HEARD AT CHURCH

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  

Last Sunday, I enjoyed the distinct pleasure of reading Isaiah 58: 1-9a to my church.  That passage needs a voice seething with scorn in order to proclaim its eternal message.  I tried to pull that off.  

The reasons for Yahweh's indignation are good reasons. 

Workers are oppressed.  Poor people are starving.  Men are violent. 

Jews are fasting as if everything is just peachy with Yahweh, but they are playing poker in a wind tunnel.  

I hate fasting.  I can't think of anything more wretched than not having anything to eat, unless it is not having anything to eat by choice.  

I have fasted three times in my life.  Once I refrained from eating for two days.  I swore I would wind my esophagus into a Sherman bow tie before I would ever go again without breakfast, lunch, supper, and occasional snacks from dawn 'til dusk.    

Focusing on God did not happen.  Nor did I experience a release from sin or any measurable time of extraordinary goodness.  All I could think about was making it to the end of the fast and being inside a Krystal restaurant when it happened. 

Imagine how lousy I'd feel if I had learned that my fast was a waste of my devotion because I was a self righteous prick who was blind to true righteousness!

In Sunday School, we read Mark 7:1-23.  In it, Jesus tears into some temple professionals for criticizing his disciples who had not been washing their hands before eating.  

Now, this hand cleaning has nothing to do with sanitation.  Neither Jesus nor anyone else as far as we know had the first clue about germs.  This has everything, however, to do with being kosher. 

Jesus made his famous distinction between what is clean and what is defiled.  He preaches a different way of being kosher.  Being clean, being unclean, being pure, being defiled--all these have to do with being kosher.  

A leper was not kosher.  Touching a menstruating woman was not kosher.  Touching a non-Jew was not kosher.  When something or someone is not clean,  what do you do with them?

If it's you, and you are Jewish, you purify yourself according to purification rituals.  If it's you and you are a leper, you put the hell away from all the clean people....scurvy knave!

Who cares about that empty hole of anguish you carry inside you every day you live and are reminded that you stink?  

Apparently, according to Jesus, God cares.  Purification rituals do not make us clean in God's eyes.  Only love does that.

Indeed, cleanliness is next to kindness.  It is all about how we treat people...people!

In the gospel, Jesus offers a list of sins that is similar to other lists in the Christian Bible.  Jesus probably did not rattle off any such list.  

His spirit is a lousy context for condemnation.  Jesus preached a new way of being pure, not an old way of saying we are garbage.

It is a worthless pursuit of godly worship when we fast, give money, attend services regularly, picket funerals, and refrain from pleasure while at the same time believing in our hearts that people are trash. 

If we do not love, then faith is a mere self serving psychological trick.  

In his sermon, my pastor quoted a writer who said that the world would end if there were no Christians.  I concur completely.  The world needs the good news that our God of love is real and does care.

Our light as Christians may be fading from the world.  Why?  Over the centuries we have preached righteousness. Historically, that means being right is more important than being love in the world.

Recall that people of faith have murdered or despised other people of faith for the sake of orthodoxy or “right doctrine.” 

Being right is impossible.  We always approximate accuracy in just about anything we do.  

However, being love aims higher and deeper.  Being love heals and gives refreshment.   Our faith has always been about being love, not being right. 

The self righteous hijacked Christianity early on.  Among followers of the Way who loved, a few annoying prigs sowed discord at first until they had the might of Rome behind their righteousness.  

If we Christians had been all about being love, our history would be glowing and our integrity would be unassailable.

Let us reclaim love or Christianity will be indexed just a few alphabet letters away from paganism in the history books.

Let us transform our righteousness.  Doctrines are private intellectual tools for worship anyway, not stones to throw at dissenters.  

Let us live a righteousness that happens at any moment when our God of love unconditionally embraces other people through our lives.  Let forgiveness and acceptance be experienced through us as refreshments…you know…grace.

Blessings...