TRUE RELIGION
A sermon on Mark 7

One of my favorite stories comes from Frederica Thompsett’s book We Are Theologians. It’s about people in a Jewish congregation who had a problem in worship. They were concerned about one of the most beloved prayers of their tradition, the Shema. Shema Yisrael, “Hear, O Israel,” are the first two words of a section of the Torah and are found in the book of Deuteronomy. The Shema is the centerpiece of Jewish morning and evening worship. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (6:4). Jews consider the Shema to be their most important prayer, capturing the essence of Judaism. So vital is the Shema to the prayer of faithful Jews that it is often on their lips at the time of death.

It is little wonder, then, that this congregation sought out help. They were without a rabbi, so they sent a delegation to the home of a wise old man, a former leader who was failing in health and now confined to his home. “Mr. Finkelstein,” someone began, “help us with the Shema. We believe that it is a joyful prayer, and that we should stand while praying it. What did you do when you were a leader of our great community of faith?” Mr. Finkelstein thought for a moment. Then he said, “I don’t remember.”

Someone else jumped in. “Mr. Finkelstein, surely you remember that the Shema is a prayer to be prayed on our knees, as a humble and grateful people of God!” Again Mr. Finkelstein thought for a moment and said, “I don’t remember.” “PLEASE, Mr. Finkelstein,” one young man blurted out, “Please, help us! Should we stand or kneel? Which is it? The congregation is tearing itself apart over the Shema.” Mr. Finkelstein’s face lit up, and he came alive. “Now, THAT,” he said, with a twinkling eye, “THAT,I remember!”

In our collect for today, a prayer written to collect up all our prayers, we prayed that God would “increase in us true religion.” But just what IS true religion? Is it about standing or kneeling when we pray? If there is music, is it about using an organ or a guitar? And in the story from the gospel of Mark today, is true religion about washing our hands or not?

In 2009, washing our hands has taken on brand new meaning, even in the church. It is now standard practice for all of us who distribute communion to use a hand sanitizer. But washing hands in Bible times meant something entirely different. Washing hands was not about preventing Swine flu or some other serious disease. It was about ritualpurity. The religion of Jesus’ day contained many laws about ritual purity or holiness, in conformity with Leviticus 19:2: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” There is in fact no Biblical law about the people of God washing their hands before eating. There is, however, the requirement that priests wash their hands and feet before ministering at the altar (Exodus 30:17-21). I wonder how many priests of our day abide by the letter of that law!

Pharisees, the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, took seriously the command in Exodus (19:6): “You shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” They argued that all Israelites should be as holy as priests, believing, therefore, that all Jews should wash their hands before eating. Mark, then, “is exaggerating in verse 3 when he suggests that all Jews obey this tradition of the Pharisees. There must have been many others in addition to Jesus and his disciples who ignored this pharisaic rule,” this interpretation of Torah. (Douglas Hare, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 4, pp. 21-23).

So what IS true religion? The Latin root for our word “religion” is the same one for our word “ligament.” Religion is that which binds us together in a common cause. We human beings need practices that create community. We need a sense of shared order and purpose to feel secure, especially in our 21 st – century, orange-alert world. We need laws to organize us, and most people seek out doctrines, religious or otherwise, to articulate their beliefs. Order and doctrine are not, in and of themselves, bad things. But – and let me be specific here – when we worship our worship; when we worship our leaders; when we worship our own way of doing things; when we worship our Book of Common Prayer; when we bow down to a doctrine instead of kneeling before God; when we stand up for things with which Jesus would probably never have put up…then, we become, in Jesus’ words, hypocrites.

Today is Homecoming. Welcome home! If you are a member of this great community of faith, welcome home! If you are new to All Saints’ and are thinking about joining this congregation, welcome home! If you are just visiting this church, belong to another church, would like to come back some day, please consider this another church home. Welcome home! Even if you are here under protest, against your will or just don’t know what you think about these crazy Christians who call themselves Episcopalian; even if you are thinking, “Why go to church? They’re just a bunch of hypocrites!” I say to you, “Welcome!” My name is Tom, and I, too, am a recovering hypocrite. To be human is to be hypocritical. Welcome home, fellow hypocrites!

We are all hypocrites. We all sin. No matter how faithful we are most of the time, we all look the other way some of the time, times when people in need dare to interrupt our ordered lives, demanding, “Can you see how I am suffering? What would Jesus do?” We all fall short of the grace, mercy and love of God. We are all hypocrites, and yet, remembering Frederica Thompsett’s book, we are all theologians. If you are here, you probably have some desire to be theological – to know God, to recover from our common human hypocrisy, to be more like Jesus. By the way, even Jesus had his own temptation around hypocrisy. If you don’t believe me, read the next seven verses in this chapter of Mark (7:24-30).

How can we do this? How can we live more fully into the question “What Jesus would do”? How might we lead a life of true religion? If we read all of the first twenty-three verses of this seventh chapter of Mark, including some verses left out of what we heard today, we find Jesus speaking three times about what is clean and what is unclean, what’s holy and what’s not. First, he teaches the Pharisees; then, the crowds; and finally, his friends, the disciples. He teaches them about true religion using simple words like these: “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile” (7:14-15). In some ancient manuscripts, this verse is added: “Let anyone with ears to hear listen.” As my Memphis friends might put it, “Y’all listen up!” Hear, O Israel. Hear, O Christianity.

While looking at a website whose theme is the tolerance of others who practice a different religion (www.religioustolerance.org), I was reminded that “most religious groups teach that their own beliefs and practices are the only true (religion)…, (and) that all other faith groups contain some degree of error. For example,” it says, “the largest single faith group in the U.S., in Canada, and in the world is the Roman Catholic Church.” A turn-of-the-century Catholic statement entitled Dominus Iesus implies that churches such as the Church of England, whose succession of bishops from the time of St. Peter is disputed by Rome, as well as churches without any bishops, are just not “proper” churches. Only the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches are churches in the full sense. Others, like the Episcopal Church, suffer from "defects."

But aren’t all Christians imperfect or “defective” humans? Aren’t all humans capable of being hypocrites? Aren’t all people of faith guilty of sin, yet saved by grace? Jesus is calling all of us, including the Pope, to have ears to hear. We all need to listen to the wisdom of the one, true God worshiped by Catholics and non-Catholics alike, Anglicans and Episcopalians alike, Jews and Christians alike. (For more on religious tolerance, go to my blog at www.allsaintsmd.org.)

How can we practice true religion, the religion that binds us to Jesus? Take a look with me at the first Baptismal promise we make, for ourselves or our children when they are too young to speak for themselves. Please turn with me to page 304 in The Book of Common Prayer and answer that first question: “Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?” I will, with God’s help.

That promise, I believe, is the first and fundamental step of our Christian pilgrimage, our road to recovery from hypocrisy. Today at Homecoming we have an opportunity to make good on that promise. I suggest that, if we want to practice true Christian religion, Episcopalian-style, we need to start each day with this promise. We need to “come home” daily to this fundamental question, remembering that our answer is, “I will, with God’s help.”

This is a promise to seek God through four things: teaching, fellowship, bread-breaking and prayers. Here’s a simple way to think about this promise: (1) Come to church and take a class, or go on the Internet and find one: that’s teaching. (2) Have some fun with one another, here and elsewhere: that’s fellowship. (3) Break bread together, here and elsewhere: that’s fellowship, too, but it can also be worship. (4) What about prayer? That’s listening and “responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 856).

Friends, let us admit our sin and our hypocrisy. Let us admit our need for God’s help in our lives. And let us worship God in ways that help us draw near to God whether it is to standing or kneeling or sitting with God. We might offer today’s collect as our prayer throughout the week. Would you pray it with me now? It’s in our bulletin, on page three:

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.

The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg
August 30, 2009
All Saints’ Episcopal Church
Frederick , Maryland

What does true religion have to do with blue jeans?

Go to my blog: http://fathermom.wordpress.com