14th Sunday
after Pentecost, Yr. B, September 2, 2012
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9;
Psalm 15; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Sermon preached at St.
Stephen’s Episcopal Church
In the August 22nd
issue of The Christian Century, Wallace Bubar, a Presbyterian minister shares a
story about his early church life in a Southern Baptist church. Bubar writes,
It was called
the six-point record system. In
the Southern Baptist church of my childhood, the offering envelopes in the pews
had the usual line for your name and the amount of your contribution. But they also had six little boxes
underneath where you could put a check mark, and next to the boxes were six
actions: worship attended, Bible brought, Bible read daily, Sunday school
lesson studied, prayed daily, gave an offering.
Somebody, writes Bubar, at Southern Baptist
headquarters in Nashville had decided these were the six things that were worth
recording. Not the commandments,
not the fruits of the Spirit, not the eight Beatitudes and not the seven
cardinal virtues. No, there were
six essentials of the Christian life, and bringing your Bible to church was one
of them.[1]
Now, I didn’t grow
up Baptist. I was raised in the
Roman Catholic church. No one there
brought a Bible to anything when I was young! I was so far removed from the Bible that I didn’t even
really know any Bible stories … even though I’d heard passages of the Bible
read in church every Sunday, practically from the moment I took my first breath! Never missed church … but never read
the Bible for myself until I was an adult.
But it’s pretty clear from Pastor Bubar that at least the
Baptists thought the Bible was a foundational element in Christian spiritual
formation. Just as important as
prayer and study in community and alms giving. But James would say that even that is not enough. That’s not even the point of being a
Christian at all. There’s much
more to it. We can’t just hear the word,
we also have to live the
word.
Make no mistake
about it, living the word means having some knowledge of the word … so those
first five “actions” on the offering envelope actually are very important. They have a long history in our
Christian tradition. Lectio Divina
is a practice of reading scripture that has been practiced for hundreds of
years. Participation in the
prayers, the breaking of bread and joining in fellowship with other Christians
are promises we make at our baptism.
Study, prayer and community are vital to our individual and corporate
life, but that is not where church is meant to end. That is where church begins! We gather to be formed and affirmed in our Christian way. From church we are sent into the
world.
In James’ words, In
fulfillment of God’s own purpose God gave us birth by the word of truth, so
that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who
deceive themselves.
This is where I
think Jesus suspects the Pharisees and some of the Scribes may have gotten their
priorities wrong. They’re
concerned that the disciples (and Jesus too) aren’t following the laws for
ritual washing of themselves and their cooking utensils. Why are you all doing things so
differently, the Pharisees wonder?
You’re not acting like Jews.
That’s how we have been able to stay a community, through revolts and
deportments. The Jews had
always been able to recognize one another because they followed the same
laws. That is how they set
themselves apart, but now Jesus seems to be throwing all of that away. How do we know who you are, they must be
thinking.
Jesus tells them
that they’ve gotten their priorities in a twist! “If you think that just following these purity codes makes
you a good Jew, you’ve lost your way.”
For us, it’s like coming to church every Sunday and putting money in the
collection plate and saying grace before meals and reading the Bible and
thinking you’re a good Christian.
Being a good Christian, and a good Jew for that matter, is much more
than that.
The highest
calling for any Jew is to participate in tikkun o’lam … the repair of the world. The Jews are God’s chosen people, chosen to be a light for
the world, chosen to spread the message of God to the world. Our highest calling, according to James
… is also to be doers of the word. In our Christian context that means
spreading the good news of love and forgiveness to the all, and helping to
bring God’s kingdom on earth to light. To
listen first, yes, but them to act. And I don’t think James meant just
reading more of the Bible, or going to church more than once a week, or making
a personal confession … unless those things are helping you to care for orphans
and widows … unless they are helping you to care for the disconnected in our
society, the defenseless and powerless; unless those things are helping you to
get out of yourself and into the world.
Being Christian
requires us to pay attention to two important questions. First, how can I welcome with
meekness the implanted word that has the power to save my soul? And
then, how do I welcome opportunities to follow that word? How do I live it? We may
be more comfortable in one place or the other, more comfortable listening
rather than doing, or more comfortable doing rather than listening, but we need
to do both. The one without the
other is a dead end.
Listening without doing is navel gazing. Doing without listening tends toward the kingdom of humanity
instead of the kingdom of God.
In a nutshell,
don’t we already know that we’re supposed to do? Feed the hungry. Visit the lonely. Comfort the grieving. Heal the wounded. Work for justice. Seek peace. There are a million different ways to do those things in our
world, and different people have different ideas about how best to go about
making those things happen. Just
pull out the Rochester Wish List or read our newsletter and you’ll find bunches
of opportunities to donate time and talent. Many of you already do – not only through volunteer work,
but also through your vocation!
So, I’m not too worried about finding things to do to help heal a broken
world. But knowing what things we’re
called to tackle involves that first question.
If we don’t
address that first question, how do we ever know that it’s God’s kingdom we’re
building? Without addressing that
first question, how can we expect to have the stamina, or even the will, to do
the second. It’s God’s word
implanted in us that shows us the way.
It’s that word implanted in us that gives us the power to persevere with
hope in a broken world. Without
seeking the word implanted in us, without nurturing the word deep within our
hearts, we will be wandering without a light on the path; our imagination and
our motivation will be clouded by our own desires, biases and misperceptions. We will be lost.
So how do we welcome
with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save our souls? How do
we listen with intention toward God?
Spiritual disciplines can help us there. Earlier this year we had some introduction to several
spiritual disciplines that could be helpful … Christian meditation, or
centering prayer, prayerful drumming, and prayerful movement. But there are other disciplines as
well. Singing, for instance. Chanting has long been a spiritual
practice in monasteries in the eastern and western traditions, and in our
worship. Lectio divina, a
contemplative practice of scripture reading, is another. A group at Two Saints is beginning to
form a Benedictine Cell, a group that will read and discuss the Rule of
Benedict, an early monastic rule that is still followed by monks and nuns in
Benedictine orders today. I’m sure
they would welcome members from St. Stephen’s.
Coming to Sunday
service is great, so keep doing it!
What we do on our own is just as important. What we do individually is our daily bread. It feeds us during the week as we live
from Sunday to Sunday in the world. It feeds us
between those times when we can come to this table together. It grounds us in God.
So I guess I’ve
come full circle in this sermon.
The Southern Baptists had it right … and so did our brother James. We need to both listen and act. Listening leads us into action, and
action leads us back to God in prayer.
It’s creates a beautiful feedback cycle. The one informs the other … as it should be. That is the basis for a Christian life. Love liberates us for God. Faith allows us to trust that
freedom. I hope that we choose to
create space to listen for God in whatever way is best for you … so that when
we hear God whispering the good news of the kingdom in our ears we will hear
it, and not be afraid to act.
Amen
[1] Bubar, Wallace.
The Christian Century, Vol.
129, No. 17, (August 22,
2012). “Living By The Word: Sunday,
September 2, 2012”, pp. 21.
No comments:
Post a Comment