Sermon From Sunday, Sep 2, 2012
It feels like this Gospel, at first glance should comfort us. It should be a Gospel that tells us clearly, human tradition, while good in many ways, is not often the way of God. It could be seen as a Gospel that could lead us down a path of justice, of righteousness. Indeed, as I began studying this scripture, that is where I went, how can I fight the Religious Right and their rules and regulations, their dogma and doctrine that is so oppressive.
I even was able to ask the hard questions about Christianity and religion on a large scale, the Church is such a challenging presence in the world in many ways, trying to limit the rights and freedoms of so many. Deceiving people in all corners of the earth. Stories abound about the harm Religion has caused over the past millennia. And here we have in front of us, a scripture that moves us to that place where Jesus himself is saying that human tradition is not the end all be all for how we are to live our lives.
How we follow God, how we speak of God, how we allow the Holy Spirit to move and shape us is what is right and true. I found I knew a lot about what right and true meant, I found that a lot of what I thought Jesus was saying was right and true fit well with my own agenda, my own intentions, my own perspective. I knew exactly what Jesus meant when he said what comes out of person, not what goes in, defiles that person.
Later in the week it began to dawn on me that I might have missed something, that I might have misinterpreted what it was that Jesus was saying and my enthusiasm began to dim, the sparkle began to sputter and I found myself in the dark. I found myself, as I read this Gospel, in a place I never expected to be. I found myself feeling very much alone.
At first it was scary, I was anxious and I was worried about what I could say if I couldn’t speak about the Gospel’s liberation from oppression. If I couldn’t speak of how an all inclusive God, a God who doesn’t follow human tradition is a God we must strive to believe in, what could I possibly say, what had Jesus done? I was alone, it was dark, and the emotions that went with that were startling to me.
You see, when you sit with this scripture and pray with it and chew on it and, as the Collect today suggests, graft the Word of God’s love into our hearts, you find this is a much weightier pile of words than seen at first glance. And its not the whole reading, its really just those last lines, those last lines where Jesus’ eyes are focused on each one of us specifically, Jesus is speaking directly to me, to us as individuals. And the process of understanding is one that is, in classic Jesus form, quite surprising to his hearers.
Imagine yourself there, in the midst of the crowd who are witnessing this debate between Jesus and the Pharisees. You have been ostracized, you have been outcast because you haven’t followed the rules exactly as you are supposed to, maybe you have been caught red handed, or maybe you have only been caught in your own mind, by your own guilt.
Suddenly Jesus speaks and he starts it out by calling the Pharisees hypocrites. Your heart begins to beat faster, because you believe the same thing. You think these people are hypocrites as well, and you think they should be called onto the carpet, and here he is, doing just that, the man is doing exactly what your heart, what your insides have wanted to do for a long time.
Jesus is ripping the Pharisees apart, he is tearing down their arguments and making them look like fools. And what fools they are. It’s like when I read a piece by Desmond Tutu putting fundamentalist Christians in their place about how God loves people or does not. I think to myself, You Go, Desmond, you tell ‘em! I am lifted up, I feel vindicated often, righteous.
But Jesus continues by calling out to the crowd and tells them its not what goes in, its what comes out. And I am sure the crowd goes wild, the crowd is in agreement and thinks this is the most brilliant piece of midrash they have ever heard. But later on, as the hours go by, and a day or two passes, and the crowd, and we, all fall back into our daily routines and patterns, the words of Jesus began to take on a different meaning.
Some people may just brush them off like annoying flies. Others might let the words linger a little, settling uncomfortably upon them as if they are waiting anxiously for the dawn so they can get up, brush off the weight of the night and start new. Then there are those who let the words sink in, and fall on the good soil of their hearts, and those words take root, and in the rooting, they move around some of the old roughage that is heaped upon our hearts. Suddenly we see that these words were not meant for just the Pharisees, these words were meant for us, all of us, and they are just as damning for me, as they were for the Pharisees.
I brought with me, seven years ago some words of invitation that have sunk deeply into this place. The invitation I say at communion is meant to make us uncomfortable, but it is also meant to help define us as a community of faith, a community of people who are trying to live faithful lives and follow Jesus as best we are able. The invitation is about radical hospitality, and when I think about radical hospitality in the context of this Gospel, I think of how I can be radically hospitable when I consider what comes out of me, and how the words and actions that come out of me defiles, well, me.
It can be troubling to sit and think about our impact on people in our lives. Those we know and those we do not know. The author of James considered the impact of words and actions deeply and he wrote, “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness. Therefore 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.”
To spread the word of God, we must speak the word of God, to share the influence of Jesus’ life, we must speak of Jesus’ life and of the Good News. Christianity is based on this need to speak the Word of God. So to hear a Biblical writer suggest that we be quicker to listen than to speak is contrary to how we have been taught to be evangelists. Imagine evangelizing the flocks of the world through listening, rather than speaking.
The author of James is desiring us to listen first, to hear the other, to welcome, with radical hospitality, the voice of those who have no voice or who have been oppressed and kept silent. James’ letter is asking us to hear and understand, and to graft the word of God into our hearts so we can allow ourselves to hear other voices. In the hearing of other voices, we are transformed, we are made to be bigger people. As he says, in the hearing of other voices, in our listening with meekness, our souls will be saved. It is through listening that we are saved, not through our speaking.
If Jesus meant what he said, this comment by James may rong much more true than we first thought. Maybe, just maybe, it is not what we say that Jesus is calling us to do, it’s not even what we do, that Jesus is asking us to pay attention to. What Jesus is asking us to do, by warning us of how our words, and our actions defile our own beings, maybe what Jesus is asking us to do is not to speak at all, but rather, to hear. In our hearing, we will change the world, in our hearing, the Good News is spoken. In our listening, our hearts are filled to the fullest with the Spirit of God.
I even was able to ask the hard questions about Christianity and religion on a large scale, the Church is such a challenging presence in the world in many ways, trying to limit the rights and freedoms of so many. Deceiving people in all corners of the earth. Stories abound about the harm Religion has caused over the past millennia. And here we have in front of us, a scripture that moves us to that place where Jesus himself is saying that human tradition is not the end all be all for how we are to live our lives.
How we follow God, how we speak of God, how we allow the Holy Spirit to move and shape us is what is right and true. I found I knew a lot about what right and true meant, I found that a lot of what I thought Jesus was saying was right and true fit well with my own agenda, my own intentions, my own perspective. I knew exactly what Jesus meant when he said what comes out of person, not what goes in, defiles that person.
Later in the week it began to dawn on me that I might have missed something, that I might have misinterpreted what it was that Jesus was saying and my enthusiasm began to dim, the sparkle began to sputter and I found myself in the dark. I found myself, as I read this Gospel, in a place I never expected to be. I found myself feeling very much alone.
At first it was scary, I was anxious and I was worried about what I could say if I couldn’t speak about the Gospel’s liberation from oppression. If I couldn’t speak of how an all inclusive God, a God who doesn’t follow human tradition is a God we must strive to believe in, what could I possibly say, what had Jesus done? I was alone, it was dark, and the emotions that went with that were startling to me.
You see, when you sit with this scripture and pray with it and chew on it and, as the Collect today suggests, graft the Word of God’s love into our hearts, you find this is a much weightier pile of words than seen at first glance. And its not the whole reading, its really just those last lines, those last lines where Jesus’ eyes are focused on each one of us specifically, Jesus is speaking directly to me, to us as individuals. And the process of understanding is one that is, in classic Jesus form, quite surprising to his hearers.
Imagine yourself there, in the midst of the crowd who are witnessing this debate between Jesus and the Pharisees. You have been ostracized, you have been outcast because you haven’t followed the rules exactly as you are supposed to, maybe you have been caught red handed, or maybe you have only been caught in your own mind, by your own guilt.
Suddenly Jesus speaks and he starts it out by calling the Pharisees hypocrites. Your heart begins to beat faster, because you believe the same thing. You think these people are hypocrites as well, and you think they should be called onto the carpet, and here he is, doing just that, the man is doing exactly what your heart, what your insides have wanted to do for a long time.
Jesus is ripping the Pharisees apart, he is tearing down their arguments and making them look like fools. And what fools they are. It’s like when I read a piece by Desmond Tutu putting fundamentalist Christians in their place about how God loves people or does not. I think to myself, You Go, Desmond, you tell ‘em! I am lifted up, I feel vindicated often, righteous.
But Jesus continues by calling out to the crowd and tells them its not what goes in, its what comes out. And I am sure the crowd goes wild, the crowd is in agreement and thinks this is the most brilliant piece of midrash they have ever heard. But later on, as the hours go by, and a day or two passes, and the crowd, and we, all fall back into our daily routines and patterns, the words of Jesus began to take on a different meaning.
Some people may just brush them off like annoying flies. Others might let the words linger a little, settling uncomfortably upon them as if they are waiting anxiously for the dawn so they can get up, brush off the weight of the night and start new. Then there are those who let the words sink in, and fall on the good soil of their hearts, and those words take root, and in the rooting, they move around some of the old roughage that is heaped upon our hearts. Suddenly we see that these words were not meant for just the Pharisees, these words were meant for us, all of us, and they are just as damning for me, as they were for the Pharisees.
I brought with me, seven years ago some words of invitation that have sunk deeply into this place. The invitation I say at communion is meant to make us uncomfortable, but it is also meant to help define us as a community of faith, a community of people who are trying to live faithful lives and follow Jesus as best we are able. The invitation is about radical hospitality, and when I think about radical hospitality in the context of this Gospel, I think of how I can be radically hospitable when I consider what comes out of me, and how the words and actions that come out of me defiles, well, me.
It can be troubling to sit and think about our impact on people in our lives. Those we know and those we do not know. The author of James considered the impact of words and actions deeply and he wrote, “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness. Therefore 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.”
To spread the word of God, we must speak the word of God, to share the influence of Jesus’ life, we must speak of Jesus’ life and of the Good News. Christianity is based on this need to speak the Word of God. So to hear a Biblical writer suggest that we be quicker to listen than to speak is contrary to how we have been taught to be evangelists. Imagine evangelizing the flocks of the world through listening, rather than speaking.
The author of James is desiring us to listen first, to hear the other, to welcome, with radical hospitality, the voice of those who have no voice or who have been oppressed and kept silent. James’ letter is asking us to hear and understand, and to graft the word of God into our hearts so we can allow ourselves to hear other voices. In the hearing of other voices, we are transformed, we are made to be bigger people. As he says, in the hearing of other voices, in our listening with meekness, our souls will be saved. It is through listening that we are saved, not through our speaking.
If Jesus meant what he said, this comment by James may rong much more true than we first thought. Maybe, just maybe, it is not what we say that Jesus is calling us to do, it’s not even what we do, that Jesus is asking us to pay attention to. What Jesus is asking us to do, by warning us of how our words, and our actions defile our own beings, maybe what Jesus is asking us to do is not to speak at all, but rather, to hear. In our hearing, we will change the world, in our hearing, the Good News is spoken. In our listening, our hearts are filled to the fullest with the Spirit of God.
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