James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8,
14-15, 21-23
“Sorting Out What is Good”
August 30, 2009
I believe that uppermost in
the contentious debate on health care reform is the focus on this central
priority: how can we provide good health
care for all people, including the poor?
Within the faith community, what should not at issue is any
ambiguity about whether we should have health care for all people.
However, even with that common commitment to health care for all people, we are
left with the monumental question, “How can we best do it?” Right intentions are paramount, but so also
is determining what is the right thing to do to accomplish those good
intentions.
Recently, I heard a speaker
add some humor in describing the political foibles in such quandaries: A man was drowning 100 feet from shore. The Republicans threw the man 50 feet of rope
and said, “The rest is up to you.” The
Democrats threw the man 200 feet of rope and then let go of their end of the
rope.
Exactly what is the right
action can be difficult to discern. We
have good people on both sides of the political aisle that need to work
together to sort out what is good and right legislation for the good of the entire
country, rich and poor.
The gospel lesson this
morning points to the foundational need of a transformation of the heart. Out
of a transformed heart come good intentions.
Only an inner “passion for the good” will lead to a determination to discern
what is good and then to actually do it.
Consider the subtle
difference of heart between these two experiences that we all have had:
I am bewildered about what
is going on in the heart of some folks who ripped out some flowers on the east
end of our church or what is going on in the hearts of some folks who dump
their litter in your yard rather than
care for it themselves. And what is
happening in the heart of folks who distain the poor, who stir up racial
hatred… The list of heart-ailments goes
on and on.
Attitude of the heart plays
an immense part in our lives. It is an
immense issue of our faith.
Jesus and the religious
authorities disagreed on the focus of the faith. The Pharisees were concerned that rituals and
sacrifices be maintained according to tradition. On the positive side, these
rituals and practices were meant to reinforce a culture of compassion and
gratitude, and a focus on right living. The downside of those traditions was
that they could become “ends in themselves” that fail to nurture a grateful
caring heart and mind. They could become legalistic about rituals, forgetting
the ultimate meaning of the rituals.
They, of course, criticized
Jesus and his disciples for failing to follow the traditional rituals. For example, the disciples of Jesus neglected
the tradition to ritualistically wash their hands and neglected to wash their
foods before eating. They were not eating according to the kosher laws! And we
might say, “Hey, with the threat of swine flu again in our midst, we need to
heed the counsel of the tradition! We do
well if we heed the medical advice to frequently wash thoroughly with soap and
hot water.”
Jesus, however, had a
different focus of his faith. His focus
was the heart. Clearly, Jesus advocated that the focus of our faith needs to be
a transformed heart that gratefully energizes and directs the living of
a good and generous and compassionate life.
While the Pharisees decried eating unwashed foods with defiled hands,
Jesus decried living with a defiled heart.
Jesus said that nothing outside a person defiles him, but rather it is
what comes out of the heart that defiles a person: fornication, theft, murder,
wickedness, avarice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride. “All these things come from within, and they
defile a person.”
There is plenty of room for
discussion on the merits of what the Pharisees were saying. A modern update would be to point out all the
dangers of addictive drugs, the wrong crowd,
alluring temptation - outside bad influences. Last week we heard Paul’s letter to the
Ephesians that told us to put on the “whole armor of God” so that we could keep
out all the darts of evil directed at us.
Surely Jesus would acknowledge the dangers of temptations and aggression
toward oneself, but Jesus also clearly puts the priority focus on getting one’s
own house in order first. Look into your
own heart; let God give you a new and transformed heart gratefully overflowing
with God’s love. Consequently, live out God’s love from within oneself.
This focus harkens back to
the emphasis of the prophets who veered away from animal sacrifice. That redirection by the prophets was a
tectonic clash of direction, evidenced right here in our Old Testament. The old-time religion of the patriarchs had
emphasized animal sacrifice and that evolved into the animal sacrifice
traditions practiced in the
Hear the Old Testament
scriptures that - within themselves - depict a rebuttal of animal sacrifice and
an affirmation of social justice:
With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow
myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with
calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the
fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has showed you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you but to do
justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Why have we fasted and thou see it not? Why have we
humbled ourselves, and thou take no knowledge of it? Behold, in the day of your
fast you seek your own pleasure or gain, and you oppress all your workers…
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the
bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go
free, and to break every yoke. Is it not
to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your
house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your
own flesh?
The Psalms redirect the
community of faith from sacrifice to a religion of the heart:
Psalm 40:
I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me
and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry
bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to
our God…
Sacrifice and offering thou dost not desire; but
thou has given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering thou has not
required.
Then I said, “Lo, I come; in the roll of the book is
written of me;
I delight to do thy will, O my God; thy law is
within my heart….
And finally, Psalm 51
Have mercy on my, O God, according to thy steadfast
love; according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions…
Behold, thou desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart, fill me with joy and gladness…
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and
right spirit within me…
Cast me not from thy spirit and take not thy holy
spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold
me with a willing spirit.
O Lord, open thou my lips and my mouth will show
forth thy praise.
For thou has no delight in sacrifice;
were I to give a burnt offering, thou would not be
pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou will not
despise.
Jesus is out of the
prophetic tradition, which gives emphasis on the faith’s transformation of the
heart that yields a compassionate and grace-filled life dedicated to social
justice.
Doing what is right and good
could be, and often is, reinforced by ritual, but ritual is not an end in
itself. Ritual alone is empty. Doing
what is good and right could be reinforced and nurtured by a disciplined
fasting, but fasting not a good in itself.
The rituals and fasting, the sacraments, prayers, and the worship, all
have their value to the extent they transform one’s heart that in turn results
in a life of compassion, healing and social justice.
Hear Jesus say to us
all: Here is the big picture of your
assignment: live your life as an expression of God’s love that has transformed
your heart and that now resides in your heart.
However imperfectly, with a grateful heart seek then to do what is
right.