Heart Service
Dt. 4:1-9; Mk. 7:1-23; Jas. 1:17-27[1]
As we enter the last phase of this year’s
political campaign season, it seems to me that most of us have heard so much
rhetoric that we have become almost immune to it all. It wouldn’t be too hard to find sound bites
where most of the politicians running for office have taken one side of a
position, and then have reversed themselves completely. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that
they have contradicted themselves. We
have been so saturated with words and promises and claims and counter-claims
that none of it means much to us any more.
Most of us have already made up our minds any way. Politics these days—especially presidential
politics—are about where you take your stand in the cultural battles that
divide us. And yet, the parties will
spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try to win our votes. But in my humble opinion, most of the words
we’ll be exposed to in the coming months won’t do much to change anybody’s
mind.
I suspect a lot of people view our faith
the way we view politics: it’s all a lot of words that don’t mean much. If they’re not completely jaded by religion,
they may still look to see if those of us who profess faith follow up with
actions that demonstrate it. But many people in our world have already given up
on religion. And it’s because we
religious people have spent our time and energy arguing about things that tend
to appear to the average bystander as something like debating the right way to
wash your hands as a religious ritual. Or
we’ve done things that have completely contradicted our claim to faith. Or we’ve bogged down our religion with making
rules about who’s in and who’s out.
But
Jesus took a completely different approach.
Jesus demanded that his disciples do two things: love God and love their
fellow human beings. While it’s not a
long list of rules, it’s still not particularly easy when you think about
it. We shouldn’t think that Jesus came
to let us off the hook when it comes to obeying God’s commands. Jesus doesn’t make it easier for us to live
the life of faith, he makes it harder! He
challenges us “observe the commandments of the Lord your God diligently” (Deut.
4:5-6) by fulfilling the spirit of the commands, not just the letter. Jesus follows the tradition of the biblical
prophets when he insists that faith should include one’s whole life. From the very beginning, that
tradition has insisted that those who profess faith show that their faith truly
makes a difference in the way they live.[2] Otherwise, it’s no faith at all; as Jesus
said, it’s just “lip service” (Mk. 7:6-7; quoting Isa. 29:13)!
Now it may seem strange to people
raised on the gospel of grace to hear about observing the commandments. But the simple truth is that the biblical
witness has always insisted that the way you live your life demonstrates the
quality of your faith. For example, James
says that “true religion” is to bridle your tongue, care for widows and orphans,
and keep yourself untainted by the world (Jas. 1:27). Like the prophets before him, James knew that
putting your faith into action has to be specific—faith is a matter of how you
use your words, how you treat the powerless and destitute, and how you view
“holiness.” If you think about it, these
three areas of our lives are where our faith shows up—or doesn’t. How easy it is to turn from our “Chris tian life” to slandering or condemning another
person! How easy it is to make ourselves
feel less impotent in this world by mistreating someone who has no voice! How easy it is to rationalize and justify our
failure to “do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with our God” by wrapping
ourselves in a mantle of false piety.
It seems to me that is precisely one
of the great problems with all religions. It is all too easy for religion to
become nothing more than a cultural phenomenon—it simply endorses “the way
things have always been” and uses God and Scripture to reinforce that tradition. But since God’s word challenges all societies
and all cultures to recognize their profound failures, if we are going to
simply go along with the way things are, then we must “abandon the commandment of God” (Mk. 7:8).[3]
But Jesus makes it clear in his
dispute with his Jewish opponents that it’s not the so-called cultural “sins”
that defile us in God's sight.[4] You know what I’m talking about here—those
ways we define people who are different from us as “unclean” regardless of
their true character! For the Pharisees
of Jesus’ day it was washing your hands the right way. We have different ways of defining people as unclean,
but they are just as culturally motivated.[5]
Jesus says that it is what you do
that defiles you.
Jesus presents us with a choice. The reality is that if we choose to live the
life of faith, we will have to turn our back on sham religion that justifies
our sin—even if it means turning our back on the cultural norms that most of us
cling to for a sense of stability.[6] The plain but challenging truth is that authentic
faith has always been about God’s grace changing your heart and mind so much
that it changes the way you live. It’s
not a matter of lip service, but of heart service.[7] Authentic faith is about a different way of
living that flows naturally from a heart that has been changed by God’s love
and mercy and grace, and therefore a heart that can do no less than seek to
make all of life about loving God and loving others
[1] © 2012
Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 9/2/12 at First
Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior
Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.
[2] Cf. Emil
Brunner, The Divine Imperative, 116,
speaking of God claiming us for his kingdom through his love; cf. also Paul
Tillich, “Doing the Truth,” The Shaking
of the Foundations, 114-117; Marcus Borg, The Heart of Chris tianity,
187-206; and Brian McLaren, Generous
Orthodoxy, 249-51. Cf. also Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship,
63, where he can say that only those who are obedient believe!
[3] The
specific commandment involved supporting aged parents as a way of “honoring
your father and mother.” For the
background, see Pheme Perkins, “The Gospel of Mark,” New Interpreters Bible VIII:606-7; H. W. Attridge and A. Y.
Collins, Mark, 351-53.
[4] John
Ortberg, “Pharisees Are Us,” The
Christian Century (Aug 23, 2003): 20, where he points out that even though
the Pharisees knew that the heart of the Torah
was loving God with heart and soul and mind and strength, they focused on
things like dietary laws (hand washing) as “boundary markers.” He says, “All groups of human beings have a
tendency to be exclusive; they want to know who is inside and who is out. So
they adopt identity markers—visible practices of dress or vocabulary or
behavior that serve to distinguish who is inside the group from who is outside.”
[5] Ortberg,
“Pharisees Are Us,” 20 says, “Any time people are not experiencing authentic
transformation … they will inevitably be drawn toward some kind of faith
characterized by boundary markers. We will look for substitute ways of
distinguishing ourselves from those on the outside. The boundary markers change
from century to century, but they all reinforce a false sense of superiority,
fed by the intent to exclude others.”
[6] Cf.
Cynthia M. Campbell, “ID Check,” The
Christian Century (Aug. 22, 2006): 16.
She says, “For many Christians, there seems to be a need to find ways to
guard the borders of religious identity All sorts of issues are lifted up as
identity-defining, and the stance one takes with respect to them determines whether
one is a ‘real Christian.’” Cf.
similarly, Lamar Williamson, Jr., Mark,
135-36.
[7] Cf.
Heidi Husted, “Matters of the Heart,” The
Christian Century (Aug. 16, 2000): 828.
She says, “It’s ironic that the first-century Bible believers and the
big-time Bible defenders are the ones who end up being the worst Bible
breakers, because they do not realize that, as Mary Ann Tolbert says in Sowing the Gospel, ‘if the heart is
God’s ground, nothing else is required; and if the heart is not God’s ground,
nothing else will suffice.’” Cf. also Perkins,
“The Gospel of Mark,” NIB VIII:606;
and Robert A. Guelich, Mark 1-8:26,
371.
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