Sermon 8-31-03
Being & Doing - James 1:17-27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
"A young man once came to a great rabbi and asked to be made a rabbi. The rabbi stood at the window looking out upon the yard while the rabbinical candidate was droning into his ears a glowing account of his piety and learning. The young man said, "You see, Rabbi, I always go dressed in spotless white like the sages of old. I never drink any alcoholic beverages; only water ever passes my lips. Also, I live a plain and simple life. I have sharp-edged nails inside my shoes to mortify me. Even in the coldest weather, I like naked in the snow to torment my flesh. Also daily, I receive forty lashes on my bare back to complete my perpetual penance." And as the young man spoke, a white horse was led into the yard and to the water trough. It drank, and then it rolled in the snow, as horses sometimes do. "Just look!" cried the rabbi. "That animal, too, is dressed in white. It also drinks nothing but water, has nails in its shoes and rolls naked in the snow. Also, rest assured, it gets its daily ration of forty lashes on the rump from its master. Now, I ask you, is it a saint, or is it a horse!"
Today we turn our attention to the letter of James, a short and often overlooked epistle, but one that is full of teaching in its few short chapters. At the same time, we turn our gospel focus back to Mark, where we find Jesus confronting the Pharisees on their teachings. Today, our two main texts go hand in hand. In James, we read about what it means to live righteously. James is clear and succinct in his pronouncement. He says, "Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like." In Mark's gospel, we hear related, though nuanced teaching from Jesus. The Pharisees are arguing with Jesus about why the disciples do not wash their hands, as custom commands, before eating. Jesus responds by saying, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition." And then he calls the crowd again and says to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come."
James and Jesus both convey a similar message: get to the heart of the message in the scriptures - practice the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. And when we first read through the gospel lesson, it seems obvious why Jesus should be chastising them, obvious that he is right and that they are at fault. But it's too easy for us to scapegoat the Pharisees when we read this story, too easy to shake our heads at their ways, all the while patting ourselves smugly on the backs for being and doing better than them, at least. But are we being fair to the Pharisees? Are we being honest with ourselves? After all, what exactly is it that they are doing that is so wrong, so different from what we would do, anyway?
If we look at the actions of the Pharisees in light of what we read in James, it is easy to see that they might conceive themselves as acting rightly as doers of the word. The Pharisees know the commandments of the scriptures, and follow them meticulously. They know the cleanliness codes, and they know that eating with out cleansing is ritually impure according to holy law. By following the law, aren't they being doers of the word as James urges? However, doing involves more than blind obedience, it takes more than crossing t's and dotting I's in good behavior - it something to the spirit of the law that gives it life, not just the letter of the law only. Jesus quotes Isaiah by saying "this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." Though the Pharisees held fast to the commandments, they managed to do so while at the same time missing the entire point of the very rules they followed. Cleanliness, Jesus insisted, wasn't about literal cleanliness, but about the purity of our inner beings. Likewise, James, encouraging us to be doers of the word, encourages us to take a look in the mirror, and remember who we are and what we see there. Purity of religion before God always starts with concern for others, he reminds us, care of the orphan and the widow, those most vulnerable in society. Our doing must be reconciled to those who are most oppressed - then we will be clean and undefiled from inside out.
The Pharisees missed the point even as they diligently followed the commandments of God. But still, with their faults, we can't yet let ourselves of the hook, and put all the blame on them. We are still to be held accountable. James asks us to be doers, not simply hearers of the word. He demands that we look in the mirror, and see ourselves clearly, and see what our weaknesses and strengths are clearly, and see what God calls us to do, clearly. Jesus asks us to be pure, clean, from the inside out, and not worry as much about the outside in. How do we hold up to their demands? What do you see when you look into the mirror?
I can't help but think of the current events in Alabama when searching for a current day incarnation of these scriptures. After a lawsuit was filed by some who felt the presence of a monument of the Ten Commandments to be a violation of separation of church and state, Judge Roy Moore refused to comply with an order to remove the sculpture. There in the rotunda of the building, throngs of people have flocked to the courthouse where the monument of the Ten Commandments stood. Photos captured images of people lying prostrate on the ground, praying that the monument not being removed, insisting that taking the sculpture would symbolize taking God from the very foundation of the state in Alabama. Christian leaders have spoken out on the evil of the removal of the sculpture, lamenting decisions that ignore religious foundations of the state. On one hand, perhaps the actions of Judge Roy Moore and these protestors command admiration from some who see theirs as actions of faithfulness. But on the other hand, I wonder what it means when it is only a monument of the Ten Commandments, and not the commandments themselves that seem to get anyone riled up. After all, it is for the physical structure, not the content of the Ten Commandments, that this fuss is being made. The words of Isaiah uttered by Jesus echo through these images, "'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'" And likewise, we hear James prodding us - be doers of the word, not hearers only. What would it mean to be faithful to the Ten Commandments in a way that made us doers and not hearers only? In a way that made us faithful from the inside, not the outside? Can you imagine if the same stir was made about actually adhering to these commandments? Can you imagine as much press and publicity, as many crowds and protesters if the topic was doing the commandments, instead of an image of the commandments?
Jesus calls us to be faithful from the inside out instead of outside in. Too often, we let our motivation for our actions come from the wrong sources. We, too, like the Pharisees, get caught up in particular practices that we think will guarantee our holiness, our righteousness, our correctness. And we, too, are concerned about who is clean, who is pure enough to be part of us, part of our fellowship, part of our church, part of our lives. Over time for Christians this has meant banning dancing and card-playing, avoiding going to the movies, sticking to only a certain translation of the Bible. It has meant deciding that the church could exclude people because they were unclean, not fitting in because of something external about them, because of skin color, income level, country of origin, and many other reasons. Today, we have different practices, different faults, but in many ways, we've not changed much. Like the man seeking to be a rabbi in the opening illustration I shared with you, we seem to get caught up in the details of what we should do to be holy enough, and to make ourselves and those around us clean and pure enough. We too get caught up in the way things should be, how we should do things. Our rituals, our traditions are important - they give us identity as a community, they give us history, and they tie us to the Christians through the millenniums. But they shouldn't tie us down, they shouldn't keep us away from God instead of bringing us closer, and they shouldn't divide us from others instead of uniting us.
We are indeed called to be clean and pure, but it is what comes out of us that makes us clean, not what we put in. It is how we treat others, how we live our lives, how we act, what we do, that makes us pure. We are called not only to honor God with words, with our lips, but with our hearts and our souls. So let us be clean, from our insides out. Amen.
Benediction: O Lord, as you have called us together to be hearers of your word, send us forth to be doers of your word. As your word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, in Jesus of Nazareth, let it become flesh and dwell among our neighbors, full of grace and truth, in us.