Sunday, September 2, 2012

Proper 17 B September 2, 2012

Proper 17 B
September 2, 2012
  
Imagine the scene.   It’s 5:00. You’re coming home from work, and stopping at the store.   Dinner’s waiting for this last cup of milk you need to get.  And there’s a meeting at your kid’s school you need to get to, at 7:00.  The parking lot is packed.  You troll for a spot.  You see one at the end of the row you’re in.  You turn your blinker on, and proceed to the spot.  You’re waiting at the spot.  The driver leaves, you start to pull in.  Just at that moment, another car zips around the corner and takes your spot.    But road rage is real.  A Baltimore man was killed over a parking lot space altercation.   This year, a Junction City man was shot, because of a road rage incident.

Maybe this makes your blood boil.  Maybe this doesn’t bother you at all.   It’s the same event from the outside, and yet, some of us respond with rage, while others are unaffected.    I think this is a great example of what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel, after he performs a verbal martial arts move on the Pharisees.

The Pharisees  are again complaining to Jesus about how his disciples don’t follow the law.  They don’t do what’s “right”, because they haven’t washed their hands before eating.  Instead of refuting the claim, or arguing about the merits of the law, Jesus uses the law quoting Isaiah, to prove his point. The rules aren’t the point.  The rules are e a way to 1)practice good food handling,  and 2) show obedience to God.  When the rules or practices intended to move us closer to God instead obscure their purpose and become the purpose, those rules are useless, and worse have become false idols.  Jesus gently redirects them to the real point of the rules – honoring God, not following rules. 

After this exchange, he explains that it’s not what comes from outside the body that defiles, but rather what is in the body that creates            evil intention.  Nothing outside a person can defile.  Not the dirty hands.  Not the inconsiderate driver.  Rather,  it’s the things inside our hearts that can defile.  Our responses.  It’s how we respond to our world around us, it’s what we control that can defile.  Not the things external.    If it were external, like the other driver, or a politician, or not following  rule – like not washing your hands, that might be easier.  It might feel like we were simply the victims of our circumstances.   We had no choice in our response, because we were aggrieved or defiled from someone else.  This is exactly what many aggressors think and how they defend their actions, from the school yard bully, to the road rage aggressor, to the family abuser, to the hateful mass murderers.  People feel defiled or aggrieved from somewhere else, or someone else, and they believe that they have no choice, they had to respond to this thing that happened TO them.    

Listening to the news and the excuses of people who abuse, steal, kill, it sounds absurd.  What do you mean you had to kill,  or hate, or hurt?   For most of us, a response of theft, abuse or murder in response to something that happened TO us is clearly, utterly and apparently wrong.  It’s wrong to respond to anything with that sort of response.  It’s easy to see in those people that it’s their response that is defiling, not the original offense.  Convenient, isn’t it, that Christ clears up how others are supposed to act, while we are pretty unscathed? 

But wait a minute.  Christ’s list of defiling responses is long.   What about envy?   Pride.   Folly.  Or my personal favorite, avarice,  which is rampant in this culture.  Avarice is a desire for wealth or gain.   Those I can imagine; those I can do.  I guess this isn’t just about those other folks.   

So while we’re not likely to respond with murder or theft, the issue remains the same.  It’s not original external action that defiles.  It’s our response -our envious and prideful response that defiles us.    Sometimes we are incited to respond with one of those ugly defiling responses, and it does feel like we don’t have a choice. It’s as if the ugly response from me is forced by my circumstances, and unfortunately, it’s often the people I love most that can incite defiling responses from me. 

Other times, I feel more immune from the barbs, the slights, the perceived wrongs, committed by others, and I don’t respond badly.  So what’s the difference?  Why sometimes can we brush things off, and other times we cannot?  And how come some people never seem to be incited to that ugly response.  More importantly, how can I move towards the less reactive, non-envyious, non-prideful, non-avarice way?
 
The answer comes from the other readings today.  The Song of Solomon is an incredibly evocative love poem.  Arise my love and come away.  This love poem is full of images and sounds and smells that could make you blush. Do you remember being newly in love? That giddy, early love?  When you feel that loved, and that in love, it’s hard to be provoked into much – other than song or a smile.  That’s the answer.   Love, in fact, is the answer. 

Sometime, read the Song of Solomon and imagine it was written about you, by your soul mate. Glow with that giddy love.  Imagine now that this love language is spoken to, by God.  The Song of Solomon is intended to illustrate God’s love for us.  Arise my love, and come away. 

Yes, God loves us that much.   

If you knew, if we could feel that love from God, which doesn’t change, doesn’t waiver, we’d be in that giddy new love.   The brain in love sees beauty everywhere.  That’s what love poems are – seeing beauty in really interesting places, just like the Song of Solomon.  “I see my love gazing through the lattice, looking like a gazelle.”   This may not make sense to anyone except a brain in love. 

God loves us that much, and unlike early romantic love, God’s love for us doesn’t waver or change or fizzle out.  As the epistle says, God’s light creates no shadows.  Nothing is outside it.  And nothing else, not our fear, not our malice, not our pride, is so big that it can create a shadow.   God’s love is all around us, all the time, so that there are no shadows and it never changes.   

I think it’s this encompassing, enveloping love that is our secret defense, and why Christ says nothing outside us can defile us.   If we let it, we are so filled with God’s love that external things cannot defile us.   

The Pharisees felt the disciples were defiled because they hadn’t washed their hands before eating.   What Christ is saying is that it isn’t the dirty hands, or the forgotten cleaning, or the stolen parking spot that defiles us.  Those things happen – outside us, and often beyond our control.  It’s our response and our intention that can defile.     And it’s God’s unimaginable love in us that lets us respond in love, regardless of what’s happening outside. 

Today, we’re not likely to be deemed defiled because we didn’t wash our hands, as the disciples were.  But there are other risks today.  Lost parking spots.  Divisive politics.  Social unrest.  Economics.  These things happen TO us, around us. Outside us.  

Letting God’s love in, that unwavering all-encompassing love, we have the opportunity to turn all of those bad things that happen TO us, to wonderful loving things coming FROM us. 

Examples of this happen all around us, every day in little ways.  Really big ways make the news.  In 2006, a man shot 10 Amish school girls in Pennsylvania. The community’s response glowed with God’s love, as they individually and collectively showed forgiveness.  Talking about the gunman, the grandfather of one of the victims said, “We must not think evil of this man”.  The media tried to make the Amish out to be super-human.  But by their own admission, they are human, and they did nothing heroic, other than letting God’s love in and through them.
 
 A month ago, a gunman entered a Sikh house of worship and killed 5 people.  Their response was also one that radiated God’s love.  "Together, we will try our best to heal from this tragedy," said the president of the World Sikh Council. "Together we will try to bring peace to the misguided and troubled minds. Together we will ensure that no person and no community feels unsafe and intimidated by such senseless violence."

In the face of those kinds of events, these people of faith did not respond with a defiling ugly response.  They responded in a way that glowed with God’s love.  They refused to let something external defile them.  They responded in love, rooted firmly in God’s all-encompassing love. 

Let God’s love in.  Feel that giddy-in love feeling.  Even if you can’t feel it, know that you are enveloped in that kind of love.   From that place of overflowing love, don’t let things outside defile you.  Instead, turn all those opportunities, all those barbs, and slights, and stolen parking spots to be opportunities of grace, and an opportunity to show God’s Love. 

Mother Teresa said it well.  She said, “Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”   With God’s love, we can.

No comments:

Post a Comment