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Sermon September 2, 2018
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, LSW
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 17, track 1
http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Pentecost/BProp17_RCL.html
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’ Mark 7:8
…there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’ Mark 7:15
I love to hang my clothes out to dry. Having clotheslines is one of the joys of living where I do. I love the smell of clothes and even the scratchy towels. I certainly did not learn this from my mother, who I never saw hang clothes out. I think it started when I was a young mother in an apartment complex with a laundry room and lots of clotheslines. I could save some money by drying my clothes outside.
And I have particular ways I hang the clothes out. First there is the way I take the clothes out of the washer. I put “like” clothes together, for instance. Yes, there is a way I put my wet laundry into the laundry basket to take it out to the lines.
Then I hang it in a certain fashion. Since I don’t have any clothesline poles that lift the line up higher, I need to put the towels at the one end of the line so they don’t touch the grass. Then I group clothes by where they go once they are folded and put away. And of course there are some clothes that you can string together, saving on use of clothespins.
And then when I take the clothes off the line, I immediately fold them and put them in the basket in a particular way.
I must have learned this from my mother’s mother. She also loved hanging her clothes out. In fact, I still remember when she finally got an electric clothes dryer. She rarely used it. One time I was staying with her. She was supposed to be resting, but she kept trying to do her housework. I kept having to stop her and remind her she was not to work so hard. Well, of course, she did some laundry and I told her I could hang it out to dry. I still remember how she stood at the doorway and directed me exactly how each piece of clothing needed to be put on the clothesline. Her sister chastised her for doing so and I was too young then to understand it the way I do now.
I mean the point of all of this…the most important thing…is that the clothes get dried, isn’t it? But my grandmother and now I, have both developed a tradition about how the clothes must be hung and taken down. Neither tradition makes the clothes dry any faster or any differently, and yet I continue to do it just this way.
In our Gospel today, Jesus challenges the Pharisees regarding their clinging to the traditions about eating food. These traditions had become the focus for them. These traditions had become sacred to them. These traditions had become a way to judge others. Yet, the most important thing had been lost – that people be fed and be able to eat. Jesus says it is not what goes into our bodies that defile us, rather it is what is in our hearts that causes evil…that defiles us.
We, just like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, can make tradition so sacred that tradition obstructs and distorts our faith and our lives. We need to examine our traditions to make sure they are not obstructions and distortions. This is especially important for us as Episcopalians, because tradition is one of the tenets of our faith. We know there is a place for tradition and we must continually examine our traditions. We must do both.
We must examine ourselves as individuals and as a community.
All week, I have been mesmerized by the life of Senator John McCain. I know he was not a perfect person. I know he could be irascible and yell at people. I know he didn’t fully understand every issue and talked about the things he wished he’d done differently. Yet, I think there is so much we can learn from his life and from some of the ways he lived his life.
Senator McCain was baptized Episcopalian and attended an Episcopal boys school in Northern Virginia. He didn’t like it much and was not a standout student. He apparently was bored by the daily chapel requirement. Yet, when Senator McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he would be asked to lead church services, when their captors allowed them to do so, because he remembered so many of the prayers and creeds as a result of those daily chapel services.
There are some wonderful stories about how these prisoners worshipped and prayed every Sunday, even though they could not talk to each other for much of the time they were imprisoned. If they spoke to each other, they were tortured!
But the thing that amazes me the most is that despite his horrific treatment as a prisoner of war, he did not seek revenge on Vietnam. In fact, he helped the United States re-establish relations with the country.
It is what comes out of the body that defiles. We can all understand how Senator McCain’s experiences would cause him to seek revenge on Vietnam. But by all accounts, he did not do so and did not carry a grudge or resentment towards his captors. Somehow what was in his heart, was love.
May we examine our hearts and the traditions we follow so that we and our traditions exude the love of all creation.
Amen
