Saturday, August 29, 2015

Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost: Proper 17: What Comes from the Heart?






Today's Scripture Readings

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8 (NRSV)
 

Moses said: So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the LORD your God with which I am charging you.

You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!" For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children.



Psalm 15 (BCP., p.599)


James 1:17-27 (NRSV)


Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

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.

But 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. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act-they will be blessed in their doing.

If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.



Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (NRSV)


Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" He said to them, "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."

Then he called the crowd again and said 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: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."


Blog Reflection

I have had many times during my life in which I found myself in a place of confusion about what was going on inside of me.  No time was more confusing for me than when I was in the process of moving from my Protestant Evangelical way of thinking/believing and practicing to become a Roman Catholic.  The Late Father Ralph D. Tetrault would often listen to me as I struggled with this and that.  At one point I was talking to him about something that was very deep in my heart.  As I tried to explain it, Fr. Tetrault said to me, "No! No!  Only God knows what is truly in your heart.  I cannot tell you what is there.  No one else can tell you what is there.  Only God knows what is in your heart.  You must learn above all else to trust what God is doing within your heart."  These words have proven to be true on many, many occasions.

In our worship of God, there is the tendency for us to pay so much attention to whether our rituals are just right, and movements are what they should be; so that we can justify ignoring what is going on in the heart.  I write this blog post full of guilt of any number of times I have done so.  "Did I bless myself during the the Sanctus at "Blessed is the One who comes in the Name of the Lord.."?  All the while, the One I pronounce blessed with my lips is drawing me closer to God's Self through God's Holy Essence from within.  God does not require that I be someone I am not, nor someone other than who God has made me.  God only asks me to do what Saint Benedict wrote in the beginning of the Prologue to The Rule.  "Listen my child. Incline the ears of your heart."

We also need to give those questioning Jesus about what His Disciples are doing a little slack.  They have been following a particular set of rituals for as long as they could remember.  Whether the ritual is just that, or flows from their hearts, it is a deep part of their worship of God.  Who are we to second guess them?  

Jesus is saying to us, what James is telling us in our Second Reading today.  If we think our rituals are ends in and of themselves, and do not allow the grace of God to transform us, and through us transform the world around us; we are the ones who limit what God can do. 

The Christian Religion is chock full of Christians who pay God lip service.  We certainly do not need to be telling other religious traditions such as Judaism and Islam to turn to Christianity for a more redeeming faith.  If Christians continue to present our Faith as if it is nothing more than a wealthy enterprise of political agendas and the marginalization of others; what makes the Faith so attractive to anyone else?  

While so many Christians are so determined to make abortion, gay marriage the infallibility of the Bible and winning elections as the only reason as to why our Faith means anything; Christians are allowing ourselves to miss many important things that are far more damaging.  Frank Powell wrote a very compelling blog post entitled 9 Sins the Church is Okay With.   Those sins Powell focuses on are fear, worry, gluttony, apathy, flattery, comfort, consumerism, patriotism and lying.  These certainly fall under the category of things that come from within.  They suggest that we are not satisfied with trusting in God to feed our hungry souls.  This alone makes our meditating on Jesus as the Bread of Life over these past five weeks very important. 

Jesus challenges us to worship God from our hearts and allow the love and mercy of God to flow out and in.  As we gather as worshiping Christian communities, we do not do so alone.  We do them with other Christians near and far.  We celebrate the life of Jesus in Word and Sacrament from within our often wounded and weary hearts; longing for God to refresh, bless and re-energize us for the work of hospitality, healing and reconciliation with our neighbors and families.  We receive from God as we engage in worship, prayer and celebration; the confirmation of God's love in our hearts and the mission to speak to the lonely, the prejudiced, the oppressed and the hurting.  We are given direction to listen intentionally to the stories others tell of how they are searching for and finding God in those places where it is so difficult for us to see God and listen to the Spirit.  We discover that we are not walking the course alone, but with the help of others that are going our way.  Trying to follow the Way of Jesus to learn compassion for the suffering, the poor, the sick and those who are thirsting just to be included in the Church and society.

May our worship of God bring us clarity to what God is saying within our hearts, so that we may together serve Christ in others who are different from ourselves.

Amen.


Prayers

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good
things: 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; through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God,
for ever and ever. Amen.  (Proper 17.  The Book of Common Prayer, p. 233).


O Almighty God, who pours out on all who desire it the
spirit of grace and of supplication: Deliver us, when we draw
near to you, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind,
that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affections we may
worship you in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Amen.  (Prayer Before Worship.  The Book of Common Prayer, p. 833).
O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the
earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those
who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people
everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the
nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh;
and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 100).

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