Break the rules!
Emma Bombeck writes of the 5 rules for life. They are
1. Never have more children than you have car windows.
2. Never loan your car to someone to whom you have given birth.
3. Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.
4. Never be in a hurry to terminate a marriage. Remember, you may need this person someday to finish a sentence.
5. There are no guarantees in marriage. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a Sears battery.
6. Never go to a class reunion pregnant. They will think that's all you have been doing since you graduated.
In this morning's gospel lesson Jesus breaks the rules, again. Throughout the Gospels Jesus blatantly demonstrates a disregard for Jewish purity laws. He heals on the Sabbath. He eats with sinners and tax collectors. He touches lepers, menstruating women and corpses. - These are all in violation of the purity laws. And here we see that he disregards the washing ritual and allows his disciples to eat without thoroughly washing their hands. By disregarding all these purity rituals Jesus asserts a clear rejection of the established Temple purity system.
This is radical behavior and thinking. Not only are purity laws part of the Jewish tradition but this kind of thinking has crept into Christianity. Separating people into camps - clean and unclean or acceptable and unacceptable - seems to be something that humans easily fall into. Canadian Christians have been consciously trying to deal with the baggage of separation and division for the last 50 years - with varying success. Think about it:
* Traditionally, if a woman had a child out of wedlock she would be deemed unclean - oh, of course that word wouldn't be used - she would simply be ostracized.
* Divorced couples would be ostracized by the community and not allowed to participate in communion.
* Gay and lesbian people are still untouchable, undesirable and in some families unwanted. They are essentially unclean.
This week I watched the biographies of Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor and with both of those women, the Vatican denounced their immoral behavior. And tried to shame these famous women.
Watch the "Scarlet Letter". In that movie the church hangs a woman for adulatory but Jesus saved an adulterous woman from being stoned.
As a Christian church we have a tradition of ignoring Jesus' words and behavior when it comes to separating people into camps - pure and impure, clean and unclean, accepted and ostracized.
Jesus criticizes the purity law that requires Jews to thoroughly wash their hands. "Are you willfully stupid?" He says in frustration, "Can't you see that what you swallow can't make you unclean? It doesn't enter your heart but your stomach, works its way through the intestines and is finally flushed out into the sewer."
"It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come from - not the food that one eats." X2
Jesus is saying that it's about what is in your heart. Getting to heaven, being connected with God, living in the kingdom cannot be achieved by following rules. It is about what is in your heart - what your motivations are.
If a person's heart is evil, if we have hatred in our heart - we exhibit that in our behavior.
Now, I want to tell you what Jesus doesn't say. Jesus does not say, "If someone exhibits these behaviors then they have evil in their heart" (the reverse of the sentence isn't true). Jesus also doesn't say that is someone exhibits these behavours then we can judge them." Jesus talks about intentions.
Now, God knows what is in our hearts. Sometimes God knows us better than we know ourselves. So we can't miss out on the kingdom of heaven on a technicality - because we may have behaved in a certain way, once. Its not about our behaviors, our behaviors are but a mere reflection of what is in our hearts. And we really cannot judge others for their behavior - of course we can chose to trust a person or call them a friend, or spend time with them, but we can never know if they are going to heaven or if they are connected to God's will because we don't really know what is in another person's heart.
God knows what is in our hearts, sometimes God know us better than we know ourselves. But who has evil in their heart? We may think only of dictators or mass murderers. So I was thinking about what story I could tell you to demonstrate this point. Really the only story I can tell you is my own because God and I are the only ones who know what is in my heart. And I don't know what is in anyone else's heart.
The year before I went to theology school was the most tumultuous year of my life. In some ways it was a very spiritual time - I felt called to the ministry, I read my Bible almost every night, I never missed a Sunday at church, I had a very active prayer life and I felt intimately connected to God. And at the same time I felt lonely, I was looking for love in all the wrong places, I partied a lot and I was mean to people. Being mean to people is now the most puzzling. These horrible, spiteful, mean things would come out of my mouth and they were often directed at my boss - not the wisest thing.
When I think of that year I often have the image of standing on the edge of the ocean when the waves are very big. The waves come into shore and then the undertow pulls the sand out from underneath one's feet.
At one point I realized that I had been mean to my boss. I remember saying to a co-worker that I thought the devil had gotten into my body. I thought, if I can be open to the Spirit of the Lord entering my body, what's to stop the devil? It seems to me that at that point in my life I was vulnerable to both good and evil. I wasn't even aware of what was in my heart or what my motivations were to act in such a way.
Finally, I went to apologize to my boss and I couldn't. It took me several months until I did finally apologize and we hugged and he was very thankful that I was sorry and it made a difference to our relationship.
I think there was evil in my heart but I repented by asking for forgiveness from my boss. And as for the other behaviors my repenting was a process. And sometimes I still get twinges of guilt and so I am continually asking for forgiveness from God. I think there was evil in my heart or something twisted or at the very least I was not an emotionally healthy person. But I'm much better now and I don't think there is such evil anymore.
So let us rejoice that God knows our hearts. When we break the rules that society has set out for us, we aren't necessarily breaking God's rules - that is what Jesus challenges and teaches us. God's rules only require us to love one another. And when we are incapable of doing that, when we are unloving to others, we are forgiven by God when we ask. And when we ask for a clean and loving heart, we receive it. Amen.
