Mark 7: 14,15; James 1: 22-27

Doing good from within

I see three questions the lectionary texts make us look at: in our doing are we true to ourselves, true to our faith and true to the facts?  First, are we true to ourselves?  A bunch of young people are getting settled in a bar and about to order some drinks. One of the guys who usually not that talkative starts a monologue as one of his friends whispers:” listen to him, he is saying what he means and he isn’t even drunk yet.”  There is some truth to that, isn’t it friends? A lot of people need to get rid of their inhibitions before they tell people what they mean. This is what today’s texts are referring to.  The practical book of James tells us that we do not live out our faith.  In the Gospel of Mark Jesus complements this by quoting from the prophet Isaiah and saying:”What you people say is not what’s in your hearts.” We could say they are different ways of saying the same thing.  Mary Pipher in her 2002 book (Reviving Ophelia) about adolescent girls writes:” “The world tells us what we are to be and shapes us to the ends it sets before us.  To men it says, work. To us, it says, seem.” Pipher complains: “The less the woman has in her head, the lighter she is for carrying.” I think that is really true for men also.  Men must “seem” also.  Society asks us to appear other than we are.  We are asked to pretend. People talk to me about the Trump phenomenon.  No matter what their party affiliation, they appear deeply troubled by his rudeness and don’t understand why he is popular. For the few decent folks that support him, I think it has to do with the image of straightforwardness and independence that he portrays.  He talks as if his views come from the heart, undefiled, but people wonder: instead are they not the product of a self promoter’s calculation?

Pastors are most at danger of “seeming,” because people expect them to be better people.  However, there is a catch to this: if they actually act like they are better persons, then people will not buy it and be annoyed by their behavior. This brings us to the second point, being true to our faith. Mark really zeroes in on our hypocrisy. The words of Isaiah Jesus brings to life say clearly: ”these people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of people.”  This is often so true of religion: people’s lips are close to God, but people’s hearts are far way.  So Mark makes a distinction between what we say and what’s in our hearts.  James makes the distinction between hearing the Word of God and doing the Word of God. James has this great image of a mirror:” For if anyone is a hearer of the word, but not a doer, he or she is like a person who looks at his or her natural face in the mirror; for once he or she has looked at her or himself and gone away, he or she had immediately forgotten what kind of person he or she was.”  It is as if the moment after we see ourselves in the mirror we have forgotten who we are.  We forget what we said and what we promised and we forget who and what really matters to us.  So maybe we’re not always insincere and hypocritical, sometimes we just don’t see that what we do or say is not consistent with what we believe. We’re just not thinking and checking ourselves. So, how come when we look at ourselves, when we get feedback from others about ourselves, we don’t remember? How come it doesn’t stay with us?   The reason could be that we’re more concerned with our image, what we think everyone around us thinks of us.  Friends, there is more we forget here. As Christians we forget that society cannot tell us who we are. Our faith reminds us who we are.  Subconsciously we measure our action by our faith.  But only if we are well informed and keep thinking and learning.  We need a courageous faith you see.  Being Christian in our world is a constant struggle to mediate between our faith and the knowledge that keeps growing about the smallest and the biggest things.  Christians who engage only with knowledge go flat spiritually.  Not believing can be a cop out. Christians who block out the expanding knowledge of the world are like ostriches. We need to be courageous and combine faith and facts.

This brings us to point three.  Not only are we in a faith struggle, we are also a constant struggle for integrity, because we must keep looking for the truth.  Deepak Goyal said: “half truths can be more dangerous than a full lie.”  As we have already seen, people don’t know what is true anymore.  They live more and more in a world of their own creation.  At the same they don’t know whom to believe.   Or they just grab any statement they hear and hang on to, because it makes them feel something, like proud or angry or scared or depressed.  This is our struggle.  A society where no one is true to their own voice, or faith or facts is just too scary to imagine.   May God give us the courage to keep struggling for our integrity, being true to ourselves, to our faith and the facts at the same time.