Trinity 14 2018:   Deut 4, 1-2, 6-9; James 1, 17-27; Mark 7 1-8, 14-16, 21-23   

The Revd.  Canon Leonard Doolan

 

Athens has been full of tourists during this last month – sufficient I hope to help sustain the essential tourist economy.  Inevitably if you walk around the Plaka district you will see the usual signs of tourism. Little necklaces with names spelled in Greek, made of wire; I love Greece T shirts, gold coloured laurel leafed crowns, and in particular for females those sandals with leather work that you tie up to the knees. Such is Athens in the tourism season.

I contrast this with what you would see if you went to Jerusalem, and in particular to the Western or ‘Wailing’ Wall. Not sandals with leather straps up to the knees, but men with leatherwork bound around their hands and lower arm and a leather box strapped to their foreheads. This is not a sign that they are tourists in Jerusalem, but that they are faithful Jews. They do this to keep faith with the command we have heard in today’s reading from Deuteronomy.

They do this  on account of the words we call the ‘Shema’, Hear, O Israel; the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall the love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.’ In obedience to these words, they wear them in a little box on their heads and they bind the leather strap around their hand and forearm.

Complete and utter obedience to the law of God is what we are thinking about here. These words, the Shema, were words that Jesus would have been brought up with. The practice of the box and the arm strap Jesus would have done. The words are quoted by Jesus in his teaching. They are at the heart of the faith that nurtured him. They are at the heart of the faith that nurtures us also as Christians.  However, as followers of Jesus, we have to Love the Lord our God with all our heart, but  as Jesus also adds, ‘and your neighbour as yourself.’ Adding to the Shema would have been quite a shocking message to the hearers of Jesus, but this is what he has said, and this is what is binding on us.

However, we don’t go around reminding ourselves of the words by wearing a little black box on our foreheads, because it is binding not outwardly but inwardly in our hearts. That law of love must be seared into our DNA – love God, love neighbour. Both aspects require that we act according to the love of God, not just say the words. Loving God and loving neighbour demands that we do as well as say.

This is the point that St. James, in his letter is trying to make. This little letter had a tough time during the reformation. The great reformer Martin Luther called it an ‘epistle of straw’. He disliked it because he associated it with pre reformation Catholic practices. He blamed James’ letter for some of the outward practices of piety that had nothing to do with true religion, faith, and faith alone, and because you could build a case for getting into heaven by the good works that you might do – so build a church and you’ll get into heaven; walk to Rome and you’ll get into heaven, and so on. However I think this is a harsh judgement – for James is simply expanding on the law as we receive it from Jesus, namely that we love God, we must also love our neighbour, and both of these demand action as a consequence. ‘Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.’

It is a besetting sin of Christians through the generations to withdraw into a private piety, or to allow the outward signs of our faith to become more important than the gospel message. I remember an old priest friend of mine who moved into a very high church parish in London. On his first Sunday before the High Mass, the head server put out the priest’s white gloves to wear for the Mass. My friend was uncomfortable with this arcane practice, and asked if it really mattered whether he wore them or not, to which the reply came ‘it all matters, Father’. We can easily confuse what really matters  and what is simply holding on to traditions that have accumulated, or little regulations that creep in and become unchangeable.

This is where Jesus had trouble in today’s gospel. You see, he didn’t wash his cups, pots and bronze kettles, nor did his disciples. So I assume Jesus won’t get into heaven! I think we know differently, clean bronze kettles or otherwise.

Traditions are not  bad in themselves – they are only bad when they obscure the truth, and sadly we sometimes allow that to happen; they are bad when use the keeping of tradition to judge others who do not keep the same. ‘The people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

So Jesus re-orientates us. He redirects us from the distractions of religious life, to the central core of our faith – love of God and love of our neighbour’. On the night before he was crucified, Jesus said to his followers, ‘a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another’.  All St. James was doing in his letter, so hated by Luther, was to work that principle through into everyday life – be doers of the word, not just hearers.

For this reason therefore, the Christian faith cannot be simply about believing the creed and receiving Holy Communion; it is also about social action. The two are combined in Jesus’s interpretation of the Shema – love God, love neighbour.

At St. Paul’s there has been a strong commitment to social action over these last few years, and we will continue to commit time, energy and resources into welfare work for refugees and migrants, and in programmes to help Greeks who have fallen on hard times due to national austerity. Our commitment to this will not diminish, though it will be reshaped by changing circumstances. However this commitment is not just work for the few – it is an obligation on all who hold true in any way those words that are packed into the little black leather box on the forehead, ‘Hear O Israel; the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.’