Sermon for the 1st of September - Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Lectionary Readings for the Fourteenth Sunday of Trinity

Deuteronomy 4:1–2, 6–9

So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you. You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!’ For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children.

Mark 7:1–8, 14; 15; 21–23

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of Jesus's disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles). 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?’

Jesus said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines. You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

Then he 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.’

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday of Trinity

So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you.

You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!’

Take care...so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children—

A friend of mine, some time ago, was pushing her lunch tray patiently along the counter to the cashier at the end. Somehow, an awkward move of her elbow knocked over her water glass, inundating the entire contents of what she had just set on the tray. As she surveyed the damage in front of the young man at the cash register, she sighed ruefully, commenting, "Ah, sorry---it does look a little like Noah's Flood!" But as she looked up at him she realised that there was an utterly blank look on his face--- he had no idea what she was talking about. Any reference to Noah's Flood had no meaning for him.

We in this place this morning may forget that the content of the Bible stories we grew up with is unknown to more and more younger people today---not only Noah's Flood, but Adam and Eve, Joseph and His Coat of Many Colours, David and Goliath, The Good Samaritan, The Prodigal Son---the names of these stories of our faith (and the timeless truths they convey) evoke no recognition, indeed---no response at all--- because they were not taught, not handed down.

And for those of us who are sitting here this morning, I think we would all regard this as a clear and certain loss.

Even the language of the Christian faith, embedded in the texts we consider sacred Scripture, reverently handed down over the centuries---a deep and rich repository of words that have a particular reference and a particular meaning---even the language of faith has dropped out of use. For a long time now, our modern culture has disapproved, especially, of a certain group of these words, words that make us uncomfortable. Among these words are sin, repentance, penance, redemption (or even more, salvation).

Even though we may draw back from these words because we feel that they convey a sense of judgement and intended guilt, we discard them at our peril.

I was struck by what one of my favourite writers and preachers, Barbara Brown Taylor, had to say about this in a book she wrote, called Speaking of Sin: The Lost Language of Salvation.

Taylor writes: Abandoning the language of sin will not make sin go away. Human beings will continue to experience alienation, deformation, damnation, and death no matter what we call them. Abandoning the language will simply leave us speechless before them, and increase our denial of their presence in our lives. Ironically, it will also weaken the language of grace, since the full impact of forgiveness cannot be felt apart from the full impact of what has been forgiven.

We might think of the prodigal son of the Biblical story, who knew he had squandered the inheritance before he returned, ready to fall at the feet of his father. He was able to receive the kiss of his father with weeping and an embrace.

The full power of forgiveness cannot come without the recognition of our own part in wrongdoing, or sin.

Many currents have swept together in our modern world to diminish the use of these words in the language of faith.

I was just in the Tate Britain Gallery yesterday, in the hall that displays some of the paintings in the remarkable Pre-Raphaelite collection there. Among them are three by Augustus Leopold Egg, who lived a block away from St. George's Church in Little Campden House when he exhibited them in 1858. The paintings are entitled Past and Present, and make up a narrative sequence: in the centre painting, a letter is discovered by the husband revealing the extramarital liaison of his wife, the mother of the household. She has flung herself full-length on the living room floor as he holds up the letter, the two young daughters looking on in wonder. The left-hand painting reveals the two daughters comforting one another in an attic room, some months later, while the right-hand painting depicts the mother, cast out, living in destitution under a viaduct, cradling the child born of the illicit union. These paintings have become a famous parable of the judgement of Victorian society on the misconduct of women who transgress its boundaries.

We would not want to go back to this kind of societal judgement and the punishment it exacted, I think. And when the word "sin" has come to single out acts that can be separated and labelled in a neat, detachable way, such as drinking and dancing were for some branches of the church in the last century, we rightly avoid the word.

But what words have come to replace sin, repentance, penance, and redemption?

Our culture now prefers to substitute the language of medicine and law. The problem is, that when we replace the concept of sin with the concept of illness and the concept of penance with the concept of serving time in the criminal justice system we discover that we have exchanged a deeply nuanced language for a much shallower one, one with very different implications.

Sin has many dimensions: we tend to individualise everything, but the Hebrew Bible has at least three different words for this concept of wilful separation from God. All have to do with our rejection of the fullness of life God intends for us. And in all of them is a strong acknowledgment that even a presumably individual action inevitably has consequences for the community and for the nation.

We are able to choose our response to whatever dilemma we find ourselves in. In theological language, the choice to remain in a wrecked relationship with God (Taylor's term) and other human beings is called sin. The choice to enter into the

process of repair is called repentance, a decision to return to relationship as a way of life that enhances the life of all the members of our community.

And penance? Most of us surround ourselves with material goods. We might choose to select some of those things we cannot imagine living without to give to someone who would never be able even to dream of having them. We could go to a deprived neighbourhood and spend some time gardening in a park where public funds have clearly not provided enough help.

And redemption? God's grace gives us the strength to begin the work of transformation, which is what it means to be redeemed. That strength can come in and from this place, the church.

In Taylor's words: The church exists so that God has a community in which to save people from meaninglessness, by reminding them who they are and what they are for. The church exists so that God has a place to point people toward a purpose as big as their capabilities, and to help them identify all the ways they flee from that high call. The church exists so that people have a community in which they may confess their sin--their own turning away from life, whatever form that destructiveness may take for them---as well as a community that will support them to turn back again. The church exists so that people have a place where they may repent of their fear, their hardness of heart, their isolation and loss of vision, and where---having repented--- they may be restored to fullness of life.

Sin, penitence, penance, redemption. These are Biblical words, theological words. Words that the words of law or psychology or medicine cannot replace.

Our faith, this precious inheritance that has been handed down to us over generations, through the centuries, has much to give us. A fuller, richer, redeemed life in which we are constantly being drawn back to God and all that he intends for us. But the faith must be taught; its language must be understood. We are responsible for that handing on, that handing down. As we engage in the day-to-day business of living, may we not forget to teach the truths of our faith to those who do not know them. It is a challenge, but also a great and grace-filled opportunity.

Much depends on it.

May God give us the grace to embrace it!