PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” 

― Rumi

“You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up

To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain

When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,

Taking time to open the well of color

That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone

Until its calmness can claim you.” 

― John O’Donohue

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

7 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, ² they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. ³ (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands,^[a] thus observing the tradition of the elders; ⁴ and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it;^[b] and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.^[c]) ⁵ So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live^[d]according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” ⁶ 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;
⁷ in vain do they worship me,
    teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

⁸ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

¹⁴ Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵ there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

²¹ For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, ²² adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³ All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Several years ago, we went on a mission trip to Niagara Falls, NY with some middle school students from Northminster.  It was a great trip where we did a lot of good things.  One thing that we did was paint this guy’s house.  He was great, he was Lebanese and would fix us some amazing food.  One day, he and I started talking about his life and family.  He was living alone in this house, his business had failed a long time ago, and he didn’t have much contact with his family it seemed.  He loved having our students there as it gave him some company.  One day, he demonstrated to us how he prayed, he was Muslim, so he believed that he had to clean himself up before he talked to God.  He showed us the many steps that he took to make himself clean before he could actually pray.  Afterwards, we thanked him for his hospitality and for showing us some of his world.  We got back into the van and headed to where we were staying.  In the van, one student made a great comment as we talked about this man and how lonely he must be.  Alex said something around these lines:  “I’m glad that I don’t have to clean myself up to pray to God, I’m glad that God reaches out to me and we were able to simply be with this guy today, maybe he saw God’s love in us.”.

This is not a story about Islam or the theology of Islam.  If anything, it shows the extreme dedication that this man had.  Yet, this man was lonely and in need of community. 

But, I’m pretty sure that his hospitality made a huge impression on our students, and that there was community happening that day between our middle schools and this older gentleman.  

Our Gospel passage this morning starts with the Pharisees and teachers of the law coming after Jesus and his followers.  They are wondering why the disciples didn’t follow some of the rituals around eating.  They believed that when they were in public places like the market, that they were coming into contact with all sorts of things that would make them unclean, therefore they would have to follow certain procedures in order to eat.  If they didn’t, then they believed that whatever they ate would make them unclean and not acceptable to God.

Jesus’ disciples were beginning to realize that God was much more concerned with loving them as they were…God was interested in building relationship, of hearts being changed by the deep commitment of God to them as a community.  A God who was with people, in the messiness of every day life, a God who could be found much more in a crowded market where there is much life and activity than in empty words that the religious leaders of that day would pronounce…and a God who can be found in the deepest, messiest parts of who we are.

In this passage, we see some rather sarcastic and direct words from Jesus.  Jesus goes on to say that the teachings of the religious leaders are from men, not from God.  God’s commands were to love others and to love God.  Yet, men, religious leaders of the time, had put much more than that on to the people and the people were lonely and lost and looking for meaning.  It’s no wonder that Jesus, and the first disciples, looked to female leadership!  

This is an interesting text as I consider what it means for leadership in the church, and really in general.  

Peter Block says this about leadership:  

“As an individual free to create the world we live in, I carry the cause for how my boss and others respond to and treat me. Once I understand this and stop trying to control them, I can get on with the business of acting on what matters.” 

― Peter Block, The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters

Jesus is, in effect, saying that leadership is not about ritual or control, or even maintaining the status quo.  It is about growth…the growth of others and your own.  Peter is saying something similar here…we are given agency, and we are called to claim that agency.  

All of us are living in Christ, the question is do we cultivate that Presence and attempt to love others as Jesus did and to have agency that is sparked by God’s love for us.  It’s also a passage that reminds me, and all of us, not to get focused so much on what to avoid, but what to run towards that could bring healing, wholeness, and reconciled relationships.  Our passage goes on to say that it’s not what goes into someone that makes them unclean, but what comes out.  Our task as a church is to not avoid welcoming folks in to the church, or into our lives, and to also not avoid welcoming ourselves, or embracing ourselves, all of us, but to love well from the heart of who we are…and our hearts, our lives, are shaped by God’s love that resides deep within all of us and as demonstrated through Jesus.  That doesn’t mean that don’t have hard decisions to make at times, or hard conversations to be involved in, but it does meant that we are called to look at our heart, our motivations.  

If what comes from within us is formed by a radically inclusive, graceful, aware, and insightful love, then we can know that it is from God.  If it’s mean spirited, prideful, full of spite or contempt, fearful, or anxious, it’s simply coming from somewhere else…and my encouragement is when those emotions come up, don’t act on them but be curious and try to remember who you are as image bearer of God.

The work “within” us is much more important that whatever rules or rituals we go through.  I’m not saying rules or rituals are necessarily wrong, but God did not come to give us rules and rituals, but to give us meaning, deep relational meaning, he came to give us God’s self, to give us community.  The working out of that community may involve some rules and rituals, but they should never get in the way of developing a deep sense of relational connection.

We are all called to be disciples, to be church leaders, to be friends…and to do the hard but meaningful work of cultivating what is emerging within us in order to love the world around us….and, friends, after being around this church, I know that this is truly at the heart of who we are! 

It is appropriate that we are reminded as we do communion that God is within us and around us, that God gave God’s self through Jesus and calls us to remember that we are his body, and that we receive life from God.