May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 15
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 24,2000
TEXT: Mark 9:30-37 - “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he (Jesus) took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
ISSUE: The disciples are set in their ways in terms of the cultural norms. They seek honorable status as to who is the greatest. They are resistant to new enlightenment. Jesus astounds them with suggesting they welcome children who were at the bottom of the honor scale. Jesus powerfully upsets the norms of his time. We, like the disciples, become set in our ways resisting the challenge and teaching of Jesus to be unique in the world. We are called to a mission of servanthood as opposed of the position of grandeur and materialistic respectability. The world needs the new spirituality of caring love, and grace that was inherent in Jesus’ teaching.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jesus takes his disciples away from the crowds in this passage from Mark today to do some teaching. He is their leader, their rabbi, and he fulfills that role through his teaching of the twelve disciples. He doesn’t want anyone to know where they have gone just so that he can have time alone with them to teach some very important concepts of his way of life, and what they may expect in terms of their own discipleship. It is a fascinating passage, and one that is so relevant to the way things are in our own understanding of the mission and teachings of Jesus.
Jesus begins to tell his disciples that he, The son of Man, is going to be betrayed and killed. His messianic mission will indeed be a unique one. His ways and teachings are really drastic changes. He opposes the Pharisees and their absorption in pious rules and regulations. He antagonizes their self-righteousness, and the concepts of what is honorable. Jesus goes around eating with the poor and tax collectors. He touches lepers and embraces the blend and the deaf. He doesn’t merely provide hand-outs for the poor, he embraces them. He has an intimate relationship with them. He sees dignity and worth in all people, even the cursed and the outcast. Jesus had a remarkable appreciation of women for a man of his time. Because of his concept of a loving and forgiving God that reaches out to all people, even the disenfranchised who cannot keep all the laws, Jesus is seen as suspect, deviant, a rebellious challenge to the status-quo. What’s more, Jesus’ affection for the poor and his successful riposte or challenge of the leadership was causing him to gain honor and status which was threatening to the powers of the time.
Jesus expected he would be killed. But beyond that expectation was the issue of the dawning of a new age, a new beginning. He would also be resurrected. The glorious ways of God would not ultimately be defeated. God’s kingdom would prevail. Thus, Jesus taught men and women to be faithful. He called for a complete trust, loyalty, confidence in God to sustain, redeem, and renew his creation and all that was in it. More than being good and doing good things. Jesus called his people to be faithful . . . to trust . . . to be loyal . . . to be confident . . . in the power and love of God.
From all we know bout Jesus and his parables and healings and affections for people, we can rest assured that these were the kinds of things that he was trying to instill into the hearts and minds of his disciples. Jesus is teaching some drastically new compelling stuff.
Having done his best Jesus asks the disciples what their argument was about as they were traveling with him along the road. They are ashamed to answer because what they were arguing about was what their honor status would be as the disciples of Jesus who is leading them into the Kingdom of God. They were arguing about who would be the greatest. They just can’t get it! They are so dense and so immature, so trapped in their culture. They resist any enlightenment in not asking him any questions. They choose to be totally deaf when it comes to any understanding of the meaning of death and resurrection. They are entrenched in their worldly cultural norms of status and honor. Kingdom of God and messiahship still means honor, status, and militant grandeur and conquest that was familiar to the world.
Jesus must really have wanted to shake them out of shear frustration. He sits them down and shocks them: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all!” This is an unheard of concept for the culture of the time. He picks up a little child and says: “Whoever welcomes on such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” The disciples must become like children. To embrace child-likeness is to embrace the way and teaching of Jesus. To appreciate this concept you have to understand how children were seen in Jesus’ time. It was very different from our time. For Jesus to suggest that his disciples welcome a child-likeness was shocking and insulting.
In Jesus’ time and in Middle Easter Mediterranean culture, children were not pampered. To be a child was to be in a stage of terror. Children were very vulnerable. The infant mortality rate was about 30%. Sixty percent of all children were dead by the time they were teenagers. They were the victims of poor hygiene and disease. Children had no honor status, and were given the status of slaves or servants with no rights but required to work. In times of famine, if there was any food, children were fed last. Children were thought to be inherently evil and were in need of strong correction. Thus, in the Old Testament, Hebrew Scriptures, especially in the Book of Proverbs there are repeated passages about how children were to be disciplined whipped, and beaten. It was believed that you had to beat or whip children into shape. It was a sign that you loved them. Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son was sharp contrast to this notion. The forging father in the story is seen by the people of that time as weak and a threat to the community.
Parents strongly disciplined children out of love for them because they were their social security. They would take care of their parents in their old age. They also provided the family continuity, carrying on their parents’ immortality and the family business. But the man ;point here is that children were not honored. They were least and last, basically evil. It was difficult for the disciples to grasp that Jesus wants them to embrace and welcome the last and the least. That children were like him, and what his ministry was about was startling. He used this image of welcoming children to penetrate their dim-wittedness and their inability to break free from the cultural norms of the time. The disciples wanted honor and prestige, like the Pharisees who had servants and slaves, but Jesus is telling them to become the slaves to wash feet. The counter-cultural teaching of Jesus was about servanthood, as he served the poor, the lost, the last, the least, the little, and the lonely. That concept was hard for them to grasp. It is hard for us too.
Even for us today who have been brought up in our so called Christian Culture, it is hard for us to appreciate the counter-cultural teachings of Jesus. During the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, Christians in Germany sat around Christmas trees singing carols while may of the people of God were being abused and massacred. Similar racial and religious persecution continues even today in various parts of the world. For centuries in our own country Native Americans and African Americans were segregated and treated as less than human by the white power structure. Today, immigrants, the mentally retarded, people with AIDS, the poor among us are often treated as inferior and cursed. We comfort ourselves with sending rags for the raggedy, and food, and making contributions, but the issue of deeper involvement is always at issue. Do we welcome the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised and get to know them and have a relationship of love with them.
There is also the issue of where we stand politically and how we vote. Do we support politically with tax dollars a ministry to the poor and the needy, the sick and the disenfranchised?
The passage today is indeed a fascinating one. The disciples have Christ in their very midst and yet are so entrenched in their old ways of thinking that they neither hear him nor allow themselves to be open to any enlightenment whatsoever. We may remain committed to our achievements, appearances, and ambitions. We like being self-righteous and it is comforting to our image to have someone else to look down upon. We like thinking we are the comfortable righteous. But, again the passage for today is again challenging our status-quo. What might Christ say to us, to this parish? It is only when you welcome the people with AIDS, the mentally retarded, the broken, and the lost and the least of this society, and you parish has clear vision of where you are going, you cannot truly be welcoming or embracing the way of Christ. To welcome is to extend hospitality, to have a relationship with someone. The people of Jesus’ time did not welcome children or extend hospitality to them. They were the servants. They were not likely to return honor, to proclaim you’re generous hospitality. They didn’t pay you back. To welcome a child was to enter another world. In affluent America today, having a relationship, and extending hospitality to the poor and disenfranchised, to the least, last, and lost is not going to give much of a pay back. In spite of that, to be generously sensitive to human need is the way of Jesus Christ.
While children were the least in Jesus’ time, they were also the most dependent. Their every need had to be supplied by the family. They could not make it on their own. This aspect of childhood has not changed. Even today, children are totally dependent. What’s more we are all the children of God, and every bit as dimwitted, evil, resistant, unenlightened, rebellious, and immature as children, and as Jesus’ disciples themselves. Yet Christ still loved them, forgave them, called them to trust and believe in God’s redeeming love and power. He died for them and us, and for all. Placing our trust and confidence, our faith, and embracing his way, we live in hope of being raised up as a people as a nation into the Kingdom of God.
Sunday, September 24, 2000
Sunday, September 17, 2000
Pentecost 14
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 14
PROPER: 19 B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 17,2000
TEXT: Mark 8:27-38 - He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “you are the Messiah.” . . . . . . “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it.”
ISSUE: This is a very decisive passage in Mark’s Gospel. It is a turning point. Jesus is defined as The Messiah, but in contrast to the way the world thinks. He defines his messianic ministry as that of suffering servant. Discipleship is defined by leaving behind the traditional life that is safe and secure, and becoming branded as a follower of Christ in his servanthood. Each of us and the church today need to re-define who are we really as Christians in our world today. Who do people say that we are? Again we have a challenge to participate in the great reversal, not thinking as the world thinks, but as God thinks.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the Gospel of Mark, this particular passage is a very decisive one. It is an important defining, turning point. The passage is dealing with definition of who Jesus Christ is, and what it means to be a follower, a disiciple, one who takes up the cross to follow him in that ministry.
As Mark sets up the scene of Jesus being in conversation with his prominent disciple Peter, we are told that they are in the area Caesarea Philippi. This is a place that has Roman influence and prestige, named for an Emperor. It is a place with royal powerful prestigious connotations. It is in this area that Jesus asks Peter, “Who do the people say that I am.?” Peter replies that some of the people see Jesus as a prophetic figure, like old John the Baptist calling people to repentance and renewal. Others perceive of him as a figure like the charismatic Ezekiel, prophet and healer of significant stature. But then Jesus says to Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter replies, “You are the Messiah.” We’re inclined to think Peter got it right. He passed the test. Not so.
In our culture today, we all think in a very individualistic way. We decide where we want to go to school, who we will marry, what occupation we will pursue. This way was not the way things were in Jesus’ time. You identity was given to you by your community. So when Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” it is not a test to see if Peter has the right answer. It is rather a way of getting a handle on how he is perceived by the community. Do they still see him as the son of Joseph and Mary, the son of a carpenter? Or, do they see him as having moved beyond that? How is this discipleship the community around him identifying him. And clearly he has been moved on to something quite different from his original background. He is seen as prophetic, a teacher, rabbi, healer. He’s achieved by virtue of the close community as moved in status and honor. Without that acknowledgement by Peter, you are the Messiah, Jesus probably would not have been able to move on with his mission and ministry. He needed the consent of the ministry.
Jesus tells Peter to tell no one of this messianic assignment, because for Jesus messiahship meant something quite different than what was commonly thought of as a messiah. Common thought was that a messiah was a royal triumphant leader. But Jesus begins to teach Peter and his disciples that his messiahship will take another form. It is the form of a suffering servant. He will be rejected by the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leadership of the time. He will suffer and be killed, and rise again. This definition was very foreign to the disciples. Peter rejects it. He wishes to hold to the more popular concept of his world, that a messiah is a triumphant military leader, similar to the former King David who united the nation. Like in so many other ways, Jesus again proclaims a great reversal. Peter is thinking as the world thinks, and must learn to think as God thinks. The Messiah of God is a suffering servant, who serves, suffers, dies for God’s people, and goes on living in resurrection King David had been a noble triumphant military leader and King, but David died. The true messiah of God, Son of Man, Son of Adam is a suffering servant who dies and lives on. It is a mysterious notion, but it is the way of the Divine.
In the second part of this defining passage, Jesus then tells Peter and the disciples what it means to be follower of the Suffering Servant. “If anyone wants to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Again, it is helpful to understand what is going on here in terms of what the passage means. Today when we talk about denying ourselves, we are usually thinking is some kind of monastic terms, or penitential terms. Denying yourself is what you do in Lent. Thus, the passage here, if we don’t understand it in context gives a pretty dismal understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Remember that in this culture, individuals were not considered important. Family, kin, community was what was important. Denial of self was not a matter of denying yourself personally, it was detaching from the support systems that kept you alive. It meant you had to leave you family traditions, you safety systems, your comfort systems, and make a clean break with the way of the past, and begin to follow in the new way of Jesus Christ. It was in giving up that old life with its safety and security, and that exclusive life, and join the new life with Christ in his servanthood that you took on a new meaningful life that was true life with an inclusive loving and forgiving God.
You took up the cross. You took up, in the Greek, your “stauros” There are various interpretations of what this means. A “stauros” is stake or pole, something, like a cross stuck into the ground. In other words, to take up the cross could mean that you have to pull up stakes to follow Jesus Christ into the new Realm of God, into the Kingdom of God. Get the point? Here’s Jesus in a royal city, Caesarea Philippi, redefining what a leader or messiah is, and is calling his followers into a new Royal Realm of God. The “stauros” or cross can also be understood as a “T” shaped, or Chi shaped “X” kind of cross that was used to brand animals that belonged to someone. It was a branding. Get branded as a follower of Jesus Christ, as one of his own. Of course, this is exactly what we do in Holy Baptism. We brand the person as the possession of Jesus Christ, Son of God, with the sign or branding of the cross. The priest anointing the person with holy oil making the sign of the cross says, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”
Taking up the cross, also can be interpreted quite literally. By the time Mark was writing this gospel account, Jesus had been crucified on the cross. Some other disciples were crucified as well. There were persecutions going on. Fact of the matter is that even in recent years there have been significant persecutions of Christians around the world in Central and South America, and in Africa. Often the modern present day culture persecutes the Christianity by its rampant materialism, consumerism, by its attempts a diminishing Christian values. Subtle though it may be, it’s still there in terms of minimizing the importance of faith, religion, prayer in the lives of people. Our world and time can be very exploitive, and destructive of human dignity. God forbid, but people do get persecuted for their faith, and that happened in the Columbine High School incident. Suffering is not something from which Jesus and his followers are exempt. We have to embrace suffering sometimes. Suffering can be very strengthening in Christian perspective. Though we may experience suffering and die, we live with Christ. We have to embrace it sometimes. Christ didn’t promise an easy life, only a cross sometimes, but meaningful life lived in love. Then, paradise, to walk in the royal garden in God’s Kingdom.
Clearly, Jesus was calling his disciples to a new way of life and thinking that moved away from some of the old cultural norms of exclusiveness to a focused, determined, sober, deliberate way of love and caring for the dispossessed. He was calling them away from self-centeredness and sinfulness, and into the Realm or Kingdom of God where there was a justice and concern for the overall human condition. Apparently, early Christians saw this new life with Christ hardly as dismal, but as a liberating joy to have a life that had meaning and purpose linked with God and with the establishing of a world that was not oppressive, cruel, manipulating, demeaning, unjust, overbearing, and destructive of the human spirit. Jesus’ messianic servanthood was liberating, outreaching, out caring. You could eat with sinners in love and forgiveness because God in Christ had reached out to you in your brokeness and in your imprisoned way of life. You could touch the lepers and the dying, and you could empathize with the sick and suffering not as the cursed but as the children of God, as brothers and sisters. You could break the bonds of the old purity rules and still be folk worthy of God’s Empire.
Marked with or branded with the sign of the cross, called Christians, Who does the world say that we are today? Are we seen as a band of very respectable people who keep to themselves in an isolated community of the self-righteous? Are we seen as a friendly group of people who know pious phrases and Bible verses about a sweet sentimental Jesus who kind of participate in a spiritual masturbation? So much of what we do is, and is perceived as done for our own gratification? Is the church and its people today clearly known for their giving up old traditions, their wealth, their satisfying ingrained comforts to be suffering caring servants with Christ? Christianity is perceived as a community of the self-righteous who believe in a judgmental god of reward and punishment: Good people. like us, go to heaven, and bad people, people different from us go to hell.
Being branded with the cross, pulling up stakes, taking up the cross, and suffering is the stuff of which the ministry and the messiahship of Jesus Christ and his church is about. It was one hell of a tough decision for the disciples to make. It’s tough for us too. It’s hard to give up our white race power and prestige. It’s tough to give your money away in an immediate and sacrificial way. It’s tough to take a stand against injustice and the persecution of Christian in a world that can laugh at what we value. Unless you take the plunge says Jesus, you really can’t be followers of mine. Unless you lose the life of the popular culture and what’s so comfortable and secure, you really don’t understand what it means to have real life, and life with real meaning. “O God, grant that your Holy Spirit in all things may direct and rule our hearts.” (Collect for the day.) We are what God has, and though Christ Jesus he calls us in spite of ourselves.
SEASON: Pentecost 14
PROPER: 19 B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 17,2000
TEXT: Mark 8:27-38 - He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “you are the Messiah.” . . . . . . “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it.”
ISSUE: This is a very decisive passage in Mark’s Gospel. It is a turning point. Jesus is defined as The Messiah, but in contrast to the way the world thinks. He defines his messianic ministry as that of suffering servant. Discipleship is defined by leaving behind the traditional life that is safe and secure, and becoming branded as a follower of Christ in his servanthood. Each of us and the church today need to re-define who are we really as Christians in our world today. Who do people say that we are? Again we have a challenge to participate in the great reversal, not thinking as the world thinks, but as God thinks.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the Gospel of Mark, this particular passage is a very decisive one. It is an important defining, turning point. The passage is dealing with definition of who Jesus Christ is, and what it means to be a follower, a disiciple, one who takes up the cross to follow him in that ministry.
As Mark sets up the scene of Jesus being in conversation with his prominent disciple Peter, we are told that they are in the area Caesarea Philippi. This is a place that has Roman influence and prestige, named for an Emperor. It is a place with royal powerful prestigious connotations. It is in this area that Jesus asks Peter, “Who do the people say that I am.?” Peter replies that some of the people see Jesus as a prophetic figure, like old John the Baptist calling people to repentance and renewal. Others perceive of him as a figure like the charismatic Ezekiel, prophet and healer of significant stature. But then Jesus says to Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter replies, “You are the Messiah.” We’re inclined to think Peter got it right. He passed the test. Not so.
In our culture today, we all think in a very individualistic way. We decide where we want to go to school, who we will marry, what occupation we will pursue. This way was not the way things were in Jesus’ time. You identity was given to you by your community. So when Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” it is not a test to see if Peter has the right answer. It is rather a way of getting a handle on how he is perceived by the community. Do they still see him as the son of Joseph and Mary, the son of a carpenter? Or, do they see him as having moved beyond that? How is this discipleship the community around him identifying him. And clearly he has been moved on to something quite different from his original background. He is seen as prophetic, a teacher, rabbi, healer. He’s achieved by virtue of the close community as moved in status and honor. Without that acknowledgement by Peter, you are the Messiah, Jesus probably would not have been able to move on with his mission and ministry. He needed the consent of the ministry.
Jesus tells Peter to tell no one of this messianic assignment, because for Jesus messiahship meant something quite different than what was commonly thought of as a messiah. Common thought was that a messiah was a royal triumphant leader. But Jesus begins to teach Peter and his disciples that his messiahship will take another form. It is the form of a suffering servant. He will be rejected by the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leadership of the time. He will suffer and be killed, and rise again. This definition was very foreign to the disciples. Peter rejects it. He wishes to hold to the more popular concept of his world, that a messiah is a triumphant military leader, similar to the former King David who united the nation. Like in so many other ways, Jesus again proclaims a great reversal. Peter is thinking as the world thinks, and must learn to think as God thinks. The Messiah of God is a suffering servant, who serves, suffers, dies for God’s people, and goes on living in resurrection King David had been a noble triumphant military leader and King, but David died. The true messiah of God, Son of Man, Son of Adam is a suffering servant who dies and lives on. It is a mysterious notion, but it is the way of the Divine.
In the second part of this defining passage, Jesus then tells Peter and the disciples what it means to be follower of the Suffering Servant. “If anyone wants to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Again, it is helpful to understand what is going on here in terms of what the passage means. Today when we talk about denying ourselves, we are usually thinking is some kind of monastic terms, or penitential terms. Denying yourself is what you do in Lent. Thus, the passage here, if we don’t understand it in context gives a pretty dismal understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Remember that in this culture, individuals were not considered important. Family, kin, community was what was important. Denial of self was not a matter of denying yourself personally, it was detaching from the support systems that kept you alive. It meant you had to leave you family traditions, you safety systems, your comfort systems, and make a clean break with the way of the past, and begin to follow in the new way of Jesus Christ. It was in giving up that old life with its safety and security, and that exclusive life, and join the new life with Christ in his servanthood that you took on a new meaningful life that was true life with an inclusive loving and forgiving God.
You took up the cross. You took up, in the Greek, your “stauros” There are various interpretations of what this means. A “stauros” is stake or pole, something, like a cross stuck into the ground. In other words, to take up the cross could mean that you have to pull up stakes to follow Jesus Christ into the new Realm of God, into the Kingdom of God. Get the point? Here’s Jesus in a royal city, Caesarea Philippi, redefining what a leader or messiah is, and is calling his followers into a new Royal Realm of God. The “stauros” or cross can also be understood as a “T” shaped, or Chi shaped “X” kind of cross that was used to brand animals that belonged to someone. It was a branding. Get branded as a follower of Jesus Christ, as one of his own. Of course, this is exactly what we do in Holy Baptism. We brand the person as the possession of Jesus Christ, Son of God, with the sign or branding of the cross. The priest anointing the person with holy oil making the sign of the cross says, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”
Taking up the cross, also can be interpreted quite literally. By the time Mark was writing this gospel account, Jesus had been crucified on the cross. Some other disciples were crucified as well. There were persecutions going on. Fact of the matter is that even in recent years there have been significant persecutions of Christians around the world in Central and South America, and in Africa. Often the modern present day culture persecutes the Christianity by its rampant materialism, consumerism, by its attempts a diminishing Christian values. Subtle though it may be, it’s still there in terms of minimizing the importance of faith, religion, prayer in the lives of people. Our world and time can be very exploitive, and destructive of human dignity. God forbid, but people do get persecuted for their faith, and that happened in the Columbine High School incident. Suffering is not something from which Jesus and his followers are exempt. We have to embrace suffering sometimes. Suffering can be very strengthening in Christian perspective. Though we may experience suffering and die, we live with Christ. We have to embrace it sometimes. Christ didn’t promise an easy life, only a cross sometimes, but meaningful life lived in love. Then, paradise, to walk in the royal garden in God’s Kingdom.
Clearly, Jesus was calling his disciples to a new way of life and thinking that moved away from some of the old cultural norms of exclusiveness to a focused, determined, sober, deliberate way of love and caring for the dispossessed. He was calling them away from self-centeredness and sinfulness, and into the Realm or Kingdom of God where there was a justice and concern for the overall human condition. Apparently, early Christians saw this new life with Christ hardly as dismal, but as a liberating joy to have a life that had meaning and purpose linked with God and with the establishing of a world that was not oppressive, cruel, manipulating, demeaning, unjust, overbearing, and destructive of the human spirit. Jesus’ messianic servanthood was liberating, outreaching, out caring. You could eat with sinners in love and forgiveness because God in Christ had reached out to you in your brokeness and in your imprisoned way of life. You could touch the lepers and the dying, and you could empathize with the sick and suffering not as the cursed but as the children of God, as brothers and sisters. You could break the bonds of the old purity rules and still be folk worthy of God’s Empire.
Marked with or branded with the sign of the cross, called Christians, Who does the world say that we are today? Are we seen as a band of very respectable people who keep to themselves in an isolated community of the self-righteous? Are we seen as a friendly group of people who know pious phrases and Bible verses about a sweet sentimental Jesus who kind of participate in a spiritual masturbation? So much of what we do is, and is perceived as done for our own gratification? Is the church and its people today clearly known for their giving up old traditions, their wealth, their satisfying ingrained comforts to be suffering caring servants with Christ? Christianity is perceived as a community of the self-righteous who believe in a judgmental god of reward and punishment: Good people. like us, go to heaven, and bad people, people different from us go to hell.
Being branded with the cross, pulling up stakes, taking up the cross, and suffering is the stuff of which the ministry and the messiahship of Jesus Christ and his church is about. It was one hell of a tough decision for the disciples to make. It’s tough for us too. It’s hard to give up our white race power and prestige. It’s tough to give your money away in an immediate and sacrificial way. It’s tough to take a stand against injustice and the persecution of Christian in a world that can laugh at what we value. Unless you take the plunge says Jesus, you really can’t be followers of mine. Unless you lose the life of the popular culture and what’s so comfortable and secure, you really don’t understand what it means to have real life, and life with real meaning. “O God, grant that your Holy Spirit in all things may direct and rule our hearts.” (Collect for the day.) We are what God has, and though Christ Jesus he calls us in spite of ourselves.
Sunday, September 10, 2000
Pentecost 13
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 13
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 10,200 - Parish Picnic
TEXT: Mark 7:31-37 - They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
See also: Isaiah 35:4-7a - Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
ISSUE: - This Sunday is a special one, in that it is the Parish Picnic and the installation of our Sunday School Teachers. The passage from Mark is like a fulfillment of Isaiah’s hope for the messianic age and the return from exile. Jesus opens the ears of the deaf man, enabling him not only to hear but to speak. It is an event of hope and restoration whereby the mercy, love and compassion of God is revealed. A man gets new meaning. The work of the Sunday School teacher is Christ-like work. It helps those who have not heard, or whose spiritual listening powers are limited to hear the message of Jesus Christ, and to be able themselves to verbalize, understand, and proclaim it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Here’s a wonderful story of Jesus healing a man who is deaf. It is a fulfillment story that is something of a response to the lesson from Isaiah. Isaiah was addressing a time when the spiritual level of the Israelites was in decline. They were in exile in Babylon. Isaiah proclaimed, or prophesied of a time when God’s people would be redeemed and returned to their homeland. It would be a time of great restoration. The eyes of the blind would be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. The lame would leap like the deer, and the dumb or speechless would speak again. It would be as if the desert would come into bloom, when God restored his people.
The people who knew Jesus saw him as a healer, that is, one who could restore a new spiritedness to people, and give meaning to their lives that had been cut-off, deafened to the proclamation that God is love, and human beings have dignity and worth. The people bring to Jesus a man who is deaf. Of course, people who are deaf usually cannot speak or at least have some kind of speech impediment that comes from not being able to hear. You can’t hear; you usually can’t speak. In the story Jesus takes the man aside, spits, and touches the man’s tongue. Spittle was a part of the folk healing process of the time. Spitting was believed to divert evil spirits, or the evil eye. Jesus then says in the Aramaic, “Ephphatha,” which means “Be opened.” Mark keeps the Aramaic word “Ephphatha,” because that was the word with the power of healing. The man is immediately able to hear, as well as then able to speak.
In this time, there was little concern with how did Jesus do that. Only modern people are concerned about the science behind the healing. The people of this time simply rejoiced in the healing, the miracle, the spirituality of the occasion, and saw that Jesus was giving new meaning and hope to a man’s life that had previously been an expendable person of no use, and unworthy by virtue of his impediment to enter the Jerusalem Temple. It was a sign that God had come to his people to restore, redeem, and reclaim the least, last, and lost. It is a sign of the new age.
Just a little later in Mark’s gospel (8:22f) is another story of Jesus healing a blind man, and again Jesus uses the spittle and touches the man’s eyes. And the man is able to see. You see here how Mark is telling how the blind are seeing, and the deaf are hearing, and the tongue of the speechless sings for joy. An expendable people who have been ostracized and excommunicated have come to be restored through Jesus Christ to hear, to see, to experience, and to proclaim the fact that God does indeed come to them with his mercy, compassion, and love. While Jesus seems to want this news contained at least for the moment, the crowds proclaim this messianic moment or event. Their spiritual desert is coming into bloom.
The Epistle of James today addresses the issue that the discipleship of Christ is not merely to be hearers of the word, but to be doers of the word. Today at this picnic we want to give thanks and to make note of some people who do their part in this parish to enable our children and young people to hear the message of God’s redeeming love and presence. These people are our Sunday School teachers and youth leaders. They do their part throughout the year to help children, who might be otherwise preoccupied or distracted to hear the message of the great, wonderful, and miraculous story of God coming to his people in Jesus Christ. Many of our people have participated in the Sunday School for a number of years, and I wish that many more of you could see the significant outlay of energy and effort that has gone into some of our recent Bible School Programs. We should all be extraordinarily grateful for their work, their commitment, their devotion.
What I have also seen happening, is that some of our young people, through the witness of the adult teachers, have also through the learning process been very helpful with helping ministries with the younger children. You see how it works. Each of us in our teaching ministries, enable others like our children to hear the message of God’s love in Christ. Through that witness many of these youngsters go on to carry the message themselves: the tongues of the once speechless sing for joy.
Today, we wish to honor those who have had a part in the teaching ministry of this parish. We also want to declare the importance of that teaching ministry by clearly making us all aware that it is an important ministry of helping our children and youth to hear the Gospel, of bestowing upon our children their intrinsic worth in the life of the parish so that they may also carry on the message of God’s redeeming love revealed through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
SEASON: Pentecost 13
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 10,200 - Parish Picnic
TEXT: Mark 7:31-37 - They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
See also: Isaiah 35:4-7a - Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
ISSUE: - This Sunday is a special one, in that it is the Parish Picnic and the installation of our Sunday School Teachers. The passage from Mark is like a fulfillment of Isaiah’s hope for the messianic age and the return from exile. Jesus opens the ears of the deaf man, enabling him not only to hear but to speak. It is an event of hope and restoration whereby the mercy, love and compassion of God is revealed. A man gets new meaning. The work of the Sunday School teacher is Christ-like work. It helps those who have not heard, or whose spiritual listening powers are limited to hear the message of Jesus Christ, and to be able themselves to verbalize, understand, and proclaim it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Here’s a wonderful story of Jesus healing a man who is deaf. It is a fulfillment story that is something of a response to the lesson from Isaiah. Isaiah was addressing a time when the spiritual level of the Israelites was in decline. They were in exile in Babylon. Isaiah proclaimed, or prophesied of a time when God’s people would be redeemed and returned to their homeland. It would be a time of great restoration. The eyes of the blind would be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. The lame would leap like the deer, and the dumb or speechless would speak again. It would be as if the desert would come into bloom, when God restored his people.
The people who knew Jesus saw him as a healer, that is, one who could restore a new spiritedness to people, and give meaning to their lives that had been cut-off, deafened to the proclamation that God is love, and human beings have dignity and worth. The people bring to Jesus a man who is deaf. Of course, people who are deaf usually cannot speak or at least have some kind of speech impediment that comes from not being able to hear. You can’t hear; you usually can’t speak. In the story Jesus takes the man aside, spits, and touches the man’s tongue. Spittle was a part of the folk healing process of the time. Spitting was believed to divert evil spirits, or the evil eye. Jesus then says in the Aramaic, “Ephphatha,” which means “Be opened.” Mark keeps the Aramaic word “Ephphatha,” because that was the word with the power of healing. The man is immediately able to hear, as well as then able to speak.
In this time, there was little concern with how did Jesus do that. Only modern people are concerned about the science behind the healing. The people of this time simply rejoiced in the healing, the miracle, the spirituality of the occasion, and saw that Jesus was giving new meaning and hope to a man’s life that had previously been an expendable person of no use, and unworthy by virtue of his impediment to enter the Jerusalem Temple. It was a sign that God had come to his people to restore, redeem, and reclaim the least, last, and lost. It is a sign of the new age.
Just a little later in Mark’s gospel (8:22f) is another story of Jesus healing a blind man, and again Jesus uses the spittle and touches the man’s eyes. And the man is able to see. You see here how Mark is telling how the blind are seeing, and the deaf are hearing, and the tongue of the speechless sings for joy. An expendable people who have been ostracized and excommunicated have come to be restored through Jesus Christ to hear, to see, to experience, and to proclaim the fact that God does indeed come to them with his mercy, compassion, and love. While Jesus seems to want this news contained at least for the moment, the crowds proclaim this messianic moment or event. Their spiritual desert is coming into bloom.
The Epistle of James today addresses the issue that the discipleship of Christ is not merely to be hearers of the word, but to be doers of the word. Today at this picnic we want to give thanks and to make note of some people who do their part in this parish to enable our children and young people to hear the message of God’s redeeming love and presence. These people are our Sunday School teachers and youth leaders. They do their part throughout the year to help children, who might be otherwise preoccupied or distracted to hear the message of the great, wonderful, and miraculous story of God coming to his people in Jesus Christ. Many of our people have participated in the Sunday School for a number of years, and I wish that many more of you could see the significant outlay of energy and effort that has gone into some of our recent Bible School Programs. We should all be extraordinarily grateful for their work, their commitment, their devotion.
What I have also seen happening, is that some of our young people, through the witness of the adult teachers, have also through the learning process been very helpful with helping ministries with the younger children. You see how it works. Each of us in our teaching ministries, enable others like our children to hear the message of God’s love in Christ. Through that witness many of these youngsters go on to carry the message themselves: the tongues of the once speechless sing for joy.
Today, we wish to honor those who have had a part in the teaching ministry of this parish. We also want to declare the importance of that teaching ministry by clearly making us all aware that it is an important ministry of helping our children and youth to hear the Gospel, of bestowing upon our children their intrinsic worth in the life of the parish so that they may also carry on the message of God’s redeeming love revealed through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Sunday, September 3, 2000
PENTECOST 12
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 12
PROPER: 17 B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 3, 2000
TEXT: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 - “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
ISSUE: - Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees for the impurity of his disciples and himself. He cannot be identified as a Jewish observer. But he responds that the human laws abandon the real law of God in the commandments. It is not what goes into us that defiles, rather what comes out of the human heart which is itself defiling. The purity rules can be a cover-up for being truly a person bound to God. Loving God and neighbor is important for Jesus. His ministry clearly rebels against some of the purity laws when he reaches out to others: eating with sinners, touching corpses, etc. The passage is mission oriented, as God in Christ has come to the defiled and the expendable. The passage is a challenge to all of us today to reclaim the love of God and God’s commands, and to be inclusive and respectful in our relationships with others.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Collect for this Sunday sets the theme that is expounded upon by the passage from Mark’s Gospel account. We prayed “Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works.” May we all come to know what true religion is.
Jesus knew considerable conflict with authorities through out his ministry. Today the Pharisees in their constant effort to discredit him or dishonor him, and his disciples, challenge Jesus and his disciples for not washing their hands before they eat. Be clear about this, folks. Washing you hands before you eat may be an issue of hygiene today, and an acceptable practice, but the issue here is not hygiene. It is purity. The elite Pharisees and Jewish leaders of Jesus’ time had many rules related to purity. You washed your hands before you ate. You only cooked certain foods in a certain way in certain pots. You ate only those things which were kosher, according to Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. If you broke the purity rules, you were considered defiled and unclean. Thus, if Jesus’ disciples are not following the rules, they are considered to be unclean. What’s more their identity was in question.
The purity rules were significant to the Pharisees and the Jewish elite. They were designed for a specific purpose. They identified you as a Jew. The Jews believed that God was Holy, that God was pure. Then Israel, the Jewish people as the chosen people of God were expected themselves to be pure. The purity rules, what was known as The Great Tradition, then, it what helped to define them as God’s people. Keep in mind, however, that the Pharisees and the Jewish elite were really a very small part of the overall population of Israel. The overwhelming population of the people were peasants, farm workers, some fishermen, some artisans, and merchants. This larger population was unable to keep all the purity laws. For one thing, water was quite scarce. A poor family may not have had the ability to own all the pots required for cooking, nor the facilities required. Fishermen and merchants had to touch things that by purity laws and standards made them unclean, and unable to keep all the purity laws. Their uncleanness excluded them from Temple worship. Jesus and his disciples are thus challenged as to their identity and worthiness as men of God who were abandoning the Great Tradition of Israel.
Jesus responds to the challenge with an insult. He quotes Hebrew Scripture from the prophet Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts and doctrines.” According to Isaiah, Israel was supposed to be a light to the nations of the world. Isaiah 42:6 -“I, the Lord, have called you and given you power to see that justice is done on earth. Through you I will make a covenant with all peoples; through you I will bring light to the nations.” But, instead of being light to the nations, many of the purity laws had become the be all and end all of a national self-righteous exclusiveness. With the lips and the purity rules they honored God, but internally their hearts were far from God’s intention. Thus, Jesus clearly states that it is not what we put into us that defiles us, but what is coming out of a person’s heart. What is often coming out of the human heart is fornication, theft, murder, evil intentions that are far more defiling of a truly religious person. Religious people take the commandments of God into themselves, the command to love God with all you heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor. This command is what the Ten Commandments are all about, loving God and having a right and just relationship with everyone else.
Notice that Jesus was quite rebellious in his time when it came to the purity laws. He touched lepers and corpses. He ate with sinners, and tax collectors. He touches menstruating women and associated with them. He dared to heal a man on the Sabbath. Jesus did not abandon the law, the commandments, but he broke it open for all to see at a greater depth what it means to be identified with God, and as a person or community of God. What’s at the heart of this passage from Mark, is the inclusiveness of Jesus’ mission. From the Pharisees and the elite authorities, who had become so entrenched in the unique identity that their purity laws gave to them, the rest of the world was seen as impure, unclean, and alienated from God. Jesus challenges that condemning outlook on the world and the purity rules that sustain it. Their lips and practices honor God externally, but their hearts are missing the point of what it really means to serve and love God.
One very graphic modern example, which is in the extreme is demonstrated in the motion picture, “The Godfather.” The Godfather says the rosary, and he acts as a loving god father to his nieces and nephews in the church, but is a man with a very evil unmoved heart in the other realities of his life. His devotion to God is only honorable lip service, but the heart is evil and there is no sense of Godliness or obedience to the love of God and the people of the world. The pharisees may not have been as evil as the Godfather but they were from the point of view of Jesus and the early church as far to aloft to be caring, serving, compassionate people of God.
Mark tells this story I sure because as the early church developed it was constantly wrestling with the purity issues as it attempted to embrace both Jewish and Gentile people, the majority of whom were peasants. It was a mission concern for the early church. The Christian Scriptures of Acts 10, Romans 14, and I Corinthians 8, Galatian 2:11, all deal with the issue of whether or not new Christians were required to keep certain dietary laws, and the law of circumcision.
Even now, we still live and debate the issues, the purity laws of the church, of what defines us as clearly the Christian Community, as the servant people of God in the world today. We’ve had a variety of purity-like rules over the years. They come and go. There was a time when people dressed-up for church and woman always wore hats, or at least a scarf over their heads when they came to church. We didn’t eat meat on Friday. We fasted on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. We came to church regularly or Sunday, celebrating the Christian Sabbath. We bowed in reverence or genuflected if the Sacrament was reserved as we entered the pew of the church. We reverenced the cross with a bow when it came up or down the aisle. These acts of piety were and still are some of the purity rules that define us as religious people and that contributed to a sense of respectability and religious honor. But the real question is is this true religion. What’s in the heart?
We have a concept of what is religious and pure. Our concept, however, can be potentially exclusive, self-serving, and self-righteous. Like the Pharisees, we may be followers of certain religious rules, but have a very condescending attitude toward poor people on welfare. In the days of greater religious pious practices where Episcopalians were dressing to the hilt and women were wearing hats, racism and prejudice was rampant. It’s not all gone yet, sorry to say.
Today we wrestle with the issue of gay and lesbian relationships. These kinds of relationships are seen as the impure relationship by the standards of other Christian Church members. This issue is every bit as debated today, as the early church debated the dietary rules and circumcision rules of the first century. How do we ultimately decide?
There are many other issues that challenge purity standards and rules of the church today. Co-habitation before marriage by confessed Christians, including having children is no longer uncommon. For some people this lifestyle is no big deal. Some would say the stability and structure of our civilized society is undermined by these cavalier life styles. There’s a lot of unclarity as to Christian identity in the world today. It sometimes gets very fuzzy. And it’s scary in terms of keeping the church unified.
A popular notion today is to say in response to all of the plurality of the culture is that you have to follow what’s in your own heart. But keep in mind that the scripture passage says clearly that “it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.” Our human hearts can tell us to roll over and play dead, and let the world meet its demise. Our hearts with their ingrained self-righteousness can make us very hardhearted and call for exclusion and excommunication of people different from what’s in our hearts.
Jesus seemed to appreciate the fact that you cannot reach people from whom you become disassociated. The love of God could not be revealed to people who were led to believe that they were no good, unworthy, and expendable peasant trash. To bring about the mercy and the compassion of God, and the Law of God you had to be in a relationship. The idea of Jesus Christ as the Son of God coming to his creation was to establish a forgiving and loving relationship. Remember the parable of the Wedding Feast. The prestigious types turn down the invitation. So, the king sends out his servants to bring in everyone who will come to participate in the party, without a credentials check. Jesus did not come to abandon the law and the rules either. The Commandments are of God. But it is with mercy and compassion that Jesus show the way of a life deeply and profoundly devoted to the love, dependence, attachment and loyal trust in God. It is in his life of genuine faithful committed servanthood that he attaches himself in relationship with the people of God to show them that loving and respecting God and God’s Commandments is not some great burden of judgment, but a gift.
May God help us in our uncertainties. May God help us in our piety, and in our purity, in our self-assured righteousness, in each of our own sins to be reminded that God mercifully loves each of us, and calls us into that inclusive servanthood. At the same time, it is important that we search out and claim just what is the law of God is for people who wish to be faithful, and responsive to the bountiful grace of God.
SEASON: PENTECOST 12
PROPER: 17 B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 3, 2000
TEXT: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 - “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
ISSUE: - Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees for the impurity of his disciples and himself. He cannot be identified as a Jewish observer. But he responds that the human laws abandon the real law of God in the commandments. It is not what goes into us that defiles, rather what comes out of the human heart which is itself defiling. The purity rules can be a cover-up for being truly a person bound to God. Loving God and neighbor is important for Jesus. His ministry clearly rebels against some of the purity laws when he reaches out to others: eating with sinners, touching corpses, etc. The passage is mission oriented, as God in Christ has come to the defiled and the expendable. The passage is a challenge to all of us today to reclaim the love of God and God’s commands, and to be inclusive and respectful in our relationships with others.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Collect for this Sunday sets the theme that is expounded upon by the passage from Mark’s Gospel account. We prayed “Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works.” May we all come to know what true religion is.
Jesus knew considerable conflict with authorities through out his ministry. Today the Pharisees in their constant effort to discredit him or dishonor him, and his disciples, challenge Jesus and his disciples for not washing their hands before they eat. Be clear about this, folks. Washing you hands before you eat may be an issue of hygiene today, and an acceptable practice, but the issue here is not hygiene. It is purity. The elite Pharisees and Jewish leaders of Jesus’ time had many rules related to purity. You washed your hands before you ate. You only cooked certain foods in a certain way in certain pots. You ate only those things which were kosher, according to Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. If you broke the purity rules, you were considered defiled and unclean. Thus, if Jesus’ disciples are not following the rules, they are considered to be unclean. What’s more their identity was in question.
The purity rules were significant to the Pharisees and the Jewish elite. They were designed for a specific purpose. They identified you as a Jew. The Jews believed that God was Holy, that God was pure. Then Israel, the Jewish people as the chosen people of God were expected themselves to be pure. The purity rules, what was known as The Great Tradition, then, it what helped to define them as God’s people. Keep in mind, however, that the Pharisees and the Jewish elite were really a very small part of the overall population of Israel. The overwhelming population of the people were peasants, farm workers, some fishermen, some artisans, and merchants. This larger population was unable to keep all the purity laws. For one thing, water was quite scarce. A poor family may not have had the ability to own all the pots required for cooking, nor the facilities required. Fishermen and merchants had to touch things that by purity laws and standards made them unclean, and unable to keep all the purity laws. Their uncleanness excluded them from Temple worship. Jesus and his disciples are thus challenged as to their identity and worthiness as men of God who were abandoning the Great Tradition of Israel.
Jesus responds to the challenge with an insult. He quotes Hebrew Scripture from the prophet Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts and doctrines.” According to Isaiah, Israel was supposed to be a light to the nations of the world. Isaiah 42:6 -“I, the Lord, have called you and given you power to see that justice is done on earth. Through you I will make a covenant with all peoples; through you I will bring light to the nations.” But, instead of being light to the nations, many of the purity laws had become the be all and end all of a national self-righteous exclusiveness. With the lips and the purity rules they honored God, but internally their hearts were far from God’s intention. Thus, Jesus clearly states that it is not what we put into us that defiles us, but what is coming out of a person’s heart. What is often coming out of the human heart is fornication, theft, murder, evil intentions that are far more defiling of a truly religious person. Religious people take the commandments of God into themselves, the command to love God with all you heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor. This command is what the Ten Commandments are all about, loving God and having a right and just relationship with everyone else.
Notice that Jesus was quite rebellious in his time when it came to the purity laws. He touched lepers and corpses. He ate with sinners, and tax collectors. He touches menstruating women and associated with them. He dared to heal a man on the Sabbath. Jesus did not abandon the law, the commandments, but he broke it open for all to see at a greater depth what it means to be identified with God, and as a person or community of God. What’s at the heart of this passage from Mark, is the inclusiveness of Jesus’ mission. From the Pharisees and the elite authorities, who had become so entrenched in the unique identity that their purity laws gave to them, the rest of the world was seen as impure, unclean, and alienated from God. Jesus challenges that condemning outlook on the world and the purity rules that sustain it. Their lips and practices honor God externally, but their hearts are missing the point of what it really means to serve and love God.
One very graphic modern example, which is in the extreme is demonstrated in the motion picture, “The Godfather.” The Godfather says the rosary, and he acts as a loving god father to his nieces and nephews in the church, but is a man with a very evil unmoved heart in the other realities of his life. His devotion to God is only honorable lip service, but the heart is evil and there is no sense of Godliness or obedience to the love of God and the people of the world. The pharisees may not have been as evil as the Godfather but they were from the point of view of Jesus and the early church as far to aloft to be caring, serving, compassionate people of God.
Mark tells this story I sure because as the early church developed it was constantly wrestling with the purity issues as it attempted to embrace both Jewish and Gentile people, the majority of whom were peasants. It was a mission concern for the early church. The Christian Scriptures of Acts 10, Romans 14, and I Corinthians 8, Galatian 2:11, all deal with the issue of whether or not new Christians were required to keep certain dietary laws, and the law of circumcision.
Even now, we still live and debate the issues, the purity laws of the church, of what defines us as clearly the Christian Community, as the servant people of God in the world today. We’ve had a variety of purity-like rules over the years. They come and go. There was a time when people dressed-up for church and woman always wore hats, or at least a scarf over their heads when they came to church. We didn’t eat meat on Friday. We fasted on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. We came to church regularly or Sunday, celebrating the Christian Sabbath. We bowed in reverence or genuflected if the Sacrament was reserved as we entered the pew of the church. We reverenced the cross with a bow when it came up or down the aisle. These acts of piety were and still are some of the purity rules that define us as religious people and that contributed to a sense of respectability and religious honor. But the real question is is this true religion. What’s in the heart?
We have a concept of what is religious and pure. Our concept, however, can be potentially exclusive, self-serving, and self-righteous. Like the Pharisees, we may be followers of certain religious rules, but have a very condescending attitude toward poor people on welfare. In the days of greater religious pious practices where Episcopalians were dressing to the hilt and women were wearing hats, racism and prejudice was rampant. It’s not all gone yet, sorry to say.
Today we wrestle with the issue of gay and lesbian relationships. These kinds of relationships are seen as the impure relationship by the standards of other Christian Church members. This issue is every bit as debated today, as the early church debated the dietary rules and circumcision rules of the first century. How do we ultimately decide?
There are many other issues that challenge purity standards and rules of the church today. Co-habitation before marriage by confessed Christians, including having children is no longer uncommon. For some people this lifestyle is no big deal. Some would say the stability and structure of our civilized society is undermined by these cavalier life styles. There’s a lot of unclarity as to Christian identity in the world today. It sometimes gets very fuzzy. And it’s scary in terms of keeping the church unified.
A popular notion today is to say in response to all of the plurality of the culture is that you have to follow what’s in your own heart. But keep in mind that the scripture passage says clearly that “it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.” Our human hearts can tell us to roll over and play dead, and let the world meet its demise. Our hearts with their ingrained self-righteousness can make us very hardhearted and call for exclusion and excommunication of people different from what’s in our hearts.
Jesus seemed to appreciate the fact that you cannot reach people from whom you become disassociated. The love of God could not be revealed to people who were led to believe that they were no good, unworthy, and expendable peasant trash. To bring about the mercy and the compassion of God, and the Law of God you had to be in a relationship. The idea of Jesus Christ as the Son of God coming to his creation was to establish a forgiving and loving relationship. Remember the parable of the Wedding Feast. The prestigious types turn down the invitation. So, the king sends out his servants to bring in everyone who will come to participate in the party, without a credentials check. Jesus did not come to abandon the law and the rules either. The Commandments are of God. But it is with mercy and compassion that Jesus show the way of a life deeply and profoundly devoted to the love, dependence, attachment and loyal trust in God. It is in his life of genuine faithful committed servanthood that he attaches himself in relationship with the people of God to show them that loving and respecting God and God’s Commandments is not some great burden of judgment, but a gift.
May God help us in our uncertainties. May God help us in our piety, and in our purity, in our self-assured righteousness, in each of our own sins to be reminded that God mercifully loves each of us, and calls us into that inclusive servanthood. At the same time, it is important that we search out and claim just what is the law of God is for people who wish to be faithful, and responsive to the bountiful grace of God.
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