St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church
3800 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
(812) 332-5252
Sermon for The Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost (September 3, 2006)
Liturgical Color: Green
Reverend Doctor Lyle E. McKee
"Where is the Good News?"
Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Well, now. The gospel for today one of those passages that gets the juices flowing. We like hearing from Jesus about forgiveness and grace—what we know as the center and the essence of the gospel. We like feeling good about ourselves when we come to worship. We need to be filled and fed and provided with a word we can use in our life during the week.
So, where is that word here? It is a challenge, and for me a bit of fun, to find the gospel in the midst of difficult passages like this one.
The first thing that needs to be said about this bit of Mark's gospel is that the church has misused it for too long. It has been turned into an excuse to judge others—especially the Jews; and it has helped to foster a lot of hatred—anti-Semitism. That, of course, is simply not appropriate for a gospel of love. You've heard me say such things before.
And I know I'm preaching to the choir here. This congregation, some of you may not know, served as host to congregation Beth Shalom in the 1980s when their facility was fire-bombed. So this space has seen worship also by the people of Israel, and I am proud to know of this historic act of hospitality. I was even asked this week to pose for a picture with Rabbi Mira Wasserman in commemoration of that event.
But back to the text: Jesus is not speaking to the Pharisees and the scribes out of hatred, but out of concern and love. His words to them are not meant to be used by us to judge others who may share some characteristic or other of theirs. The words of Jesus are meant to be heard by them and by us, as if spoken directly to whoever is willing to listen. For, in truth, they judge us as surely as they do any ancient Pharisee or modern Jew. Don't they? If we're honest?
Of course, they do. Listen, and hear the words Jesus speaks to you:
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition...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.
Shame on any who hear these words and look beyond themselves. And shame on the church for using them—words spoken to inspire the heart to devotion—as weapons to oppress.
It is true for all of us, as hard and uncomfortable as it may be to hear, that evil comes from the intention in our hearts; and it is the intention that keeps us from doing God's will. Jesus is preaching to us this morning about our intentions, about the nature of our hearts, about what God now looking deep within us sees in the recesses of our most inward parts.
It feels an awful lot like judgment. Who among us can withstand such scrutiny? Who is without sin, mixed emotion and motive, and sometimes evil intention? Who has a heart that is not, in some way, far from our Lord?
None. We can answer unhesitatingly that there is no one who is so worthy, pure, or spotless. Except, of course, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. None but Jesus can make such a claim. And it is in his righteousness alone that we all have the hope of the gospel that calls us to eternal life.
So where is the gospel—the good news—in this passage?
I believe there are two ways to find the gospel. The first, we've already seen. When we live into this conversation between ancient Jews and Jesus (himself, remember, a Jew), we discover one of the most important truths of the gospel. We have no merit of our own. We cannot be redeemed by attempting to follow a bunch of laws that lead us into ever more complicated processes of trying to cleanse ourselves. Such behavior is futile, destructive, self-defeating, and only a feeble way of trying to justify ourselves.
This is not a bad bit of truth in itself, but it is not enough to give us the help we need to live.
There is another and deeper gospel word for us here, in the midst of all the judgment. Discipleship.
Jesus is calling the Pharisees, the scribes, and us to make our actions consistent with our words As James puts it:
"be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves."
Mark speaks of hypocrites and quotes Isaiah:
"This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."
Hearing is easy. It's doing that's tough. Hearing, knowing what to do, is not as important as doing what you know to do.
Jesus never asked his hearers, "Do you agree with me?" or "Does this sound reasonable to most of you?" or "Get my drift?" Jesus wanted more than mere agreement. Most of the time they called Jesus "Teacher," but he is about far more than the mere inculcation of knowledge. What Jesus said was, "Follow me."
He was after discipleship, not simple intellectual agreement. Perhaps that's why we tend to turn the gospel into some kind of intellectual problem. Upon hearing scripture, we tend to ask, "Now, how could that have happened?" Or, "Now let me think about that." But scripture doesn't just want to be understood. It longs to be put into action. So maybe that's why we step back, ponder, think, consider, reflect when the Bible longs for us to get moving, get into the act, perform the text rather than just speak or hear it.
"Years ago I remember discussing with a group of lay people what they looked for in a good sermon. "I like a sermon which helps me to think about things in a new way," was a predominate response. "I like a sermon which engages my mind, which spurs my thinking and reflection."
For a while, that sounded good to me. After all, I like to preach interesting, engaging, thoughtful sermons--when I can! Yet the more I thought about it, I wondered if their responses were not quite right. There really is something about us that loves to think that all worship is about is sitting, listening, taking in.
Is this why today's texts link our inaction to deceit? 'Be doers of the word, not hearers only who deceive themselves.' 'Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites.' Some kind of link is being made here between our inaction, our inability to put the word into motion, and lying." (Willimon)
We deceive ourselves into thinking that we have done the faith when we have merely listened, reflected, pondered, agreed. What we profess is not as important as what we are able to perform. Beliefs, right beliefs, must be embodied, enacted in order to be real.
Sometimes I've heard people say of church on Sunday morning, "I think of church as a filling station. I come here empty, and during the service I get filled so I can make it through the week." Such thinking is passive and receptive, not active. It makes church into a place where we come, sit back and say, "OK preacher, choir, organist, do it to me; fill me up."
No. The test for good worship, the mark of a good church is not what we do here, during this hour of worship; it's what we do outside the doors of the church for the rest of the week. Yet here, as elsewhere, after all is said and done, more is said than done.
The world may be right in judging the truth of the gospel on the basis of the sort of lives the gospel is able to produce. Do we really look like the God whom we praise here on Sunday morning? Have our songs and prayers changed us, made us into what we profess?
We know that any sermon which is "seen," in deeds of love and justice, is more effective than one which is only spoken and heard. How many people have been turned off with the church, have gone away from Jesus, because they have been hurt or scandalized by the actions or lack of action on the part of those who profess to follow Jesus?
So the sermon ends. The test for the sermon, the mark of whether or not this was a "good" sermon, a "good" service of worship, is about to come upon us. You already agree with the sermon-I hope. You already understand the biblical text for today-I trust. But agreement and understanding are not the problem.
The issue is now before us. And now for the final question: What will we do with that which we have said, sung, and heard?
"Pastor, that was a wonderful sermon," said the parishioner at the door after the service.
"That remains to be seen," said the preacher.
Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts
and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord, unto eternal life.
Amen.
