The Thirteenth Sunday
after Pentecost, August 30, 2009 (Proper 17B)
True Religion
James 1:17-27; Mark
7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23.
The Rev. Robert B.
Wood, St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, Alpharetta, Georgia
We began our opening
prayer with an interesting phrase: Increase in us true religion.
What indeed is true religion? As opposed to (what’d I’d guess is)
false religion. False religion might be worshiping lesser gods, as
Fr. Joe described the Israelites doing in his sermon last week. False
religion could also be proclaiming one thing (like honesty) and doing
another—deceit. Or it could be attending to superficial practices
while ignoring core practices.
True religion,
therefore, would mean putting into practice what we believe and
profess. St. James would call it “being doers of the word, not just
hearers,” which would mean things like not just saying the words ‘thy
kingdom come, thy will be done,’ but by finding ways every day to
practice kingdom behavior.
I’ve always taken
‘religion’ to mean something like that: practicing faith--how our
beliefs in here (hearts) manifest themselves into action
out here—in our worship, in the community and world, and
maybe most importantly actions when no one else is watching.
The Bible has many
examples of true religion. When the good Samaritan helped the
battered traveler, it was a religious act: loving neighbor. When the
poor woman put her last two pennies in the offering, it was a
religious act: she was practicing her faith.
This morning, St. James
and St. Mark both chime in on practicing ‘religion’ as if on cue.
Mark’s comments come as Jesus butts head with the Pharisees, who are
trying to defend a traditional religious practice of hand washing.
James’ teaching sounds just like a lecture as he point-blank defines
‘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.”
Interestingly, there is
nothing in that statement about believing in Jesus; instead, it is
about doing something, practicing belief to show the implanted word
has taken root within. Specifically, James talks about caring for
others in their distress: particularly widows and orphans, the ones
most vulnerable in his society because they lacked the income and
protection of a man, the male bread-winner as was the cultural norm of
the time. This call to action was not about tending to grief (which
of course is important), but instead tending to their financial and
physical distress; often homelessness, extreme poverty, and for an
orphan, maybe servitude.
James also says true
religion is being “unstained from the world.” It’s about as easy to
keep off the world’s stains as it is for a smockless, finger-painting
kindergartener to keep his clothes clean. Life is full of
stain-makers—external ones, as James suggests, that threaten true
religion. But what about the threats from within?
Really and truly, we
cannot live our lives as if the threats to true religion are only
external—that we have some pure heart that can be kept clean from the
world by some religious smock—or as the Pharisees say, by keeping
one’s hands clean so no impurities go in the body. They are not
talking about singing happy birthday to each hand for some type of
biological cleanliness. They believe hand washing leads to spiritual
purity. With noses turned up, they accuse Jesus of impurity of hands
and a stained religion because he does not practice the tradition of
the elders.
As the Pharisees try to
claim ownership of true religion, Jesus responds with a sharp rebuke
and quotes the prophet Isaiah: “these people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me, in vain to the worship me….You
[Pharisees] abandon the commandment of God and hold to human
tradition.’ Our modern cliché for his point: you Pharisees are
majoring in the minors. You Pharisees have taken a minor tradition of
the elders and are holding it in higher esteem than the major
teachings of God, better known as the 10 commandments.
Jesus then gives a list
of true impurities. As he rattles off the stain-makers that defile
(internal sins, you’ll note, not external) he does not quote the 10
commandments per se, but he paraphrases most of them: theft (from
thought shall not steal); murder (from that shalt not commit murder);
adultery (from thou shalt not commit adultery). Those are clearly
from the 10 commandments.
Slander and deceit, he
says. These can be tied to the false witness command. The stains of
avarice, envy, fornication: these can be tied to commandment number
ten—‘thou shalt not covet’. Pride—really tied to any one of the
commandments because through pride, we subordinate God and put
ourselves first. It’s pretty easy to see how these ‘evil intentions’
from within (as Jesus calls them) defile the world much more than
dirty hands.
The problem is that
wickedness, envy, avarice and pride are internal stains much harder to
see, more easily hidden, than external dirty hands. Yet
interestingly, they are more easily seen in others than they are in
ourselves—thus increasing hypocrisy rather than true religion. If we
could only look in a mirror for these stains more often that we look
for them in our neighbors.
A mirror. We usually
use them to make ourselves look better—when trying on clothes, or
combing hair, applying make-up, checking for pimples. Mirrors are
wonderful for personal examination—literally and metaphorically. St.
James takes the metaphorical route in his teaching on religion.
He says, “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.”
Immediately forget what
they are like. Forget they have problems. Forget they have stains.
Or forget, as the Pharisees did, that true religion is not just
hearing, not just telling others about their stains, but examining
self first and “doing” your religion by honoring God with our hearts,
not just our lips.
When we pray, ‘increase
in us true religion,’ we are also saying, ‘cleanse us from the
corruption of our hearts. Decrease in us hypocrisy, lip-service
religion. Help us to be practicers of religion, doers of religion.’
You all have seen the
signs in restrooms: ‘employees must wash hands.’ Our lessons from
Mark and James today give us a different sign: ‘Christians must wash
hearts.’ I do sort of wish that those Pharisees had not asked about
washing hands because we all know it’s easier to keep clean hands than
it is to keep a clean heart! Now the stakes are higher.
“How, Lord, do I wash
pride from my heart? How do I wash away envy? I feel them there. I
can be envious of someone’s car, or grades, or beauty, or children. I
can be prideful that I deserve more, am worth more. I know Lord that
those sins break the 10 commandments, but more importantly, they break
my relationship with you. Help me, God. “Increase in me true
religion, free from pride, free from envy. Help me do things that are
kind, not wicked. Help me do things that are generous, not full of
greed and avarice.”
Most of us are not
murders, of course, yet we can do things to improve the life of
others—give a little life to them. Most of us are not thieves and
adulterers, taking, touching what is not ours, yet we can always be
better at honoring and caring for the possessions and
relationships of others. By now, you get the drift. For every
stain-making sin listed by Jesus, there is a cleansing opposite, a
good thing that can come from within and strengthen a person.
What is that opposite,
and how can you practice it? The answer may not come to you
immediately, so try this: Take your inserts home this week. Say the
collect about increasing true religion daily. Use the words of James
and Mark as a mirror of self-reflection. Spend some time praying and
thinking about this list in Mark—about folly, deceit, fornication,
envy, pride—not where they are out there in the world, staining
someone else’s hands, but where they are in your life—whatever the
form.
Where you find pride, go
(as they say in the South) and get religion and reverse it with
humility. Where you find slander, get religion and wash it away with
supportive talk. Where you find any of them, discern the opposite
action—and live that instead.
And pray. The mirror is
not always easy to look into. But you will also see in the mirror,
one created by God, one created for good works, one who has been
redeemed. One who, by the Grace of God, can major in the majors,
bring forth the fruit of good works, not just in lip service, but in
heart service—becoming a doer of the word, not just a hearer.
True religion hard to
come by. It is certainly not built by self alone, but by grace,
through prayer, and by doing the faith we profess with our lips.
©
Fr. Robert B. Wood. All Rights
reserved.
