Live

 MARK 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Rev. Taylor Boone

 

PRAYER: Come, Jesus Christ. We want to live life fully and joyfully. Please come and show us how this may be accomplished, Open our hearts, minds, and souls that we might hear and understand what you have to say to us today. AMEN.

 

INTRODUCTION: What is going on in our world? Can you believe the on air murder of the newswoman and her cameraman in Virginia? All these mass shootings in schools and movie theaters? The ugly head of racism being clearly revealed as so many people of color are profiled, pulled over for minor traffic violations, and end up being killed? Are North and South Korea on the verge of war? Seems like everywhere you turn we are hearing reports of evil in one form or another. Why are people so racist, so homophobic, so anti-immigrant, so anti-semantic? Where is all this evil coming from? I contend evil exists because we live. Reverse the letters of Live and what to you find?

 

Jesus said he came so that we might have life and have it abundantly.[1] In the Gospel of John Jesus tells us he is the gatekeeper of the sheepfold where he will protect us, the sheep, from thieves and robbers.[2] The sheepfold is the allegory (or symbol) for us being one with Christ where we are protected from evil. But who are those thieves and robbers who would deny us being one with Christ?

 

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus tells us humanity is the source of this evil--individually, culturally, and systematically. Jesus is not saying some other part of humanity is the source of at least some of the evil.—Jesus is saying all of humanity is the source, and that includes me and you, The Gospel of Matthew includes these same statements, although it is in Mark that humanity is identified directly with evil.[3] This conclusion that humanity is the source of evil is not original with me. Augustine viewed humanity to be so depraved and distorted that we could not distinguish between good and evil and we are often the cause of the misery of other people.[4]

 

By the time we arrive in Chapter Seven (7) of Mark, it seems Jesus has been violating all sort of rules, traditions, or laws. He defiles himself by touching and healing Simons’ mother-in-law in the first chapter.[5] He commits blasphemy by forgiving sins and eats with sinners and tax collectors in Chapter 2.[6] He also allows his disciples to pluck grain on the Sabbath in Chapter 2, and in the beginning of Chapter 3 Jesus heals a person on the Sabbath. And how did the Pharisees respond? They began to conspire to destroy or kill Jesus.[7] Remember what Augustine said: humanity often cannot distinguish between good and evil.

 

When we get to Chapter 7 in Mark, it appears the Pharisees are still hung up with the disciples gathering and eating grain from the fields, eating with defiled or unclean hands contrary to the traditions of the ancestors. Remember that phrase; for me, it is a key to understanding a form of evil.

 

Jesus challenges the people to understand that these rules or traditions of the ancestors are mistaken in regard to what it means to follow the commandments of God. When Jesus talks about a person being defiled, he is ignoring all the cleanliness rules and instead is focusing on the manner in which people relate to God and one another. Jesus says

 

“Don’t’ you see that whatever enters us from outside cannot make us impure? It doesn’t enter our heart, just our stomach . . . .”[8]

 

Jesus continues saying:

 

“It is what comes out of us that makes us unclean. For it is from within—from our hearts—that evil intentions emerge: promiscuity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, obscenity, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evils come from within and make us impure.”[9]

 

If you want to know where evil comes from—Jesus told us—from within us! You can correlate all these evils with some violation of the Ten Commandments. And it was Jesus who said these Commandments can be summarized into two commandments on which all the others hang:

 

          Love God and love neighbor.[10]

 

Why do you think Jesus recited the verse from Isaiah:

 

“These people honor me with their lips,

while their hearts are far from me.

The worship they offer me is worthless,

the doctrines they teach are only human precepts.”[11]

 

What can we learn from the confrontation Jesus had with the Pharisees? Is it really possible for the followers of Jesus Christ “to honor God with their lips while their hearts are far from Christ?” Hear again what Jesus said to them:

 

“You disregard God’s commandments and cling to human traditions.”[12]

 

Jesus is referring to the statements by the Pharisees who want to know why Jesus allows his disciples to not follow the traditions of the elders or ancestors.[13] Jesus makes it very clear that the traditions of the ancestors were not compatible with the commandments of God.

 

Traditions by themselves are not necessarily evil. In fact, in the theology of the United Methodist Church, tradition is one of the means by which a person is called to make decisions in following Christ: it’s called the quadrilateral.[14] Scripture is primary, to be understood in terms of tradition, reason, and experience.[15]

 

But far too often traditions become ways to live which are evil and which humanity does not challenge because it has become the accepted norm. We see this vividly in the study of family and cultural systems. Does anyone here condone violence or abuse of any form within a marriage, a home, or a culture? And yet we see over and over again how family abuse is passed on from one generation to another because the next generation accepted abuse as the norm, even a form of love. In effect, we become blind to evil.

 

It was in fact the blindness of the Pharisees to the misunderstanding of their traditions that Jesus was challenging. Jesus goes to the primary directive: love God and love neighbor. The Pharisees were basing their challenges on traditions and interpretations of the Priestly and Holiness Codes found in the Book of Leviticus, which established ways of living in relationship to God. Many of these traditions or rules I believe were based on the accepted culture of the times and were not necessarily based on the commandments.[16] Over time, the traditions or culture became more important than the commandments of love.

 

I believe this is why we still grapple with racism, homophobia, elitism, and all the other isms that separate us. Passages of Scripture have been misunderstood and redefined by traditions that do not support love but instead suffering. And what about all the other traditions we do not even realize cause others to suffer. We become part of systems that create tragic evil. How is it that we can live in one of the wealthiest countries (if not the wealthiest per capita) and we do not confront the evils of mass murder, mass incarceration especially of minorities, homelessness, capital punishment, hunger, child and spouse abuse, and so on?

 

So, how do we go about confronting evil in our lives—individually, culturally, and systematically? Don’t we first have to recognize that we are separated from God, neighbor, and even ourselves?

 

And we cannot overcome evil by ourselves! All the self-help books, DVDs, etcetera will not do it. As Augustine wrote, it is through God’s grace and only God’s grace that we can overcome evil. And God’s grace is defined as unconditional love for us and all of God’s creation.

 

How then do we grow in God’s grace to that we can live without being controlled by evil; so that instead of evil we love?

 

Obviously, the first step is to want to LIVE and to LOVE. I contend that a person can grow in grace through Christian spiritual formation. So you ask, what is Christian spiritual formation? I am a graduate of the Academy for Spiritual Formation, and our most accepted definition is[17]:

 

“Spiritual formation is the life-long process of being constantly transformed by God’s love into the image of Christ for the sake of others and the world. 

 

A brief description of each of the definition’s phrases helps to unpack it a bit:

 

A life-long process – the understanding of spiritual formation as an ongoing journey.  The formation occurs slowly over time, throughout our lives and is not limited to a destination or goal.  The journey itself is the destination.

 

of being constantly transformed by God’s love – our formation is something we participate in and cooperate with but it is not something we can do for ourselves.  It comes from a deepening awareness of and immersion in God’s abiding love and presence.  God does the transforming.  We are not in control and should not try to control it – only wake up to it and pay attention.

 

into a Christ-like person – the wholeness and completeness of Christ’s character exhibited in the unique individual God created each of us to be.  We become like Christ as God confronts and heals us of our areas of woundedness.

 

for the sake of others – we are transformed into Christ-like persons not for our own fulfillment but in order to be agents of God’s grace in a hurting world.  This occurs primarily in our relationships with God, ourselves, others, and creation.”[18]

 

You may ask how does a person begin this life-long process? Well, when we join the United Methodist Church we begin by making a commitment to support the church with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness.[19] We further this commitment by study, reflection, piety, and service. As United Methodists, we are guided by rules by which to live called the General Rules developed by John Wesley:

 

 Do no harm;

Always do good;

Center yourself in Christ.[20]

 

You may say how can we alone change the world? First, we must remember, we are not alone. Christ is with us and there are followers throughout the world. While I was on vacation recently, I drove through one of the largest living organisms in the world—an aspen forest. Where once there was a barren mountainside, now there is literally miles of forest that expanded one tree at a time. My daughter and her husband who live in Colorado planted a small aspen tree in their yard and within two years there are already four-five more aspen trees. Is not one of the calls on our lives as followers of Christ is to share the Good News of love in thought, word, and action wherever we go?

 

One of the goals of the planning process of Holy Conversations here at Travis Park has been to identify areas in which we need to grow as a church, and Spiritual Formation was identified as one of the most important needs of our community. So you can expect opportunities to be developed and offered whereby we can continue this process of being transformed into the image of Christ for the sake of others and the world.

 

Yes, there is evil in the world. Some created by other people, some created by you and me, and some of which we are a part and do not realize it. Part of the Good News is that Christ came that we might truly live and live abundantly by, in, and through God’s grace. So, if you remember nothing else from this message remember these three words:

 

                                      Live---Evil---Love.

 

To live is to know evil and to overcome evil is to love. We can learn to love because it is God who first loves us.

AMEN.