Inside Out

A Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Paul Debenport

August 30, 2009

+     +     +

Hear the Word of God to us from today’s lectionary texts, first from James 1: 19—27:

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. …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

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.

And from today’s Gospel text from Mark 7: 1—8, 14—15, 21—23:

Now when the Pharisees and scribes gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.  … 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 its 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.’ Then Jesus

 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.”

The Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

+     +     +

          “Food fight!” actor John Balushi screams with maniacal glee in the old movie Animal House—words that set off mayhem in the college cafeteria—not unlike the words the Pharisees hurled at Jesus:  “Why do your disciples eat with unwashed hands instead of following the ancient and holy traditions?”  This sounds innocent enough, but it’s equally incendiary.  It’s not a question, but an accusation that sets Jesus off on an angry, verbal “food fight” covering a confusing variety of topics from the purity laws to the foibles of the human heart.  But as the vice-principal of my high school would say when breaking up a rumble in the school parking lot, “OK, boys, what this fight all about?”[1]

          It’s about hypocrisy, of course, and what is really important to God.  It’s about making an A+ in religion and flunking life as God intends it.  It’s about keeping our hands ritually washed, while being up to our elbows in evil.  It’s not about purifying our hands, but our hearts. 

Now the Pharisees know that we live our lives inside out, from the heart, and that our hearts can be so far from God’s heart that all kinds of evil comes out, as we heard.  So the Pharisees created rules upon rules to try to keep a dark heart in check.  The Pharisees’ problem, though, was that they lost the forest for the trees.  They became so into doing everything right, that they forgot about doing the right thing.  Clearly to Jesus, they had forgotten that the rules were there for the sake of the heart, not that the heart was to be devoted to the rules.  Jesus knew that when it comes to practicing our faith, we always must work from the inside out, from our hearts, but that we must let God “create in us clean hearts,” to quote the Psalmist.  Thus, our hearts must constantly be closer and closer aligned with God’s heart.[2]

But what’s going on in God’s heart?  How do we honor God’s heart?  And to get some kind of handle on that, we look to scripture.  Here’s what I’ve found:

From the beginning, God’s heart is the heart of the ultimate artist.  God’s heart creates beauty, which elicits joy, wonder, and awe.  The cosmos, the sun, the moon, the “stars also” flung out in Genesis.  Indeed “the world and all that is therein” —the songs of the wind, of the birds, and of us, all reveal the wondrously artistic and wildly generous heart of God.

Secondly, the God of Israel was never much impressed with the way we measure wealth or power, because, all the gold and silver belong to God anyway.  No, God’s heart seems more moved by deeper, less shiny things.  When God saw the oppression of God’s people in Egypt, who had no dignity, no freedom, no hope, God’s heart was moved and God delivered them.  Samuel’s mother, Hannah, who had lost all hope of ever having a child, sang:  “God raises up the poor from the dust, and lift up the needy from the ash heap.  Those who were hungry are hungry no more; the woman who was barren, now has seven children.”  And hear God’s heart-ache through the prophet Isaiah:  “Let the oppressed go free; share your bread with the hungry; bring the homeless poor into your house; cover up the naked; be reconciled to your own kin.”  Yes, God may love everyone equally, but, clearly, God’s heart is especially touched by those who have suffered great losses.

And it’s the same with Jesus—God in the flesh, the clearest revelation of God’s heart.  Remember Jesus’ very first sermon?  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor, release to the captive, and new sight to the blind.”  In other words, these are the kinds of things that happen when God’s heart is being honored.  Remember, too, how Jesus turned over the tables in the temple?  He didn’t do that because they were selling things on the Sabbath, but because the sacrifice system had gotten so corrupt that poor people were excluded from their process to get reconciled with God.  And contrary to a lot of purity rules then, Jesus hung out with and ate with all kinds of people the religious folk disdained:  tax collectors, traitors, women, children, and scary sick people, considered sinners in God’s sight, or at least in theirs.  But God’s heart was wider than theirs, as Jesus’ made clear in this food fight.

Jesus’ point, of course, is that if you’re going to line up your heart with God’s heart, then your heart will be especially moved by loss and you’ll be moved to do something about it.  The apostle James makes this point equally clear:  “religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”  Throughout scripture, and most clearly in the words and actions of Jesus which line up perfectly, God’s heart is moved most for the folks on the bottom looking up, and the outside looking in.  In a word, God’s heart is all compassion, for the people most bruised by life, for those experiencing great losses:  loss of hope, dignity, health, and even life itself.  The Pharisees with whom Jesus was having this food fight had a lot of right words, but their actions didn’t match, for their hearts weren’t aligned with God’s heart. 

+      +      +

So what about us?  Me, you, our the church?  Where’s our heart?  When we read the newspaper each day, or watch the news, do we ask ourselves “Where’s God’s heart in all this?”  Thus where should my heart be?  And how can I/we act from the inside out, from the heart, the compassionate heart of God?

There are always current issues where God’s heart and ours need to be applied.  Here and now, anyway, there’s a rowdy food fight going on about health care—about who gets how much for how much and how’s it to be paid for.  In the pushing and shoving we see and hear every evening on the news, do you ask yourself “Where’s God’s heart in all this?  And where’s mine?  And what can/should I try to do about it?  And in decisions we must make here at the church about applying our recession shrinking resources, do we ask ourselves “Where’s Jesus’ heart in all this?  Where’s mine?  Ours? And what can/should I try to do about it?”  

As we hear God’s heart-felt Word today, let God’s heart lead your heart, and mine, and ours, that we may follow it straight into God’s re-creation of the new day.

Thank God for the compassionate heart of God.  

Amen.