, it had Jesus confronting Pharisees and scribes about the issue of hand washing.  This wasn’t about sanitary practices, this was about “unclean” hands touching clean or holy things and defiling them, thereby making them unusable.  And what did Jesus have to say about that?  It’s not what’s outside that defiles us, but it’s what comes from within that defiles a person. 

It is very clear that Jesus is telling his listeners and us that things we thought were unclean, impure, or defiling, aren’t necessarily so.  Certain foods won’t defile you.  Other ethnic groups or people won’t defile you.  What defiles you, and what defiles other people through you, are things like theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, envy, slander, and the like.  Those are the evil and defiling things within us that cause problems.

And it’s here that we need to remember how we started:  that we hold Jesus to be fully human and fully divine.  As one Eucharistic Prayer says, “He lived as one of us, yet without sin.”  Jesus was sinless, but humans make mistakes.  We also learn.  As a carpenter’s son, I’m guessing that Jesus made the mistake of cutting something too short, thereby learning to measure twice and cut once.

As a Jew, he learned about the law and about non-Jewish people.  He would have learned that Moabites were not to be allowed into the household of God.  He would have learned that people from Uz are evil.  He would have learned women are property and not to be treated as equals – maybe even learning that they were viewed as lower than dogs

All of this was learned by the human Jesus.  As a Jewish boy and a Jewish man, he was steeped in the traditions and socialized into the Jewish way of life.

So when he went to Tyre (Gentile territory, by the way) he did so incognito, not wanting people to know he was there.  Recently he had fed 5000 people.  He had been mobbed by sick people in every city, village, and farm.  And he had just had yet another confrontation with Pharisees and scribes.  My interpretation is that he is tired, frazzled, and overwhelmed.  He needs a break to recharge.  I get it.  I’ve been there, just as recently as last week.

So here’s Jesus in dire need of a break when a woman, a Gentile woman, and maybe a single woman, approaches him.  She is the wrong gender, the wrong nationality, the wrong religion, and the wrong race.  In other words, she embodies all those outside conditions that would defile a Jewish man.

She comes to him and begs, “Sir, my daughter has a demon.  Please heal her.”

The human Jesus who is stressed and tired, who has been raised and socialized in Jewish laws, traditions, and biases, looks at this outsider and says, “It’s not fair to throw the children’s food to you dogs.”  To which she replies, “But sir, even the dogs under the table eat the crumbs.”

Have you ever said or done something only to have it come back and bite you in the you-know-what?  Years ago I was on a VFD and we heard about an incident at another department where they drove into one of their bay doors.  We all laughed at them, wondering how you do that with a fire truck.  Not long after that, a crew from our station responded to a call, pushed the “down” button too soon, the door came down on our water cannon, damaging both the door and cannon.  Oops.  That’s just one humorous story, but there have also been more serious incidents, both with me and, I’m sure, you if you think hard enough.  And when they happen, you probably had a clear vision or revelation of, “Oops.”  Or, “Well, dangit.”  Or something similar or more colorful.

I have this image of the human Jesus hearing these words from this woman, replaying what he had just said about outside stuff not defiling, and then thinking, “Oh SNAP!”  He has this sudden realization that he was just doing what the Pharisees where doing – basing defilement on outside conditions.

Oops.  My bad.  You’re right.  Go, the demon has left your daughter.

Humans make mistakes, and hopefully we learn from them.  This is the one place in scripture where we see that fully human side of Jesus.  For a brief moment he let his human biases get in the way.  For a brief moment, he slipped.  For a brief moment, the human tendency to focus inward and show disgust toward outsiders ruled.  For a brief moment, his human disdain for that which could defile came out.  But only for a brief moment.

After his, “Oh snap” moment, after his realization that he has just behaved like the Pharisees, his human side moved toward the God he was proclaiming.  He became that much more compassionate.  He became that much more accepting.  He became that much more understanding.  In that moment, Jesus learned.

We all have our edges.  We all have certain biases against other groups or outsiders.  We all worry to some extent about being defiled.  But, as Jesus discovered, those are learned behaviors.  And learned behaviors can be unlearned or changed.

We’ve just come through the Bread of Life discourse where we spent a whole lot of time talking about being infused with the presence of Christ.  As hard as it might be to think about how that might look, the harder thing might just be for us to follow Jesus’ example, confronting our own biases, and getting rid of them in favor of seeing people as God sees them and as Jesus came to see the Syrophoenician woman – a beloved child of God who has every right to be here as you.  May we be as quick to recognize and change our own biases as Jesus was.

Amen.

Sermon; Proper 17B; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Well, we made it.  We made it through the Bread of Life discourse.  We had five weeks of Jesus telling us he was the bread from heaven that would provide eternal life if we would eat his flesh and drink his blood.  We had five weeks of trying to get past a literal understanding or interpretation of eating the flesh of Jesus to understand differently.  We had five weeks to learn about being nourished by not only the presence of Christ, but by being infused with Christ in such a way that we live as Christ lived.  When we do that, we get a glimpse, or taste, of that eternal life in God that Jesus was talking about.

And while we heard this and tried to make sense of what Jesus is saying, and try to live feeding on the Bread of Life, it can still seem like so much metaphysical oddness.  Since most of us don’t live in the realm of theoretical physics, quantum mechanics, or the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of John, how can we live out a life that reflects Jesus’ call to partake of the Bread of Life?

I’ve said this before, but this Bread of Life stuff was a forerunner of the “You are what you eat” campaign.  In the same way that we need to eat a healthy balance of food, by partaking of the Bread of Heaven, Jesus, we will (hopefully) become more like him, becoming spiritually strong and infused with the presence of Christ in all we do.  But John can be a little difficult to follow sometimes, so on this first Sunday after the Bread of Life discourse it is Mark who shows us how to do that.

By eating this Bread of Life, by infusing our bodies with the Body of Christ, and by having that connection with the eternal God, we should reflect more of Christ and God in our lives.  This is exactly what today’s passage from Mark gets at.

Today we hear of a confrontation between Jesus and a group of Pharisees and scribes over the issue of not washing hands.  This wasn’t about sanitary practices or singing Happy Birthday while they scrubbed the COVID germs away – this was about the tradition of washing so that unclean or defiled things didn’t come into contact with undefiled or holy things, thereby contaminating those undefiled and holy things making them unusable.  It’s a symbolic ritual and it would be like me saying, “Why don’t you bow during the Creed or make the sign of the cross when I give a blessing?  Why do you not worship according to the practices of the ancient Church?”

This isn’t to say that ancient practices are bad or pointless; a lot of what we do here on Sunday is based on ancient practices, some more important than others.  But the point of our worship isn’t to carry on those ancient traditions in modern times, the point of our worship is to be transformed by Word and Sacrament.  In other words, does what we do here on Sunday have any effect on your life the rest of the week?

There are plenty of people, and churches for that matter, who loudly proclaim how people should live their lives but are then unwilling to live that way themselves.  Or they proclaim that those who don’t live as they say are doomed to everlasting damnation, or are subjected to abuse and attacks, and are labeled as any number of degrading terms.

This is who Jesus is calling out as hypocrites – those people who demand you act according to their rules but have no awareness or no inclination to behave themselves how they demand others live.

So again, the question is this:  Does what you do on Sunday affect the rest of the week?  Are you pious on Sunday, but on Monday turn to theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, envy, slander, etc.?

I know that none of us go out and intentionally do these things.  Nobody is going to go out this week and rob a bank, kill a neighbor, or the like.  But we might refrain from pledging or ignore calls to help because we are more concerned with losing what we have, or we are overly focused on increasing our wealth to the neglect of others.  Or we might spend our time focused on what others have that we don’t.

Or maybe you don’t personally participate in these things, but do you support and follow people who do?  Do we support policies that are advantageous to unfettered greed while limiting access to healthcare and food?  Do we support policies giving businesses freedom to behave at will while ignoring the effects of hazardous waste and pollution?  Do we support people who spend more time tearing down than building up?  We may not do these things personally, but supporting them shows where our heart is.  It is doing and supporting these evil things that defile us.

So how do we combat these evil, defiling forces?  The first way is to take seriously Christ’s summary of the law:  love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.  Two questions to ask ourselves when considering this would be: 1) How does what I do and support show love for God; and, 2) Am I willing to love my neighbor as myself?  As our Presiding Bishop is fond of saying, “If it’s not about love, it's not about God.” 

The second way is to reflect back on our Baptismal Covenant – that Covenant which we promised to follow and which we return to at least four times a year.  Do you renounce Satan, evil powers, and sinful desires?  Will you resist evil?  Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ?  Will you strive for justice and peace, and respect the dignity of all people?  If you ever have doubts about actions or behaviors, pull out the Baptismal Covenant and see how they measure up.

The third way is to repent of participating in those evil and defiling acts, to find a way to make restitution, and to make a new beginning.

We are infused with the Bread of Life.  We claim to follow a man who showed the world a different way of being.  With everything going on in the world around us, may we remember this and strive for those things which build up rather than tear down, helping to feed those around us with the Bread of Life.  It is in doing these things that we will be free from defilement.

Amen.