09/03/2024
3, September AD 2024
The Reverend Robert R.M. Bagwell+
Proper 17 + Year B
Restoration Pointe Church (Anglican)
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9 Psalm 15
James 1:17-27 Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. How many of you have ever heard that statement? You probably don’t hear it as much now as once you did. There was a time, not that long ago that it was desirable culturally to reflect the values of Almighty God: a God of order and not confusion as the scriptures tell us. Do you know where the statement comes from? Well, thank the Methodists. It comes from a sermon of John Wesley (an Anglican Priest all of his life) who said:
“let it be observed, that slovenliness is not part of religion: that neither this, nor any text of Scripture condemns neatness of apparel. Certainly this is a duty, not a sin. “Cleanliness is, indeed, next to godliness.’”
But did washing your hands make you really like God? In the days of Jesus, the Jewish people were known for being extremely clean. They had rituals involving purity that grew out of their religion. When a person would go out and work in the world, before eating, the individual would wash to prepare for a religious act...eating. Their hands were associated with daily life. On the other hand, food that has been specially prepared and blessed is a holy gift from God, so all faithful Jews who wished to partake of such food needed to wash their hands in order to get rid of the common secularity in daily life and make their hands ritually pure and sacred for God. The idea of consecrating, that is setting apart everything for God seems very strange to us, but it shouldn’t. We are called upon to give “ourselves, our souls and bodies” to God according to the words we use at the Holy Communion. When I was a child, I was taught by some very wonderful old saints who said things like: “for the Christian, all ground is holy ground; every bush is a burning bush.” It’s true you know. Where ever we go, whatever we do, if we are followers of Jesus Christ, he goes with us. The New Testament pictures us as “traveling shrines” like those road side crosses that we may see in Europe. I guess then, this hand washing thing was ostensibly for a good purpose at least the motives are noble. What’s the problem? Why is Jesus hassling these good religious people? Because they had substituted religion for faith.
What is religion anyway? We may call Christianity and Judaism “religions” but they are not technically so. “Religion” is a system that assumes a sharp division between the sacred and the secular. “Religion” is based on believing that there is one area of reality called the sacred, about which God really cares , but there is another area of reality called the secular, about which God less concerned. It is very important that we do the right things in the sacred realm, but if we mess up in the secular realm, it doesn't matter as much. The main thing, however, is not to mix the secular and the sacred. One way you can avoid mixing the two is by engaging in religious rituals in which you symbolically clean the secular off in preparation for the sacred. Things that are secular are okay to indulge in, but if you want to come to God, you have to get rid of your association with the secular.
The Big Lie of religion is that God only cares about what we do in front of him in our official capacity at worship on the outside, but he doesn't really care as much about what we do behind his back or think on the inside. “Boys will be boys” religion thinks God says, just as long as he gets his sacrifice or attendance at a function or his money in the plate.
Can we see the radical separation between two worlds? why the Jewish authorities had such a hard time accepting that God would become “secular” in the incarnation of Jesus we celebrate at Christmass? They were obsessed with what we might call the “letter of the Law” rather than the “spirit of the Law.”
Notice that in “religion” the focus is on what we supposedly do for God. However, in the Jewish and Christian faiths, our focus is on what God does for humanity, what he offers his lost creation: love, life and above all the great gift of becoming children of the God of the Universe, the privilege of calling God, “Father.” RELATIONSHIP not religion was the breakthrough revelation. All of our sacraments, our rituals, even our prayers either explicitly or implicitly presume God’s desire to act on behalf of our needs. Their purpose is to change our attitudes and motives so that our actions are from faith in and not from fear of God. If this is true, then what becomes of our rituals? Our rituals become ways to express our faith in God instead of ways to impress, not ways in which we come closer to God, but ways in which God's closeness to us is made more clear.
This is why James can write in his Epistle :”You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” (James 4:2 & 3)
Wrong motives: We come here to the heart of the matter. Have you ever known someone’s whose religious practice made you feel like a lesser person, someone unworthy and you felt subtly judged by their attitudes and actions? When I was a child there were many things in the fundamentalist community at the religious school that I attended into which I had been enculturated . These were inevitably consisted of externals but we were taught that these externals taught us how to judge people. These were things like: Of course Jesus didn’t make alcoholic wine and people who drink are probably not Christians and if they are, they are sinful; or perhaps, People who listen to secular music or dance are probably not Christians; or out inner filters reason. Women who have really short stylish hair or guys who have long hair are probably not Christians...and on and on and on. No it wasn’t an AMISH SCHOOL! Name a subject: movies, literature, athletics, friends, makeup, fashion: there was always a reason that those people weren’t pleasing God. If I liked those things, I must not be pleasing to God either and I’d better not let anyone know, I might be kicked out of the community! Ah, the woes of fundamentalism! There is even an organization today called “fundamentalists anonymous” to help people get over the guilt and scarring!
I don’t know if any of you can relate to any of this but it certainly gave God a bad reputation. He became the cosmic moral customs inspector just waiting for one of those who were trying to please him to trip up so he could yell out “ah-ha!”As long as you kept to the letter of the law, you were all right. I would not be surprised if that group down in North Attleboro that we’ve been hearing about has some similar views. All do’s and don’ts and a very separatistic view of God and life denies why Jesus actually became human! Dwelling on externals to the exclusion of motive quickly becomes religion and not faith. I am so grateful to the Church for clearer insights and a merciful view of God consistent with the scriptures.
Motive is why we can say that “God loves a cheerful giver”. Why not just say, “God loves a giver”? Because motive, attitude, understanding all matter to God. The Christian or Jewish faiths were never given so that one could hold them over the heads of others in mockery because one side had it and the other did not.
The most important principal Jesus gives us is this: " Nothing outside a man can make him `unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him `unclean.' " For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man `unclean.'" Do you see what Jesus is saying? It doesn’t matter what we do or don’t do on the outside. It is what we are on the inside that comes out, that counts with God to make us better or worse in his sight.. Do we think we can trick God, hide our thoughts and motives from him?
Listen Church of God, St. Peter wrote, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? “(I Peter 4:17 & 18)
We must decide ourselves about our thoughts words and actions now, every day, and especially when we are here in these walls where Christ’s sacramental presence is kept, or how can we say to the world: “Jesus is God’s answer to your problems? We are called of God to use his weapons and armor, those that St. Paul tells of in his reading today: truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation and the Word of God; prayer and perseverence. We use these on ourselves and the devil and an amazing thing will happen to us, we will find rest for our souls and a peace in living that we have never known. The collect asks God to “increase in us true religion.” This is it: when our worship, our sacraments and our motives are a response to God because of who he is and because of what he has done for us.
