Reign In-Reign Out
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
Dear Fellow Preacher,
Søren Kierkegaard once said that "purity of heart is to will one thing." Our contributors for today contend that purity of heart is to see that our living is congruent with our professing and our pronouncements. In the lead article, team comments, illustrations, worship materials, and children's sermon, they provide a number of examples of the glaring breakdown in our society of this kind of wholeness, both in high places and in the lives of ordinary citizens.
With this issue we are pleased to welcome a valued new member of the editorial group of The Immediate Word. Ron Allen, prolific author and professor at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, supplies the lead article, based on the Gospel for August 31 assigned in the lectionary. Ron offers keen insight into the Markan text and upholds Jesus' vision of the coming Reign of God as the basis for hope in a dissembling world.
Contents:
REIGN IN-REIGN OUT
Team Comments
Related Illustrations
Worship Resources
Children's Sermon
REIGN IN-REIGN OUT
by Ron Allen
Mark 7:1-23
There has been a huge flap in Great Britain, and in the United States, over how much Tony Blair and George Bush knew about the tentativeness of the intelligence information they used to help sell the war in Iraq. The symbol of this controversy is the famous "sixteen word gaffe" in which President Bush, in his State of the Union speech last January, claimed that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Niger, a nation in Africa. As is now well known, that claim had been discredited by a former U.S. official ten months before the State of the Union address.
Needless to say, I cannot know what Tony Blair or George Bush (or their aides) knew or when they knew it, but I confess that now, when I hear officials in Washington or London talking about the war, and the prospects for continuing U.S. and British military presence in Iraq, I listen through a question mark. I wonder, are they telling the whole story?
At first glance, you might think that the Gospel lection for today has little to do with George Bush, Tony Blair, and the situation in Iraq. After all, the text begins with a fracas that seems almost pointless to most of us. The Pharisees hassle the disciples of Jesus because the disciples eat without washing their hands.
Why is washing hands even an issue? Who (other than a five-year-old coming in the back door from the mud hole) would raise a fuss about washing hands? For the Pharisees at the time of Mark, however, washing hands before eating was more than a matter of hygiene. They wanted Jewish people to wash their hands in a ritual or ceremonial way before eating as a symbol of cleansing, or purity, or holiness. In fact, the Mishnah, a document outlining essential aspects of Judaism that the Pharisees put together a few years after the Second Testament, contains a whole chapter - seven pages - on the importance of washing hands.
Mark points out that the Jewish people observed many similar customs, such as washing cups and pots and bronze kettles. The Mishnah contains another chapter on cleansing such utensils, and it runs almost forty pages - one of the longest chapters in the Mishnah.
Washing hands. Washing dishes. Seven pages. Forty pages. These actions are not commanded so specifically in the Bible. The Pharisees developed a body of interpretation to explain such practices in more detail than given in the Bible. The Pharisees even added some practices to the ones commended for the Jewish community in the Bible.
My spouse and I have five children. I wonder how far we would get trying to supervise seven pages of handwashing instructions before every meal and snack.
The Pharisees want Jesus' disciples to live in a faithful Jewish way by washing their hands and eating from clean vessels. The Markan Jesus, however, replies by quoting a passage from Isaiah that accuses the people of being hypocrites. "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."
The Markan Jesus kicks in another example of the Pharisees rejecting a commandment of God to keep their own tradition. A core Jewish value is honoring father and mother. In the world of the Bible that meant not only respecting the parents, but caring for them financially and physically in their old age. Children were a form of social security.
According to Mark, however, the Pharisees practice corban. Now, the way Mark presents it, corban was the practice of dedicating an amount of money or some other offering to the temple so that one no longer had use of it. The person dedicating the gift received a blessing from God, but the money was no longer available for use. Hence, Mark pictures the Pharisees as dedicating money to the temple that they should have used to take care of their aging parents. They were gaining favor from God at the expense of their parents.
Picture the Pharisees walking around in an aura of piety. People whispering, "Have you heard how much they pledged to the building campaign?" But we're not talking about them not visiting their parents in the nursing home. Picture the parents scraping around for clothing and food. Hungry. Cold. While their adult children are being given a plaque at an all-church dinner in gratitude for their donation.
No wonder Jesus speaks the climactic teaching of the text. "There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out can defile." Washed hands do not make clean or unclean. Hungry parents defile.
Mark pictures the Pharisees abandoning the core, internal meaning of the teaching of God and living on the basis of human, external tradition. The name for that phenomenon is hypocrisy: according to Mark the Pharisees say one thing but do another.
This idea is so important to Mark that he records Jesus saying it again (this time to the disciples who do not seem to get the point) and adding a codicil: "Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from the outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes into the sewer?" "Thus," Mark underscores, "he declared all foods clean."
Why were such issues like handwashing and clean vessels important to Mark? At one level they were important because of a situation in Mark's church. During the days of Jesus himself, the people in the Jesus movement were Jewish. But by the time Mark wrote his Gospel, thirty or forty years later, some Gentiles were identifying with the community of Jesus' followers. Ordinarily a Gentile coming into a Jewish community would have to be fully initiated into Judaism and observe practices such as washing hands and vessels. However, the followers of Jesus believed that the end of this present world was coming soon. In view of the immediate end of the world, they saw no reason for Gentiles to become fully Jewish. The message of "all foods clean" is that Gentiles can await the apocalypse as fully vested members of Mark's community without washing hands and vessels.
At another level, the core issue here is deeply Jewish: integrity, the degree to which what we say is consistent with what we do. Mark portrays the Pharisees as saying one thing and doing another - washing hands and vessels while neglecting to care for their parents. Lest we look down on the Pharisees from a height of Christian smugness, notice that the disciples did not see the problem at first. Jesus called it to their attention.
When Mark complains about the Pharisees, he does not bring a new point of view into the story. Concern for integrity is at the heart of the Jewish religion. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Just as there is oneness, continuity, between God's being and action, so there is to be oneness between human attitudes and actions.
When Jesus criticizes the Pharisees, it is not because they are Jewish. He criticizes them by quoting Isaiah, one of the great Jewish prophets, because the Pharisees are not Jewish enough. By saying one thing and doing another, they do not live with integrity.
Next, however, Jesus raises the stakes. If you put evil intentions into the human heart, you will get a fractious, evil person. If you put evil intentions into a community, you will create a community that is fractious and evil. Put in fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, and folly.
Why is there so much falsehood, deceit, exploitation, and violence in our culture?
If you say you believe in covenantal sexuality, but you fornicate ... if you say you respect the property of others, but steal from them ... if you say you respect life, but murder ... you are defiled. What goes in is what comes out. As my children say, when they are working on the computer, "Junk in - junk out."
When we hear this passage in the context of the leading theme of the Gospel of Mark, we get a positive message. This theme? The realm of God is coming. In a major stream of Jewish thought, the realm of God is that great time when God ends sin, brokenness, poverty, sickness, violence, and death, and re-creates the world as a time of unending restoration, wholeness, abundance, health, peace, and life. Mark believed that this great age had begun in the ministry of Jesus and that it would come completely into force when Jesus returned in power and glory. A great apocalyptic cataclysm.
The implied positive message of this text? If you put the realm of God into a life, that life will take on the characteristics of the divine realm. If you put the attitudes and values and practices of the realm of God into a community, that community will begin to take on the qualities of the realm of God. "Realm in - realm out."
This text does two things at once. It warns about the consequences of junk in - junk out. It also encourages us to put into our lives and communities qualities that maintain integrity with the realm of God.
Integrity, and lack of it, relates directly to questions that we face every day when we are watching the news, when we talk with co-workers, and when we gather around the dinner table. Whom can we trust? When can we believe what a person says? What happens when there is a contradiction between what a person says is important and what they prove is important by the way they act?
The basketball coach at Baylor University was recently forced out of his job in the wake of tragedy. One player on the team shot and killed another player on the same team. In the wake of the scandal, the coach, an avowed Christian, asked assistant coaches and even players to lie to the police to cover up the shoddy way the program was run. The coach was not directly involved in the killing, of course. But the program was run with a "win at any cost" mentality that brought in some players whose attitudes and values were not consistent with those of the largest Baptist university in North America. We cannot know whether the killing would have happened if the coach had made a habit of honesty and other ethical virtues. But when deceit is standard operating procedure in the office, it sends the message that deceit and other forms of corruption are acceptable on the court and off.
I do not want to oversimplify, but in the Middle East right now a process of negotiation for peace is trying to move forward. And yet it is interrupted by bombing after bombing, some of them suicide bombs, and often followed by brutal retaliation. Violence in - violence out.
The anniversary of September 11, 2001, is only a few days away, and these questions come into focus. Violence in. Our nation is responding in kind. I do not have a specific political program to propose as an alternative, but I do know this: as long as we continue to put violence in, our nation and our world will get violence out.
Consequences of lack of integrity: Arthur Anderson, Enron. I wager many of the readers of this service know people who lost their jobs in the collapse of these two businesses that professed certain good things but practiced others.
Now, in the interest of integrity, I need to point out that Mark violated his own integrity by defiling Judaism. Mark depicts the Pharisees in this story (and throughout the second Gospel) as hollow, as concerned with externals, as saying one thing and doing another. To the contrary, the best knowledge that we have of the Pharisees in the first century is that they were a lay-led reform movement who sought to encourage people in all walks of life to practice Judaism in its fullness. Here is how Josephus, a first-century Jewish writer, described them.
The Pharisees simplify their standard of living, making no concession to luxury. They follow the guidance of that which their doctrine has selected and transmitted as good, attaching the chief importance to the observance of those commandments which it has seen fit to dictate to them. They show respect and deference to their elders [something I as a parent would certainly appreciate] ... They believe that souls have the power to survive death and that there are rewards and punishments under the earth for those who have led lives of virtue or vice ... Because of these views, they are, as a matter of fact, extremely influential among the townsfolk; and all prayers and sacred rites of divine worship [a bit of an overstatement] are performed according to their exposition. This is the great tribute that the inhabitants of the cities, by practicing the highest ideals both in their way of living and in their discourse, have paid to the excellence of the Pharisees. (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18:12-15, quoted in George W. E. Nickelsburg and Michael E. Stone, eds., Faith and Piety in Early Judaism: Texts and Documents [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983], pp. 25-26)
When we read the literature that the Pharisees wrote - especially the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the many other documents - we find recurring emphases that are consistent with this picture: people who "practice the highest ideals" of Judaism.
Why would Mark misrepresent them, even vilify them? Mark's community was likely in conflict with Pharisees (and perhaps some other Jewish leaders) over whether Gentiles could or should be accepted into the church without converting to Judaism. The situation is similar to a church fight today in which one group is for the pastor (or some issue) and another is against, and the rhetoric gets hotter and hotter as each group tries to win the day. Putting others down is one of the oldest and most successful tactics for building up yourself and for persuading others to your point of view.
One of the most tenacious tenets of Judaism is that one should not bear false witness. That is what Mark believed (e.g., Mark 10:19). Yet Mark goes against what he believes by misrepresenting Judaism.
Junk in - junk out. Mark is not the only Christian who has defiled Jewish people over the centuries. But I wonder how differently Jewish-Christian relationships might have been if Christians had acted with integrity towards the Pharisees and their successors since the first century. A Realm-like view of Judaism in would have had a greater chance of letting out a Realm-like view of the Pharisees.
Preachers sometimes like to make analogies between the picture of the Pharisees in the text and attitudes of and behaviors of some Christians today about concern with externals while neglecting matters of the heart. Saying we believe one thing while acting another way. While some Christians are certainly contemporary Pharisees in this regard, the preacher who takes this tack without calling attention to distortions in Mark's portrayal of the Pharisees reinforces the negative caricature and misrepresentation of the Pharisees (and other Jewish people) that has plagued the church since the time of Mark.
Before I leave this subject, I need to put in a good word about washing hands and vessels and other Jewish rites. Christians sometimes mistakenly think that Jewish people believed that they had to perform such rites, or works, to earn favor with God. We call this works righteousness. But not so. The Jewish people - Pharisees chief among them - always believed that they were in community with God because of God's grace (unmerited favor) and unconditional love.
Washing hands and pots and pans, along with circumcision, the dietary laws, and other Jewish practices, had a very important purpose. They were identity markers, that is, things that the Jewish people did to remember their identity (beloved of God) and their mission (to be a light to the Gentiles). A Jewish teacher a couple of generations after Mark quotes a saying from Leviticus that mentions which beasts Jewish people may eat and which they may not, and then comments, "This means the precepts were given for the express purpose of purifying humankind" (Leviticus Rabbah 13:3 in Midrash Rabbah [London: Soncino Press, 1953]). To "purify" in this context means to be freed from complicity with evil and to be aligned with God's purposes. Many of the Jewish teachers of antiquity believed that God gave such practices not for their own sakes but because of their effect on human beings. Washing hands and vessels helps people remember who they are and what they are to do.
Such practices helped the Jewish community remain faithful during the exile to Babylon, during the colonization of Palestine by Persia, and, during the intense influx of Greek culture in the Hellenistic age, and under the Roman occupation. If you were Jewish and lived in those eras, every time you did something like wash your hands, you would remember, "I am not beholden to the idols of Babylon, Persia, the Greeks, or the Romans. I serve the living God who is with me to help me live and witness faithfully even in these alien cultures."
Such practices have helped Judaism maintain its identity for more than three thousand years. I have to be really candid here. I wonder whether Christian practices have been as successful in helping Christians maintain a distinct identity amidst different eras and cultures.
Mark did not envision Christianity as a new long-term religion, but as an outgrowth of Judaism providing shelter for Gentiles during the great apocalyptic transformation. If Mark and the other writers of the Second Testament had been thinking of equipping a people for two millennia of existence, I wonder if they might have had a different attitude about such things as washing hands and vessels.
As I said, I cannot know for certain what Tony Blair and George Bush knew about the accuracy of the famous sixteen words in the State of the Union speech claiming that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger. I hope that they were not aware of the questions that had been raised about that claim. For the simple fact is that questions about integrity cut to the heart of our capacity to live in trusting community with others. When integrity is broken, I always have questions in the back of my mind (concerning future things that people say and do). What can I really believe? When can I trust what a person says? When might this person say one thing and do another? Integrity is essential to trusting community.
At any rate, this text implies a question to us. Do we live with integrity? Are we putting in - into our lives, our congregations, our broader communities - the kinds of things that will help our world manifest qualities of the realm of God? "Junk in - junk out." Realm in - Realm out.
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Team Comments
George Murphy responds: "Thus he declared all foods clean" (Mark 7:19b). I've been around long enough that I shouldn't be surprised by the scissors-happiness of lectionary makers, but I'm still amazed that this week they left out this verse, which is of profound importance.
These words are, of course, not those of Jesus but are a reflection by the Gospel writer on Jesus' statements and attitudes toward handwashing and other religious rituals. Their importance lies in the fact that the early church saw in the example of Jesus the root of their belief that such rules simply aren't necessary for Christians. When we trace back this belief we probably think first of the story about Peter's vision in Acts 10 and its consequences in the acceptance of the Gentile Cornelius and his companions, or Paul's arguments in Galatians. But the author of Mark saw this idea as going back to Jesus himself. While it's clear that during his historical ministry Jesus didn't tell his disciples that they could simply drop the food laws and other Jewish regulations (for if he had, Peter's vision presumably would have been unnecessary and there wouldn't have been controversy about the matter in the early church), Christians came to see that as the implication of teaching and practice.
The basic question isn't whether or not such rules have to be obeyed in order to earn God's favor or forgiveness. The Pharisees, like all serious Jewish believers, recognized that God had saved Israel before giving them torah, as Exodus 19:3-6 makes clear. The more radical Christian claim that comes to full expression in Galatians is that Christians are not bound by such regulations at all: "For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).
I agree fully that we shouldn't misrepresent the Pharisees - recognizing, among other things, that Paul could call himself a Pharisee (Acts 23:6) and Jesus himself came down on the Pharisees' side in contemporary disputes (Matthew 22:23-34). But we also shouldn't idealize the Pharisees or accuse Mark of simply misrepresenting them when he points out negative features of Pharisaic belief and practice - features not unique to that first-century Jewish party.
For the idea that we have to earn God's favor by our good works and obedience to the proper religious rules is the most common religion in the world. I was once told of a poll among members of my Lutheran tradition who are supposed to have learned about justification through grace alone by faith alone from the cradle up, in confirmation class, sermons, etc. Yet when asked why they thought they'd get into heaven, something like three-quarters of them gave an answer something on the order of, "Well, I've always tried to obey the commandments" - hardly the textbook picture of a Lutheran! Josephus' description of the Pharisees needn't make us think that real Pharisees in the first century were a lot different.
The point for the preacher should not be to revile the historical Pharisees, nor should they be presented as entirely misunderstood by the evangelists. What is more helpful is to call attention to the pervasive belief in works righteousness among people today - including long-time Christians sitting in the pews! It needs to be said that this not only misrepresents God's relationship with us but also makes it possible for us to evade God's call to love our neighbors as ourselves. (How much does a two-ton Ten Commandments monument cost, and how many poor people could you feed with that money?)
Christians ought to recognize the regulations of torah as an essential aspect of the way in which God chose to bring his full revelation in Christ into the world, and honor them as we honor our ancestors. We should respect the intention of the Pharisees' "fence around the torah" to defend God's law. But neither of these is what the Christian life is about. I would urge preachers who are going to focus on the Gospel lection this week to include Mark 7:17-19 and to refer to Galatians 4:8-11 and Colossians 2:20-23 as primary commentary on it.
Another thought on the Mark 7 text: Jesus rejects here the idea that physical things - in particular, food - that go into a person can "defile" him/her, and says that it's "what comes out of a person" - words, deeds, and such - that can defile. But it's not much of a stretch to add that words and ideas that "go into" a person also don't defile. Some religious folk think that there should be limits to scientific attempts to understand the world and ourselves, and that there are "things we weren't meant to know." Some are upset simply by the discussion of certain topics and in effect put their hands over their ears and say, "Blah, blah, blah, I can't hear you," when they come up. Such attitudes come to expression in the insistence of some parents that their children not be exposed to things like evolution and sex education in public schools.
Now, of course, there are right and wrong ways to present topics like that to children, and one can make good arguments for Christian schools in which they would be taught in the context of Christian understandings of creation. (And by that I don't mean presenting creation as an alternative to evolution.) But simply hearing and understanding such things won't defile anybody. It's the thoughts, beliefs, and actions that result from processing such information that are crucial.
Carter Shelley responds: There was an interview on NPR's Fresh Air, Wednesday, August 20, with writer Eric Dezenhall, a damage control expert and president of the PR firm Nicholas-Dezenhall Communications Management Group, based in Washington, D.C. He has in the past described his business as a response to "the culture of the attack." Dezenhall worked for the Reagan administration. Dezenhall complains that the American public is much more likely to believe the accuser than the accused. Hence, some innocent individuals and companies get tarred and feathered even though they have not committed the crimes, because we tend to believe what the media or the twenty-first century equivalent of a "white knight" tells us via television, the press, etc.
When did it become okay in the cultural context for marriages to end on a whim? Julia Roberts fell in love with a married man one and a half years ago, and received almost no criticism for it at the time. J-Lo dumped husband number two seemingly without a qualm in order to pursue her on-set romance with Ben Affleck. The word "adultery" seems to be unfashionable these days. The concept of "loyalty" also has a very short shelf life. There seems to be no previous lover or former employee of Princess Diana who hasn't become rich by publishing every sleazy and sad detail of her short and troubled life. Current political analyst and former White House aid George Stephanopoulas bemoans the All Too Human Clinton White House in which Stephanopoulas got his big break as a very young man. Such professional opportunities didn't keep Stephanopoulas from recording his employer's multiple peccadilloes or capitalizing on the fame he achieved through his short tenure on Clinton's staff.
There's very little in contemporary society that seems to encourage our children or ourselves to strive to be people of courage, integrity, and purity. There's little that takes place on the primary TV channels or gets shown in our movie theaters that encourages basic decency and integrity. If we want positive role models, we have to read about them in the Bible or in books. And we have to be on the alert to spot them in our daily life.
The words Jesus utters to the indignant Pharisees ring, if anything, more true today than they did 2000 years ago. We humans have an uncanny knack for reordering the world in a way that allows us to justify selfish, uncaring behavior towards others. The Pharisees convinced themselves they were righteous because they kept the letter of the law. Yet Jesus charges them with neglecting to honor their parents through corban, their legal loophole. Far better to get in good with God by dedicating one's wealth to God than to make adequate provisions for one's elderly parents. Anyone who has read Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility or seen the excellent movie version with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslett will recall the justifications and whittling down of financial provisions the half-brother John Dashwood and his wife determine will suffice for his stepmother and her three daughters. The results of their rationalizations leave his sisters in an economically dire circumstance while he and his family enjoy the palatial estate he has inherited from their father.
In the Gospel Jesus makes it clear that caring for one's parents is the obvious choice for a truly righteous man. Money itself is not the corrupting agent for the Pharisees, the robber barons, or for wags on Wall Street or in our pews. It's the way we view and use money that demonstrates our righteousness, our compassion, or our greed. The excessive drinking of alcohol can lead to DUI's, physical abuse of family, loss of face, loss of job, and tragedy. It's not the drink itself that causes such circumstances. It's what happens inside the drinker that results in disaster. Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes exquisitely demonstrates the heartache and deprivation alcoholic parents cause their children. A seemingly less serious brand of unholy bile might be gossip. Hearing gossip may seem a harmless enough pastime. But if the result of hearing of someone else's scandalous behavior becomes a sense of smug superiority, the results are indeed impure. Add onto that the temptation to spread the gossip abroad, and one increases the damage to others while decreasing one's own capacity for compassion and caring.
Some Christians stint their parents of emotional, physical, and financial support when their parents become elderly. Some Christians struggle with or deny their struggles with alcoholism. Some Christians gossip. Many Christians struggle with issues of fidelity, integrity, and loyalty. We face such challenges in our exchange with friends at school, in our jobs, in our marriages, even in our churches. It's no accident that Jesus challenges the moral righteousness of those men (sic) believed by their fellow men (sic) to be the most righteous of Jews. Jesus doesn't declare at this point that "all sin and fall short of the grace of God." Jesus does, however, name the sin of self-deceit that allows humans to believe ourselves to be upright citizens while ignoring the immediate needs of not only the widow, the orphan, or the stranger in our midst but even our own relatives. In naming the sin, Jesus also names the cure through his own actions of healing on the Sabbath and eating with the unwashed and ungodly. People matter more than sanctimony.
That's why integrity is an issue for Christians today. We need to be the ones who stand up and say no to the impurity of passing the blame on down the line to some other poor schmuck with less power or acclaim. We need to be the ones who stand up and say no to a society that celebrates white teeth, blond hair, and thin thighs over selflessness and care for others. We need to be the ones who stand up and declare that what is beautiful is what comes from the heart of a person who reaches out to others and puts the needs of others before his or her own financial profit, fame, or success."
Carlos Wilton responds: One of the time-honored homiletic methods is to illustrate scripture with scripture. A wonderful example can be found in Psalm 41. The writer of this poem - a psalm of lament - ends by praising God, who he declares has "upheld me because of my integrity" (Psalm 41:12). The word "integrity" in this psalm is a rich one. Literally, the Hebrew means "wholeness," or "completeness."
This mention of integrity may at first seem out of place in a lament about physical illness. We're so used to separating mind, body, and spirit in our culture. To the popular mind, illness just happens. It exists in a separate, physical realm, over and against the realm of the spirit. But the Hebrew culture, in some ways wiser than our own, was much more holistically inclined. To the Hebrew mind, it's no surprise that a lapse in integrity (the wholeness of the soul) could affect physical health (the wholeness of the body).
We could use a lot more of holistic integrity in the world today. We'd love to see more of it in our leaders, of course: in the halls of Congress, where poll-watching seems to have replaced independent thinking ... in corporate board rooms, where theft from stockholders has become all but legalized in exorbitant executive salariesc ... in law courts, where obscure technicalities seem so often to triumph over ethical principles. And let's not look just to other people, either. There are plenty of areas in which the ordinary person could stand to show more integrity: filling out tax returns, for example, or making sure the restaurant tip is truly adequate (not to mention the larger questions of workplace ethics).
There are some disturbing indications that ethical integrity is becoming less common in our culture. For example, a recent survey of 12,000 high school students, repeating a survey taken ten years before, shows a significant decline in ethics. In 1992, 61 percent of high-schoolers surveyed admitted to having cheated on an exam once in the past year; in 2002, the figure had climbed to 74 percent. The percentage who admitted to shoplifting within the past twelve months rose from 31 percent to 38 percent. Those who said they lied to their teachers and parents also increased substantially.
Just two years previously, in 2000, 34 percent of high school students had agreed with the statement, "A person has to lie or cheat sometimes in order to succeed." In 2002, that number had jumped 9 percent.
"The evidence," says Michael Josephson - president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics that conducted the survey - "is that a willingness to cheat has become the norm and that parents, teachers, coaches and even religious educators have not been able to stem the tide ... The scary thing is that so many kids are entering the work force to become corporate executives, politicians, airplane mechanics and nuclear inspectors with the dispositions and skills of cheaters and thieves." ["Survey of Youths Shows Ethics Slip," by Judith Person, Washington Times, 10/23/2002]
The word "integrity" is closely related to the noun "integer." An integer is another name for a whole number - a number that's not split up into any kind of fraction. People of integrity are not divided inside. They're not split by conflicting loyalties, nor troubled overmuch by guilty conscience. People of integrity don't hesitate to take unpopular stands: for their ethical standards aren't imposed by outside laws or constraints, but rise up from a fountain deep within themselves. They're less likely to be swayed by peer pressure.
The psalm-writer is saying an extraordinary thing here, in connection with his own physical illness: that integrity is not only morally desirable, it's actually healthy. It's good for what ails you. (As an old proverb puts it, "There's no pillow as soft as a clear conscience.") Because this man, for all his chronic medical difficulties, has sought for years to keep his mind fixed on God, he's confident that God will soon vindicate him, vanquishing his illness and giving him new strength.
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Related Illustrations
"The buck stops before it gets here." (cartoonist Nicole Hollander)
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"The devil made me do it." (comedian Flip Wilson and many others)
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Integrity is George Bush Senior telling one of his PR men to "go to hell," after the man has suggested that Barbara Bush dying her gray hair black might help the President keep his office during the 1992 campaign.
Integrity is Harry Truman meaning it when he placed on his desk the sign, "The buck stops here."
Integrity is the schmaltzy, but nice, conclusion to the preteen and teen friendly movie What a Girl Wants, in which a father concludes that his daughter is worth more than his political career.
Integrity is Humphry Bogart as Rick Blaine telling the love of his life, Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa in Casablanca, that he's not leaving Morocco with her, because the right thing is for her to escape with her husband, Victor Lazslo, even though Ilsa loves Rick and he loves her.
Integrity is picking up a wallet on the street and turning it in to the nearest police station.
Integrity is saying, "I did it" - for good or ill when you did.
Integrity is confessing, "I did it. God forgive me, and help me not to do it again."
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One of the best literary examples of human rottenness belied by physical beauty is Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. While Dorian Gray himself presents a handsome and bewitching exterior, his nature is corrupt to the core. Dorian Gray partakes of many of life's seamier offerings, often ruining the lives of others whom he encounters along the way. Gray does not age nor does he appear to be suffering the effects of excessive drink, gambling, womanizing, drugs, etc. It is his portrait that changes. It records the internal ravages of Gray's soul until the point where the portrait no longer portrays a handsome, young man, but a monster who is the shell of a man.
- The above items are submitted by Carter Shelley
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"Character," a wise thinker once said, "is what a person is in the dark." Or, to put it another way, as Mark Twain quipped on the subject of honest speech, "If you always tell the truth, you won't have to remember anything."
- Carlos Wilton
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Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of many self-help books, speaks of integrity as "... being whole, unbroken, undivided. It describes a person who has united the different parts of his or her personality, so that there is no longer a split in the soul. When your soul is divided, part of you wants to do one thing while part wants to do something else: Do you tell the prospective buyer of your home about the plumbing problem or do you keep quiet unless he asks? ... When you have integrity, all of your aspirations are focused in one direction. Like the karate expert who can break a board with his bare hand by focusing all his strength on one spot, the person of integrity, the person whose soul is not fragmented, can do great things by concentrating all of his energies on a single goal. For the person of integrity, life may not be easy but it is simple. Figure out what is right and do it. All other considerations come in second." [Living a Life That Matters (Anchor Books, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 2002)]
- Submitted by Carlos Wilton
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Worship Resources
by George Reed
OPENING
Music
Hymns
"My Soul, Now Praise Your Maker!" Words: Johann Gramann, 1487-1541; trans. Catherine Winkworth, 1829-1878, alt.; music: Kugelmann, Concentua Novi, 1540. Public domain. As found in LBOW: 519.
"Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah." Words: William Williams, 1745; trans. Peter Williams and the author, 1771; music: John Hughes, 1907. Public domain. As found in UMH 127; Hymnal '82 690; LBOW 343; TPH 281; AAHH 139, 140; TNNBH 232.
"Maker, in Whom We Live." Words: Charles Wesley, 1747; music: George J. Elvey, 1868. Public domain. As found in UMH 88.
"God, Whose Love Is Reigning O'er Us." Words: William Boyd Grove, 1980; music: John Goss, 1869. Words (c) 1980 William Boyd Grove. As found in UMH 100.
"He Leadeth Me, O Blessed Thought." Words: Joseph H. Gilmore, 1862; music: William B. Bradbury, 1864. Public domain. As found in UMH 128; AAHH 142; TNNBH 235.
Songs
"Arise, Shine." Words: Isaiah 60:1; music: Gary Alan Smith. Music (c) 1992 Gamut Music Productions. As found in CCB # 2.
"As We Gather." Words and music: Mike Fay and Tom Coomes. (c) 1981 Coomesietunes Maranatha! Music. As found in CCB # 12.
"Your Loving Kindness Is Better Than Life." Words: based on Ps. 63:3, 4; music: Hugh Mitchell. Chorus (c) 1956 and verses (c) 1962 Singspiration Music. As found in CCB # 26.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: O Lord, fill us with your breath,
People: And we will be your words of praise.
Leader: Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever.
People: Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity.
Leader: Your love is righteousness
People: and you despise all wickedness.
Leader: We come to worship the God who reigns over us.
People: We bow before the Lord, our Maker.
or
Leader: Come and worship the One who created us.
People: We have been made in God's image. Made to be filled with the Spirit of God.
Leader: The things we think on, fill us.
People: That which fills us, motivates our actions.
Leader: Be filled with the Spirit and wisdom of God.
People: Then we can do the acts of God.
COLLECT/OPENING PRAYER
O God, who breathed into our first earth parent your own breath, and Spirit and life: Grant us the wisdom to allow you to renew that in us each day as we fill ourselves with your good thoughts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
God, you are closer to us than our own breath. You created us to be filled with your own being. You offer yourself to us as a refreshing breeze; a drink of cool water; a glass of fine wine; a loaf of fresh bread. Help us to receive you daily into our lives that from that storehouse of good things we might truly be disciples of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us." Words: Attr. To Dorothy A. Thrupp, 1836. Music: William B. Bradbury, 1859. Public domain. As found in UMH 381; Hymnal '82 708; LBOW 481; TPH 387; AAHH 424; TNNBH 54.
"I Want a Principle Within." Words: Charles Wesley, 1749; music: Louis Spohr, 1834; adapt. by J. Stimpson. Public domain. As found in UMH 410.
"O for a Heart to Praise My God." Words: Charles Wesley, 1742; music: Thomas Haweis, 1792. Public domain. As found in UMH 417.
"Lord, I Want to Be a Christian." Words: Afro-American spiritual; music: Afro-American spiritual; adapt. and arr. by William Farley Smith, 1986. Adapt. and arr. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 402; TPH 372; AAHH 463; TNNBH 156.
"I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light." As found in UMH 206; Hymnal '82 490.
Songs
"Create in Me a Clean Heart." Words: anon.; music: anon.; arr. by J. Michael Bryan. Arr. (c) 1996 Abingdon Press. As found in CCB # 54.
"Change My Heart, O God." Words and music: Eddie Espinosa. (c) 1982 Mercy Publishing. As found in CCB # 56.
"Lord, Be Glorified." Words: stanzas 1-3 by Bob Kilpatrick; stanzas 4-6 by J. Michael Bryan, M. Anne Burnette Hook, Andy Langford, Brian McSwain; music: Bob Kilpatrick. (c) 1978, 1986 Prism Tree Music. As found in CCB # 62.
PRAYERS OF CONFESSION/PARDON
Leader: We are God's people. We were created in God's image, redeemed by God's Son and filled with God's Spirit. Yet we often bear little family resemblance to our Holy Parent. Let us confess to God the state of our lives.
People: Merciful God who loves as only a parent can love: We confess that we have filled our lives with things that have drawn us away from you and have led us in the ways of death. We have filled ourselves with revenge and greed and self-centeredness. We have taken into our lives thoughts that are not your thoughts and we have traveled ways that are not your ways. Forgive us, once again, O God of compassion, and fill us anew with your Spirit that we may live out our lives as your children. Amen.
Leader: Hear the good news. God came in Jesus Christ not to condemn us but in order to redeem us. God loves you, accepts you, and reclaims you as God's own child.
People: We rejoice in the love of our God. We will live this week as God's own children.
GENERAL PRAYERS AND LITANIES
Awesome and wonderful Creator God, we bless and sanctify your Holy Name. You are the One who can say of yourself, "I am who I am." You are the eternal Self who can simply be known as, "I am."
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We are your people, O God. We were created in your image, redeemed by your Son, and filled with your Spirit. Yet we often bear little family resemblance to you, our Holy Parent. We confess that we have filled our lives with things that have drawn us away from you and have led us in the ways of death. We have filled ourselves with revenge and greed and self-centeredness. We have taken into our lives thoughts that are not your thoughts and we have traveled ways that are not your ways. Forgive us, once again, O God of compassion, and fill us anew with your Spirit that we may live out our lives as your children. We give thanks, for you have come and sought us when we have lostourselves in our own deceit. When we have filled our lives with lies about who we are, you call us to remember who we truly are in your sight. You bless us with grace and love and acceptance.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for those who are in need this day. We pray for those who are trying to find their true meaning in life and for those who do not yet know they are lost. We pray for those who are denied their share of the goodness of creation because others refuse to see them as God's children.
We pray for the sick and the dying; for those imprisoned by governments, spouses, parents or addictions.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
We pray for ourselves as your people. Help us to live with such integrity as your people that others dare to live their true lives. All these things we offer in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray together, saying,
"Our Father ... "
Hymnal and Songbook Abbreviations
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd Edition
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A Children's Sermon
by Wesley Runk
You Have to Change the Inside
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-24
Text: "There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile." (v. 15)
Object: a ballpoint pen out of ink, several empty pens that the cartridge can be put into, and a new replacement cartridge
Good morning, boys and girls. I have with me this morning a little favorite object that I do a lot of writing with in my work. It is just a dandy little ballpoint pen that seems to write everywhere, under water, on paper, wood, or cardboard. It is a good little pen. Well, it was a good little pen until yesterday, and then it quit. I brought it along with me this morning, and I thought, if all of us would say something nice to my little pen, it would get better and start to write again. (ask each of the children to say something nice to the pen)
That was really nice of you to talk to my little pen that way, and I am going to sit down and write my mother a letter. (begin to write or try to write) Uh-oh. All of the nice things you said did not make any difference. It won't write. I know what I will do. I am going to change the cover on the pen. Maybe if I give it a red cover instead of a green one that it is wearing, it will write. (begin to change covers, try to write with it, and then change it to another cover)
Well, we have tried the red and the blue and the yellow, and none of them work. I think my pen has died. It is a dead pen. We have talked to it nicely, we have dressed it up in many different colors, and the pen will not write. I guess there must be something else wrong with it. Maybe the thing that is wrong with the pen is on the inside and not on the outside like we have been trying to fix. If I put a different inside into the pen, maybe it would work again. (put in a good ballpoint cartridge) "Dear Mom." It writes! I changed the inside of the pen, and the pen is fixed!
That is a little bit like the story that Jesus told us today about people. Jesus said that the only thing that is wrong with people is not what happens to them on the outside or what they eat or how they eat their food. The thing that is wrong with people is in their heart and in how they think.
If you are going to change and be a Christian, a better person, it doesn't make any difference what kind of clothes you wear or the fancy manners that you might have. You have to change your heart and be ready to forgive and share your love with other people. That is how a person is fixed. That is how people change.
People are like pens. They quit working like God's people when they go wrong inside. Changing their clothes or the way that they eat or the house that they live in, will not make the difference. If you want to change and be a Christian, you have to change on the inside and love God and God's people. That is the way Jesus taught us and that is the real way.
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The Immediate Word, August 31, 2003 issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
Søren Kierkegaard once said that "purity of heart is to will one thing." Our contributors for today contend that purity of heart is to see that our living is congruent with our professing and our pronouncements. In the lead article, team comments, illustrations, worship materials, and children's sermon, they provide a number of examples of the glaring breakdown in our society of this kind of wholeness, both in high places and in the lives of ordinary citizens.
With this issue we are pleased to welcome a valued new member of the editorial group of The Immediate Word. Ron Allen, prolific author and professor at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, supplies the lead article, based on the Gospel for August 31 assigned in the lectionary. Ron offers keen insight into the Markan text and upholds Jesus' vision of the coming Reign of God as the basis for hope in a dissembling world.
Contents:
REIGN IN-REIGN OUT
Team Comments
Related Illustrations
Worship Resources
Children's Sermon
REIGN IN-REIGN OUT
by Ron Allen
Mark 7:1-23
There has been a huge flap in Great Britain, and in the United States, over how much Tony Blair and George Bush knew about the tentativeness of the intelligence information they used to help sell the war in Iraq. The symbol of this controversy is the famous "sixteen word gaffe" in which President Bush, in his State of the Union speech last January, claimed that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Niger, a nation in Africa. As is now well known, that claim had been discredited by a former U.S. official ten months before the State of the Union address.
Needless to say, I cannot know what Tony Blair or George Bush (or their aides) knew or when they knew it, but I confess that now, when I hear officials in Washington or London talking about the war, and the prospects for continuing U.S. and British military presence in Iraq, I listen through a question mark. I wonder, are they telling the whole story?
At first glance, you might think that the Gospel lection for today has little to do with George Bush, Tony Blair, and the situation in Iraq. After all, the text begins with a fracas that seems almost pointless to most of us. The Pharisees hassle the disciples of Jesus because the disciples eat without washing their hands.
Why is washing hands even an issue? Who (other than a five-year-old coming in the back door from the mud hole) would raise a fuss about washing hands? For the Pharisees at the time of Mark, however, washing hands before eating was more than a matter of hygiene. They wanted Jewish people to wash their hands in a ritual or ceremonial way before eating as a symbol of cleansing, or purity, or holiness. In fact, the Mishnah, a document outlining essential aspects of Judaism that the Pharisees put together a few years after the Second Testament, contains a whole chapter - seven pages - on the importance of washing hands.
Mark points out that the Jewish people observed many similar customs, such as washing cups and pots and bronze kettles. The Mishnah contains another chapter on cleansing such utensils, and it runs almost forty pages - one of the longest chapters in the Mishnah.
Washing hands. Washing dishes. Seven pages. Forty pages. These actions are not commanded so specifically in the Bible. The Pharisees developed a body of interpretation to explain such practices in more detail than given in the Bible. The Pharisees even added some practices to the ones commended for the Jewish community in the Bible.
My spouse and I have five children. I wonder how far we would get trying to supervise seven pages of handwashing instructions before every meal and snack.
The Pharisees want Jesus' disciples to live in a faithful Jewish way by washing their hands and eating from clean vessels. The Markan Jesus, however, replies by quoting a passage from Isaiah that accuses the people of being hypocrites. "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."
The Markan Jesus kicks in another example of the Pharisees rejecting a commandment of God to keep their own tradition. A core Jewish value is honoring father and mother. In the world of the Bible that meant not only respecting the parents, but caring for them financially and physically in their old age. Children were a form of social security.
According to Mark, however, the Pharisees practice corban. Now, the way Mark presents it, corban was the practice of dedicating an amount of money or some other offering to the temple so that one no longer had use of it. The person dedicating the gift received a blessing from God, but the money was no longer available for use. Hence, Mark pictures the Pharisees as dedicating money to the temple that they should have used to take care of their aging parents. They were gaining favor from God at the expense of their parents.
Picture the Pharisees walking around in an aura of piety. People whispering, "Have you heard how much they pledged to the building campaign?" But we're not talking about them not visiting their parents in the nursing home. Picture the parents scraping around for clothing and food. Hungry. Cold. While their adult children are being given a plaque at an all-church dinner in gratitude for their donation.
No wonder Jesus speaks the climactic teaching of the text. "There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out can defile." Washed hands do not make clean or unclean. Hungry parents defile.
Mark pictures the Pharisees abandoning the core, internal meaning of the teaching of God and living on the basis of human, external tradition. The name for that phenomenon is hypocrisy: according to Mark the Pharisees say one thing but do another.
This idea is so important to Mark that he records Jesus saying it again (this time to the disciples who do not seem to get the point) and adding a codicil: "Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from the outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes into the sewer?" "Thus," Mark underscores, "he declared all foods clean."
Why were such issues like handwashing and clean vessels important to Mark? At one level they were important because of a situation in Mark's church. During the days of Jesus himself, the people in the Jesus movement were Jewish. But by the time Mark wrote his Gospel, thirty or forty years later, some Gentiles were identifying with the community of Jesus' followers. Ordinarily a Gentile coming into a Jewish community would have to be fully initiated into Judaism and observe practices such as washing hands and vessels. However, the followers of Jesus believed that the end of this present world was coming soon. In view of the immediate end of the world, they saw no reason for Gentiles to become fully Jewish. The message of "all foods clean" is that Gentiles can await the apocalypse as fully vested members of Mark's community without washing hands and vessels.
At another level, the core issue here is deeply Jewish: integrity, the degree to which what we say is consistent with what we do. Mark portrays the Pharisees as saying one thing and doing another - washing hands and vessels while neglecting to care for their parents. Lest we look down on the Pharisees from a height of Christian smugness, notice that the disciples did not see the problem at first. Jesus called it to their attention.
When Mark complains about the Pharisees, he does not bring a new point of view into the story. Concern for integrity is at the heart of the Jewish religion. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Just as there is oneness, continuity, between God's being and action, so there is to be oneness between human attitudes and actions.
When Jesus criticizes the Pharisees, it is not because they are Jewish. He criticizes them by quoting Isaiah, one of the great Jewish prophets, because the Pharisees are not Jewish enough. By saying one thing and doing another, they do not live with integrity.
Next, however, Jesus raises the stakes. If you put evil intentions into the human heart, you will get a fractious, evil person. If you put evil intentions into a community, you will create a community that is fractious and evil. Put in fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, and folly.
Why is there so much falsehood, deceit, exploitation, and violence in our culture?
If you say you believe in covenantal sexuality, but you fornicate ... if you say you respect the property of others, but steal from them ... if you say you respect life, but murder ... you are defiled. What goes in is what comes out. As my children say, when they are working on the computer, "Junk in - junk out."
When we hear this passage in the context of the leading theme of the Gospel of Mark, we get a positive message. This theme? The realm of God is coming. In a major stream of Jewish thought, the realm of God is that great time when God ends sin, brokenness, poverty, sickness, violence, and death, and re-creates the world as a time of unending restoration, wholeness, abundance, health, peace, and life. Mark believed that this great age had begun in the ministry of Jesus and that it would come completely into force when Jesus returned in power and glory. A great apocalyptic cataclysm.
The implied positive message of this text? If you put the realm of God into a life, that life will take on the characteristics of the divine realm. If you put the attitudes and values and practices of the realm of God into a community, that community will begin to take on the qualities of the realm of God. "Realm in - realm out."
This text does two things at once. It warns about the consequences of junk in - junk out. It also encourages us to put into our lives and communities qualities that maintain integrity with the realm of God.
Integrity, and lack of it, relates directly to questions that we face every day when we are watching the news, when we talk with co-workers, and when we gather around the dinner table. Whom can we trust? When can we believe what a person says? What happens when there is a contradiction between what a person says is important and what they prove is important by the way they act?
The basketball coach at Baylor University was recently forced out of his job in the wake of tragedy. One player on the team shot and killed another player on the same team. In the wake of the scandal, the coach, an avowed Christian, asked assistant coaches and even players to lie to the police to cover up the shoddy way the program was run. The coach was not directly involved in the killing, of course. But the program was run with a "win at any cost" mentality that brought in some players whose attitudes and values were not consistent with those of the largest Baptist university in North America. We cannot know whether the killing would have happened if the coach had made a habit of honesty and other ethical virtues. But when deceit is standard operating procedure in the office, it sends the message that deceit and other forms of corruption are acceptable on the court and off.
I do not want to oversimplify, but in the Middle East right now a process of negotiation for peace is trying to move forward. And yet it is interrupted by bombing after bombing, some of them suicide bombs, and often followed by brutal retaliation. Violence in - violence out.
The anniversary of September 11, 2001, is only a few days away, and these questions come into focus. Violence in. Our nation is responding in kind. I do not have a specific political program to propose as an alternative, but I do know this: as long as we continue to put violence in, our nation and our world will get violence out.
Consequences of lack of integrity: Arthur Anderson, Enron. I wager many of the readers of this service know people who lost their jobs in the collapse of these two businesses that professed certain good things but practiced others.
Now, in the interest of integrity, I need to point out that Mark violated his own integrity by defiling Judaism. Mark depicts the Pharisees in this story (and throughout the second Gospel) as hollow, as concerned with externals, as saying one thing and doing another. To the contrary, the best knowledge that we have of the Pharisees in the first century is that they were a lay-led reform movement who sought to encourage people in all walks of life to practice Judaism in its fullness. Here is how Josephus, a first-century Jewish writer, described them.
The Pharisees simplify their standard of living, making no concession to luxury. They follow the guidance of that which their doctrine has selected and transmitted as good, attaching the chief importance to the observance of those commandments which it has seen fit to dictate to them. They show respect and deference to their elders [something I as a parent would certainly appreciate] ... They believe that souls have the power to survive death and that there are rewards and punishments under the earth for those who have led lives of virtue or vice ... Because of these views, they are, as a matter of fact, extremely influential among the townsfolk; and all prayers and sacred rites of divine worship [a bit of an overstatement] are performed according to their exposition. This is the great tribute that the inhabitants of the cities, by practicing the highest ideals both in their way of living and in their discourse, have paid to the excellence of the Pharisees. (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18:12-15, quoted in George W. E. Nickelsburg and Michael E. Stone, eds., Faith and Piety in Early Judaism: Texts and Documents [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983], pp. 25-26)
When we read the literature that the Pharisees wrote - especially the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the many other documents - we find recurring emphases that are consistent with this picture: people who "practice the highest ideals" of Judaism.
Why would Mark misrepresent them, even vilify them? Mark's community was likely in conflict with Pharisees (and perhaps some other Jewish leaders) over whether Gentiles could or should be accepted into the church without converting to Judaism. The situation is similar to a church fight today in which one group is for the pastor (or some issue) and another is against, and the rhetoric gets hotter and hotter as each group tries to win the day. Putting others down is one of the oldest and most successful tactics for building up yourself and for persuading others to your point of view.
One of the most tenacious tenets of Judaism is that one should not bear false witness. That is what Mark believed (e.g., Mark 10:19). Yet Mark goes against what he believes by misrepresenting Judaism.
Junk in - junk out. Mark is not the only Christian who has defiled Jewish people over the centuries. But I wonder how differently Jewish-Christian relationships might have been if Christians had acted with integrity towards the Pharisees and their successors since the first century. A Realm-like view of Judaism in would have had a greater chance of letting out a Realm-like view of the Pharisees.
Preachers sometimes like to make analogies between the picture of the Pharisees in the text and attitudes of and behaviors of some Christians today about concern with externals while neglecting matters of the heart. Saying we believe one thing while acting another way. While some Christians are certainly contemporary Pharisees in this regard, the preacher who takes this tack without calling attention to distortions in Mark's portrayal of the Pharisees reinforces the negative caricature and misrepresentation of the Pharisees (and other Jewish people) that has plagued the church since the time of Mark.
Before I leave this subject, I need to put in a good word about washing hands and vessels and other Jewish rites. Christians sometimes mistakenly think that Jewish people believed that they had to perform such rites, or works, to earn favor with God. We call this works righteousness. But not so. The Jewish people - Pharisees chief among them - always believed that they were in community with God because of God's grace (unmerited favor) and unconditional love.
Washing hands and pots and pans, along with circumcision, the dietary laws, and other Jewish practices, had a very important purpose. They were identity markers, that is, things that the Jewish people did to remember their identity (beloved of God) and their mission (to be a light to the Gentiles). A Jewish teacher a couple of generations after Mark quotes a saying from Leviticus that mentions which beasts Jewish people may eat and which they may not, and then comments, "This means the precepts were given for the express purpose of purifying humankind" (Leviticus Rabbah 13:3 in Midrash Rabbah [London: Soncino Press, 1953]). To "purify" in this context means to be freed from complicity with evil and to be aligned with God's purposes. Many of the Jewish teachers of antiquity believed that God gave such practices not for their own sakes but because of their effect on human beings. Washing hands and vessels helps people remember who they are and what they are to do.
Such practices helped the Jewish community remain faithful during the exile to Babylon, during the colonization of Palestine by Persia, and, during the intense influx of Greek culture in the Hellenistic age, and under the Roman occupation. If you were Jewish and lived in those eras, every time you did something like wash your hands, you would remember, "I am not beholden to the idols of Babylon, Persia, the Greeks, or the Romans. I serve the living God who is with me to help me live and witness faithfully even in these alien cultures."
Such practices have helped Judaism maintain its identity for more than three thousand years. I have to be really candid here. I wonder whether Christian practices have been as successful in helping Christians maintain a distinct identity amidst different eras and cultures.
Mark did not envision Christianity as a new long-term religion, but as an outgrowth of Judaism providing shelter for Gentiles during the great apocalyptic transformation. If Mark and the other writers of the Second Testament had been thinking of equipping a people for two millennia of existence, I wonder if they might have had a different attitude about such things as washing hands and vessels.
As I said, I cannot know for certain what Tony Blair and George Bush knew about the accuracy of the famous sixteen words in the State of the Union speech claiming that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger. I hope that they were not aware of the questions that had been raised about that claim. For the simple fact is that questions about integrity cut to the heart of our capacity to live in trusting community with others. When integrity is broken, I always have questions in the back of my mind (concerning future things that people say and do). What can I really believe? When can I trust what a person says? When might this person say one thing and do another? Integrity is essential to trusting community.
At any rate, this text implies a question to us. Do we live with integrity? Are we putting in - into our lives, our congregations, our broader communities - the kinds of things that will help our world manifest qualities of the realm of God? "Junk in - junk out." Realm in - Realm out.
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Team Comments
George Murphy responds: "Thus he declared all foods clean" (Mark 7:19b). I've been around long enough that I shouldn't be surprised by the scissors-happiness of lectionary makers, but I'm still amazed that this week they left out this verse, which is of profound importance.
These words are, of course, not those of Jesus but are a reflection by the Gospel writer on Jesus' statements and attitudes toward handwashing and other religious rituals. Their importance lies in the fact that the early church saw in the example of Jesus the root of their belief that such rules simply aren't necessary for Christians. When we trace back this belief we probably think first of the story about Peter's vision in Acts 10 and its consequences in the acceptance of the Gentile Cornelius and his companions, or Paul's arguments in Galatians. But the author of Mark saw this idea as going back to Jesus himself. While it's clear that during his historical ministry Jesus didn't tell his disciples that they could simply drop the food laws and other Jewish regulations (for if he had, Peter's vision presumably would have been unnecessary and there wouldn't have been controversy about the matter in the early church), Christians came to see that as the implication of teaching and practice.
The basic question isn't whether or not such rules have to be obeyed in order to earn God's favor or forgiveness. The Pharisees, like all serious Jewish believers, recognized that God had saved Israel before giving them torah, as Exodus 19:3-6 makes clear. The more radical Christian claim that comes to full expression in Galatians is that Christians are not bound by such regulations at all: "For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).
I agree fully that we shouldn't misrepresent the Pharisees - recognizing, among other things, that Paul could call himself a Pharisee (Acts 23:6) and Jesus himself came down on the Pharisees' side in contemporary disputes (Matthew 22:23-34). But we also shouldn't idealize the Pharisees or accuse Mark of simply misrepresenting them when he points out negative features of Pharisaic belief and practice - features not unique to that first-century Jewish party.
For the idea that we have to earn God's favor by our good works and obedience to the proper religious rules is the most common religion in the world. I was once told of a poll among members of my Lutheran tradition who are supposed to have learned about justification through grace alone by faith alone from the cradle up, in confirmation class, sermons, etc. Yet when asked why they thought they'd get into heaven, something like three-quarters of them gave an answer something on the order of, "Well, I've always tried to obey the commandments" - hardly the textbook picture of a Lutheran! Josephus' description of the Pharisees needn't make us think that real Pharisees in the first century were a lot different.
The point for the preacher should not be to revile the historical Pharisees, nor should they be presented as entirely misunderstood by the evangelists. What is more helpful is to call attention to the pervasive belief in works righteousness among people today - including long-time Christians sitting in the pews! It needs to be said that this not only misrepresents God's relationship with us but also makes it possible for us to evade God's call to love our neighbors as ourselves. (How much does a two-ton Ten Commandments monument cost, and how many poor people could you feed with that money?)
Christians ought to recognize the regulations of torah as an essential aspect of the way in which God chose to bring his full revelation in Christ into the world, and honor them as we honor our ancestors. We should respect the intention of the Pharisees' "fence around the torah" to defend God's law. But neither of these is what the Christian life is about. I would urge preachers who are going to focus on the Gospel lection this week to include Mark 7:17-19 and to refer to Galatians 4:8-11 and Colossians 2:20-23 as primary commentary on it.
Another thought on the Mark 7 text: Jesus rejects here the idea that physical things - in particular, food - that go into a person can "defile" him/her, and says that it's "what comes out of a person" - words, deeds, and such - that can defile. But it's not much of a stretch to add that words and ideas that "go into" a person also don't defile. Some religious folk think that there should be limits to scientific attempts to understand the world and ourselves, and that there are "things we weren't meant to know." Some are upset simply by the discussion of certain topics and in effect put their hands over their ears and say, "Blah, blah, blah, I can't hear you," when they come up. Such attitudes come to expression in the insistence of some parents that their children not be exposed to things like evolution and sex education in public schools.
Now, of course, there are right and wrong ways to present topics like that to children, and one can make good arguments for Christian schools in which they would be taught in the context of Christian understandings of creation. (And by that I don't mean presenting creation as an alternative to evolution.) But simply hearing and understanding such things won't defile anybody. It's the thoughts, beliefs, and actions that result from processing such information that are crucial.
Carter Shelley responds: There was an interview on NPR's Fresh Air, Wednesday, August 20, with writer Eric Dezenhall, a damage control expert and president of the PR firm Nicholas-Dezenhall Communications Management Group, based in Washington, D.C. He has in the past described his business as a response to "the culture of the attack." Dezenhall worked for the Reagan administration. Dezenhall complains that the American public is much more likely to believe the accuser than the accused. Hence, some innocent individuals and companies get tarred and feathered even though they have not committed the crimes, because we tend to believe what the media or the twenty-first century equivalent of a "white knight" tells us via television, the press, etc.
When did it become okay in the cultural context for marriages to end on a whim? Julia Roberts fell in love with a married man one and a half years ago, and received almost no criticism for it at the time. J-Lo dumped husband number two seemingly without a qualm in order to pursue her on-set romance with Ben Affleck. The word "adultery" seems to be unfashionable these days. The concept of "loyalty" also has a very short shelf life. There seems to be no previous lover or former employee of Princess Diana who hasn't become rich by publishing every sleazy and sad detail of her short and troubled life. Current political analyst and former White House aid George Stephanopoulas bemoans the All Too Human Clinton White House in which Stephanopoulas got his big break as a very young man. Such professional opportunities didn't keep Stephanopoulas from recording his employer's multiple peccadilloes or capitalizing on the fame he achieved through his short tenure on Clinton's staff.
There's very little in contemporary society that seems to encourage our children or ourselves to strive to be people of courage, integrity, and purity. There's little that takes place on the primary TV channels or gets shown in our movie theaters that encourages basic decency and integrity. If we want positive role models, we have to read about them in the Bible or in books. And we have to be on the alert to spot them in our daily life.
The words Jesus utters to the indignant Pharisees ring, if anything, more true today than they did 2000 years ago. We humans have an uncanny knack for reordering the world in a way that allows us to justify selfish, uncaring behavior towards others. The Pharisees convinced themselves they were righteous because they kept the letter of the law. Yet Jesus charges them with neglecting to honor their parents through corban, their legal loophole. Far better to get in good with God by dedicating one's wealth to God than to make adequate provisions for one's elderly parents. Anyone who has read Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility or seen the excellent movie version with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslett will recall the justifications and whittling down of financial provisions the half-brother John Dashwood and his wife determine will suffice for his stepmother and her three daughters. The results of their rationalizations leave his sisters in an economically dire circumstance while he and his family enjoy the palatial estate he has inherited from their father.
In the Gospel Jesus makes it clear that caring for one's parents is the obvious choice for a truly righteous man. Money itself is not the corrupting agent for the Pharisees, the robber barons, or for wags on Wall Street or in our pews. It's the way we view and use money that demonstrates our righteousness, our compassion, or our greed. The excessive drinking of alcohol can lead to DUI's, physical abuse of family, loss of face, loss of job, and tragedy. It's not the drink itself that causes such circumstances. It's what happens inside the drinker that results in disaster. Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes exquisitely demonstrates the heartache and deprivation alcoholic parents cause their children. A seemingly less serious brand of unholy bile might be gossip. Hearing gossip may seem a harmless enough pastime. But if the result of hearing of someone else's scandalous behavior becomes a sense of smug superiority, the results are indeed impure. Add onto that the temptation to spread the gossip abroad, and one increases the damage to others while decreasing one's own capacity for compassion and caring.
Some Christians stint their parents of emotional, physical, and financial support when their parents become elderly. Some Christians struggle with or deny their struggles with alcoholism. Some Christians gossip. Many Christians struggle with issues of fidelity, integrity, and loyalty. We face such challenges in our exchange with friends at school, in our jobs, in our marriages, even in our churches. It's no accident that Jesus challenges the moral righteousness of those men (sic) believed by their fellow men (sic) to be the most righteous of Jews. Jesus doesn't declare at this point that "all sin and fall short of the grace of God." Jesus does, however, name the sin of self-deceit that allows humans to believe ourselves to be upright citizens while ignoring the immediate needs of not only the widow, the orphan, or the stranger in our midst but even our own relatives. In naming the sin, Jesus also names the cure through his own actions of healing on the Sabbath and eating with the unwashed and ungodly. People matter more than sanctimony.
That's why integrity is an issue for Christians today. We need to be the ones who stand up and say no to the impurity of passing the blame on down the line to some other poor schmuck with less power or acclaim. We need to be the ones who stand up and say no to a society that celebrates white teeth, blond hair, and thin thighs over selflessness and care for others. We need to be the ones who stand up and declare that what is beautiful is what comes from the heart of a person who reaches out to others and puts the needs of others before his or her own financial profit, fame, or success."
Carlos Wilton responds: One of the time-honored homiletic methods is to illustrate scripture with scripture. A wonderful example can be found in Psalm 41. The writer of this poem - a psalm of lament - ends by praising God, who he declares has "upheld me because of my integrity" (Psalm 41:12). The word "integrity" in this psalm is a rich one. Literally, the Hebrew means "wholeness," or "completeness."
This mention of integrity may at first seem out of place in a lament about physical illness. We're so used to separating mind, body, and spirit in our culture. To the popular mind, illness just happens. It exists in a separate, physical realm, over and against the realm of the spirit. But the Hebrew culture, in some ways wiser than our own, was much more holistically inclined. To the Hebrew mind, it's no surprise that a lapse in integrity (the wholeness of the soul) could affect physical health (the wholeness of the body).
We could use a lot more of holistic integrity in the world today. We'd love to see more of it in our leaders, of course: in the halls of Congress, where poll-watching seems to have replaced independent thinking ... in corporate board rooms, where theft from stockholders has become all but legalized in exorbitant executive salariesc ... in law courts, where obscure technicalities seem so often to triumph over ethical principles. And let's not look just to other people, either. There are plenty of areas in which the ordinary person could stand to show more integrity: filling out tax returns, for example, or making sure the restaurant tip is truly adequate (not to mention the larger questions of workplace ethics).
There are some disturbing indications that ethical integrity is becoming less common in our culture. For example, a recent survey of 12,000 high school students, repeating a survey taken ten years before, shows a significant decline in ethics. In 1992, 61 percent of high-schoolers surveyed admitted to having cheated on an exam once in the past year; in 2002, the figure had climbed to 74 percent. The percentage who admitted to shoplifting within the past twelve months rose from 31 percent to 38 percent. Those who said they lied to their teachers and parents also increased substantially.
Just two years previously, in 2000, 34 percent of high school students had agreed with the statement, "A person has to lie or cheat sometimes in order to succeed." In 2002, that number had jumped 9 percent.
"The evidence," says Michael Josephson - president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics that conducted the survey - "is that a willingness to cheat has become the norm and that parents, teachers, coaches and even religious educators have not been able to stem the tide ... The scary thing is that so many kids are entering the work force to become corporate executives, politicians, airplane mechanics and nuclear inspectors with the dispositions and skills of cheaters and thieves." ["Survey of Youths Shows Ethics Slip," by Judith Person, Washington Times, 10/23/2002]
The word "integrity" is closely related to the noun "integer." An integer is another name for a whole number - a number that's not split up into any kind of fraction. People of integrity are not divided inside. They're not split by conflicting loyalties, nor troubled overmuch by guilty conscience. People of integrity don't hesitate to take unpopular stands: for their ethical standards aren't imposed by outside laws or constraints, but rise up from a fountain deep within themselves. They're less likely to be swayed by peer pressure.
The psalm-writer is saying an extraordinary thing here, in connection with his own physical illness: that integrity is not only morally desirable, it's actually healthy. It's good for what ails you. (As an old proverb puts it, "There's no pillow as soft as a clear conscience.") Because this man, for all his chronic medical difficulties, has sought for years to keep his mind fixed on God, he's confident that God will soon vindicate him, vanquishing his illness and giving him new strength.
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Related Illustrations
"The buck stops before it gets here." (cartoonist Nicole Hollander)
* * * * *
"The devil made me do it." (comedian Flip Wilson and many others)
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Integrity is George Bush Senior telling one of his PR men to "go to hell," after the man has suggested that Barbara Bush dying her gray hair black might help the President keep his office during the 1992 campaign.
Integrity is Harry Truman meaning it when he placed on his desk the sign, "The buck stops here."
Integrity is the schmaltzy, but nice, conclusion to the preteen and teen friendly movie What a Girl Wants, in which a father concludes that his daughter is worth more than his political career.
Integrity is Humphry Bogart as Rick Blaine telling the love of his life, Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa in Casablanca, that he's not leaving Morocco with her, because the right thing is for her to escape with her husband, Victor Lazslo, even though Ilsa loves Rick and he loves her.
Integrity is picking up a wallet on the street and turning it in to the nearest police station.
Integrity is saying, "I did it" - for good or ill when you did.
Integrity is confessing, "I did it. God forgive me, and help me not to do it again."
* * * * *
One of the best literary examples of human rottenness belied by physical beauty is Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. While Dorian Gray himself presents a handsome and bewitching exterior, his nature is corrupt to the core. Dorian Gray partakes of many of life's seamier offerings, often ruining the lives of others whom he encounters along the way. Gray does not age nor does he appear to be suffering the effects of excessive drink, gambling, womanizing, drugs, etc. It is his portrait that changes. It records the internal ravages of Gray's soul until the point where the portrait no longer portrays a handsome, young man, but a monster who is the shell of a man.
- The above items are submitted by Carter Shelley
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"Character," a wise thinker once said, "is what a person is in the dark." Or, to put it another way, as Mark Twain quipped on the subject of honest speech, "If you always tell the truth, you won't have to remember anything."
- Carlos Wilton
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Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of many self-help books, speaks of integrity as "... being whole, unbroken, undivided. It describes a person who has united the different parts of his or her personality, so that there is no longer a split in the soul. When your soul is divided, part of you wants to do one thing while part wants to do something else: Do you tell the prospective buyer of your home about the plumbing problem or do you keep quiet unless he asks? ... When you have integrity, all of your aspirations are focused in one direction. Like the karate expert who can break a board with his bare hand by focusing all his strength on one spot, the person of integrity, the person whose soul is not fragmented, can do great things by concentrating all of his energies on a single goal. For the person of integrity, life may not be easy but it is simple. Figure out what is right and do it. All other considerations come in second." [Living a Life That Matters (Anchor Books, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 2002)]
- Submitted by Carlos Wilton
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Worship Resources
by George Reed
OPENING
Music
Hymns
"My Soul, Now Praise Your Maker!" Words: Johann Gramann, 1487-1541; trans. Catherine Winkworth, 1829-1878, alt.; music: Kugelmann, Concentua Novi, 1540. Public domain. As found in LBOW: 519.
"Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah." Words: William Williams, 1745; trans. Peter Williams and the author, 1771; music: John Hughes, 1907. Public domain. As found in UMH 127; Hymnal '82 690; LBOW 343; TPH 281; AAHH 139, 140; TNNBH 232.
"Maker, in Whom We Live." Words: Charles Wesley, 1747; music: George J. Elvey, 1868. Public domain. As found in UMH 88.
"God, Whose Love Is Reigning O'er Us." Words: William Boyd Grove, 1980; music: John Goss, 1869. Words (c) 1980 William Boyd Grove. As found in UMH 100.
"He Leadeth Me, O Blessed Thought." Words: Joseph H. Gilmore, 1862; music: William B. Bradbury, 1864. Public domain. As found in UMH 128; AAHH 142; TNNBH 235.
Songs
"Arise, Shine." Words: Isaiah 60:1; music: Gary Alan Smith. Music (c) 1992 Gamut Music Productions. As found in CCB # 2.
"As We Gather." Words and music: Mike Fay and Tom Coomes. (c) 1981 Coomesietunes Maranatha! Music. As found in CCB # 12.
"Your Loving Kindness Is Better Than Life." Words: based on Ps. 63:3, 4; music: Hugh Mitchell. Chorus (c) 1956 and verses (c) 1962 Singspiration Music. As found in CCB # 26.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: O Lord, fill us with your breath,
People: And we will be your words of praise.
Leader: Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever.
People: Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity.
Leader: Your love is righteousness
People: and you despise all wickedness.
Leader: We come to worship the God who reigns over us.
People: We bow before the Lord, our Maker.
or
Leader: Come and worship the One who created us.
People: We have been made in God's image. Made to be filled with the Spirit of God.
Leader: The things we think on, fill us.
People: That which fills us, motivates our actions.
Leader: Be filled with the Spirit and wisdom of God.
People: Then we can do the acts of God.
COLLECT/OPENING PRAYER
O God, who breathed into our first earth parent your own breath, and Spirit and life: Grant us the wisdom to allow you to renew that in us each day as we fill ourselves with your good thoughts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
God, you are closer to us than our own breath. You created us to be filled with your own being. You offer yourself to us as a refreshing breeze; a drink of cool water; a glass of fine wine; a loaf of fresh bread. Help us to receive you daily into our lives that from that storehouse of good things we might truly be disciples of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us." Words: Attr. To Dorothy A. Thrupp, 1836. Music: William B. Bradbury, 1859. Public domain. As found in UMH 381; Hymnal '82 708; LBOW 481; TPH 387; AAHH 424; TNNBH 54.
"I Want a Principle Within." Words: Charles Wesley, 1749; music: Louis Spohr, 1834; adapt. by J. Stimpson. Public domain. As found in UMH 410.
"O for a Heart to Praise My God." Words: Charles Wesley, 1742; music: Thomas Haweis, 1792. Public domain. As found in UMH 417.
"Lord, I Want to Be a Christian." Words: Afro-American spiritual; music: Afro-American spiritual; adapt. and arr. by William Farley Smith, 1986. Adapt. and arr. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 402; TPH 372; AAHH 463; TNNBH 156.
"I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light." As found in UMH 206; Hymnal '82 490.
Songs
"Create in Me a Clean Heart." Words: anon.; music: anon.; arr. by J. Michael Bryan. Arr. (c) 1996 Abingdon Press. As found in CCB # 54.
"Change My Heart, O God." Words and music: Eddie Espinosa. (c) 1982 Mercy Publishing. As found in CCB # 56.
"Lord, Be Glorified." Words: stanzas 1-3 by Bob Kilpatrick; stanzas 4-6 by J. Michael Bryan, M. Anne Burnette Hook, Andy Langford, Brian McSwain; music: Bob Kilpatrick. (c) 1978, 1986 Prism Tree Music. As found in CCB # 62.
PRAYERS OF CONFESSION/PARDON
Leader: We are God's people. We were created in God's image, redeemed by God's Son and filled with God's Spirit. Yet we often bear little family resemblance to our Holy Parent. Let us confess to God the state of our lives.
People: Merciful God who loves as only a parent can love: We confess that we have filled our lives with things that have drawn us away from you and have led us in the ways of death. We have filled ourselves with revenge and greed and self-centeredness. We have taken into our lives thoughts that are not your thoughts and we have traveled ways that are not your ways. Forgive us, once again, O God of compassion, and fill us anew with your Spirit that we may live out our lives as your children. Amen.
Leader: Hear the good news. God came in Jesus Christ not to condemn us but in order to redeem us. God loves you, accepts you, and reclaims you as God's own child.
People: We rejoice in the love of our God. We will live this week as God's own children.
GENERAL PRAYERS AND LITANIES
Awesome and wonderful Creator God, we bless and sanctify your Holy Name. You are the One who can say of yourself, "I am who I am." You are the eternal Self who can simply be known as, "I am."
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We are your people, O God. We were created in your image, redeemed by your Son, and filled with your Spirit. Yet we often bear little family resemblance to you, our Holy Parent. We confess that we have filled our lives with things that have drawn us away from you and have led us in the ways of death. We have filled ourselves with revenge and greed and self-centeredness. We have taken into our lives thoughts that are not your thoughts and we have traveled ways that are not your ways. Forgive us, once again, O God of compassion, and fill us anew with your Spirit that we may live out our lives as your children. We give thanks, for you have come and sought us when we have lostourselves in our own deceit. When we have filled our lives with lies about who we are, you call us to remember who we truly are in your sight. You bless us with grace and love and acceptance.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for those who are in need this day. We pray for those who are trying to find their true meaning in life and for those who do not yet know they are lost. We pray for those who are denied their share of the goodness of creation because others refuse to see them as God's children.
We pray for the sick and the dying; for those imprisoned by governments, spouses, parents or addictions.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
We pray for ourselves as your people. Help us to live with such integrity as your people that others dare to live their true lives. All these things we offer in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray together, saying,
"Our Father ... "
Hymnal and Songbook Abbreviations
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd Edition
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A Children's Sermon
by Wesley Runk
You Have to Change the Inside
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-24
Text: "There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile." (v. 15)
Object: a ballpoint pen out of ink, several empty pens that the cartridge can be put into, and a new replacement cartridge
Good morning, boys and girls. I have with me this morning a little favorite object that I do a lot of writing with in my work. It is just a dandy little ballpoint pen that seems to write everywhere, under water, on paper, wood, or cardboard. It is a good little pen. Well, it was a good little pen until yesterday, and then it quit. I brought it along with me this morning, and I thought, if all of us would say something nice to my little pen, it would get better and start to write again. (ask each of the children to say something nice to the pen)
That was really nice of you to talk to my little pen that way, and I am going to sit down and write my mother a letter. (begin to write or try to write) Uh-oh. All of the nice things you said did not make any difference. It won't write. I know what I will do. I am going to change the cover on the pen. Maybe if I give it a red cover instead of a green one that it is wearing, it will write. (begin to change covers, try to write with it, and then change it to another cover)
Well, we have tried the red and the blue and the yellow, and none of them work. I think my pen has died. It is a dead pen. We have talked to it nicely, we have dressed it up in many different colors, and the pen will not write. I guess there must be something else wrong with it. Maybe the thing that is wrong with the pen is on the inside and not on the outside like we have been trying to fix. If I put a different inside into the pen, maybe it would work again. (put in a good ballpoint cartridge) "Dear Mom." It writes! I changed the inside of the pen, and the pen is fixed!
That is a little bit like the story that Jesus told us today about people. Jesus said that the only thing that is wrong with people is not what happens to them on the outside or what they eat or how they eat their food. The thing that is wrong with people is in their heart and in how they think.
If you are going to change and be a Christian, a better person, it doesn't make any difference what kind of clothes you wear or the fancy manners that you might have. You have to change your heart and be ready to forgive and share your love with other people. That is how a person is fixed. That is how people change.
People are like pens. They quit working like God's people when they go wrong inside. Changing their clothes or the way that they eat or the house that they live in, will not make the difference. If you want to change and be a Christian, you have to change on the inside and love God and God's people. That is the way Jesus taught us and that is the real way.
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The Immediate Word, August 31, 2003 issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
