The Illuminating Word of God (1/5)

B Pentecost10 2015

August 2, 2015

Mark 7:1-23

BLC Value #1

Elevate the Gospel for the Alleluia and Response

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. [Glory to you O Lord]

¹Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him,²they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.³(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders;⁴and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.)⁵So 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?"⁶He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
 'This people honors me with their lips,  but their hearts are far from me;
 ⁷in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'
⁸You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."
⁹Then he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!¹⁰For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.'¹¹But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, 'Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban' (that is, an offering to God) — ¹²then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother,¹³thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this."
¹⁴Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand:¹⁵there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."
¹⁷When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable.¹⁸He said to them, "Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile,¹⁹since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?" (Thus he declared all foods clean.)²⁰And he said, "It is what comes out of a person that defiles.²¹For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder,²²adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.²³All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

The Gospel of the Lord [Praise to you O Christ].

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Some of you may already know this, but my family has a tradition of eating white rice with butter, mlik, sugar and cinnamon on Christmas eve.  I do not remember a Christmas eve without this special, Danish, way to celebrate Christmas eve.  Each year we would eat our rice dinner, go to Christmas Eve worship together, then come home to open our presents –as soon as the dinner dishes were done. 

The tradition came down through my maternal grandparents, Carol and Emery Petersen, who had four girls.  Emery was a Lutheran Pastor from the 1940’s through the 90’s, and as a busy pastor on Christmas eve, all meals and other celebratory activities were Carol’s responsibilities.  And she was a master hostess, and she liked to have things under control, so it was all good with her.  The first time my dad came to Christmas Eve with his new wife’s family, he was introduced to this meal.  A energetic 23 year old man at the time, he was a bit shocked to be offered nothing but rice to eat on Christmas Eve.  His family had also celebrated Christmas on the Eve (a lot of Scandinavians do that)  but with a feast!  So he smiled cheerfully and then went on a fast food run on the way to church.  Truth be told, a few of my cousins did the same thing from ages 14-24. 

When my grandmother was dying, she was 96 and completely lucid.  Our family was doing the usual reminiscing that becomes a special blessing when you know the matriarchs and patriarchs of our lives are about to die.  My aunts and I were talking about this tradition of Christmas Eve dinner and how we had all kept the Danish tradition faithfully in our households, when Grandma Carol piped up to say… “Oh girls, that meal isn’t particularly Danish… that was just the quickest way for me to get dinner on the table between Christmas Eve worship services!”

We looked at each other in surprise… we had carefully stewarded a meal that had become a cherished family tradition, based on nothing more than the expediency of a pastors’ family on Christmas Eve.  J  

The Pharisees in our Gospel for today?  They are pretty concerned about white rice.  I mean, the washing of hands was sort of the same idea. 

The tradition of that rice meal is beautiful, but it was a family tradition celebrated for a particular time and place… in this case, a family who did not have high caloric needs, and not to be confused with the real celebration of Christmas.

The tradition of washing hands had become more about the performance of obeying every word of God and making sure everyone around you knew you did… not about the actual purpose and reason for God’s Word.

Today we begin a sermon series on our Core Values. You remember, church, you have been working on these for almost two years now!  Our vision for a Kingdom of God world where we “Shine a light so brightly that everyone is drawn in to God’s love through this community.”  Our Mission to “welcome all through the light of Christ by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and being a place of shelter.”  Our values:

1.     The Illuminating Word of God

2.     Seeing All People and Perspectives

3.     Serving our Community with Delight

4.     Opening the eyes of Faith at every age.

I’ve been memorizing them by saying, “Word, See, Serve, Faith… Word, See, Serve, Faith” over and over.

We have named the values that hold us together, and now we are seeking to discern God's will in light of them.  We are working together on a ministry plan to keep our energy focused!  That starts with us talking about these values today, and the next four weeks. 

So, if our first value is “The Illuminating Word of God”… what is the Word of God? 

We use this phrase a couple of ways. 

1.     Scripture

a.     Luther talked about sola scriptura (word alone), along with sola gratia (grace alone) and sola fide (faith alone).  Luther wanted to be clear that our faith practices are not based on just some good idea someone had for some particular time and place (because that is what happened in the church of his time too), but that we go back to God’s word in scripture over and over again.  We read the Bible to seek what God is saying to us now, and we keep our hearts and minds open to interpretations of Scripture appropriate to our time; knowing that God keeps speaking to us in new ways through these old words; because our God is a God of new life!

b.     Genesis: Scripture, God speaks and things come into being.  The Word of God is God’s will – simply spoken and it happens!

2.     Jesus!

a.     Genesis to John 1 –scripture is the cradle of Christ

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.²He was in the beginning with God.³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

b.     This work is ongoing by the Holy Spirit, advocating for us; God is still speaking… (as the UCC tagline says.)

So there is a lot packed in to that one little phrase – The Word of God!  This is our foundation: God’s very will revealed to us in scripture and especially in Jesus.  And this revealing is what we mean when we say the illuminating Word of God. 

Sometimes the word of God shines a light on things we would rather not see.  Like todays gospel reading... about Tradition vs. scripture. Jesus is pointing them back to their core, pointing us back to the central things of being church… it’s not about the buildings or the programs, it’s about living as a community who loves God.  And people who love God share it!  With service!  With a hunger for learning more about God – in prayer and scripture!  Tradition is needed!  The question is: How does tradition serve this purpose, to be a shining community of God’s love… and serve the world? Like in the story of the Pharisees, God is not interested in the tradition serving us.

But it’s not all negative… by any means!  The Word of God lights us up!  God’s Word is centered on justice and love for all.  That’s what Jesus came for, right?  Why he lived for us – to show us the way.  And died for us – to claim us for eternity.  We light up with this hope!  Knowing we have been given the greatest gift!  New Life that starts here and now, a life of freedom – for all!  A life of such strong love that even death cannot stop it. 

SO>>> How might we show in worship, and our other gathering times, how central this Word of God is to our community? Might we begin a Gospel processional in our liturgy to remind us that this Book, and all God says to us is our central purpose for gathering together? In September we'll begin using the narrative Lectionary, so that we might follow the arc of God's story through from the beginning, to see where it goes and how it gets to Jesus. 

We also might join a Bible Study or the Adult Study on Sunday mornings – where we will be dancing with the Word of God around the central beliefs and practices of the Lutheran church.   We can read a piece of scripture, a couple of verses, or a story every time we gather – at choir practice, for a meal fellowship, for a campfire.  We can bring scripture home.  Read it as a family – an easy way to do this is to use the Faith5. Confirmation students can show us the way, they do this in their lessons.

We gather around the word, here on Sunday mornings, and other times where we can go more deeply in relationship and learning.  Because we hold the Illuminating Word of God as our first core value, we arrange our faith life, our whole life, around it.  For us faithful people, what the Word of God says to us is the most important voice in our lives. 

It’s tempting to be like those Pharisees that Jesus chastises, to grab hold of human traditions as the familiar way of doing things.  It brings us comfort.  And that is nice, and even needed sometimes.  But the Word of God is not always comfortable or nice.  The Word of God gives us light and life, but often through the challenges of change and discomfort.  Sometimes even messing with something as sacred as my family’s Christmas Eve plans.  Because the Word of God is always about what God wants for all of creation, and not what we want.  And so we pray:

May our wants align with your wants, O God.  May our hearts and hands and minds be open to your will being done.  May we see your kingdom come among us, Lord.  Illumine our lives with your Word.  Amen.