Being itself
“Being itself”
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B September 2, 2018
Song of Solomon 2:8-13 James 1:17-27 Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho
Pastor Andy Kennaly
I am giving you fair warning that this sermon contains a four letter word. I’m going to use a four letter word, so prepare yourself to hear a pastor from the pulpit using a four letter word. Here it comes…LOVE. Love! Love has four letters!
I know of another church where the interim pastor used a four letter word during a sermon, only it was a cuss word. The pastor swore, and although I don’t know which word it was, or what the context of the sermon held that word in, for that particular church it was enough to offend people to the point where they fired that pastor, even though he apologized, sent out letters to explain the context, nothing worked. They fired him and he left.
The other day I was leading a wedding and someone in the bridal party was talking to everyone else as we got ready to begin the service and out slipped a cuss word, and mid-stream in the sentence also came, “Oh, sorry, Andy.” They caught themselves using a four letter word, and felt some sort of pressure or expectation that you shouldn’t be swearing in front of a pastor. These types of scenes are not isolated incidents, but they show some assumptions that shape our attitudes, actions, and understandings.
One assumption is that God doesn’t like this kind of language, and within that assumption are a couple others. One, that there is a division between sacred and secular, between holy, which is pure and perfect, and unholy, which is defiled and impure. We tend to separate or make distinctions between God with Spirit, and everyday life with matter. The other assumption involves viewing God, indeed most of life, in a subject/object mode, where God is an object, outside of us, separate, most of the time assumed to be “up there” in heaven, watching over our shoulder and noticing when we’re good and when we’re bad, keeping track in God’s book.
Even James says in chapter one, “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” We hear quotes like that and our ego is validated because egos like to be separate and superior. We like the split, with perfection in the holy realm and fallen brokenness on this plane. That’s from our Greek heritage, where light is good and shadows are bad, (perhaps one of the roots of racism itself). That God doesn’t change gives us such comfort when we struggle. It keeps God in control, above, beyond; separate.
But Jesus seems to challenge this as he confronts the religious leaders who externalize faith and practice, rationalizing the ways they split in their heart in order to justify their behavior. God’s law is perfect, and these leaders are proud of the ways they use technicalities to appear as if they are fulfilling the law, when actually they are destroying the spirit of the law. Jesus is calling them to account, he’s pointing out the false assumptions of viewing God as an object, as if religious devotion can be externalized and guided by a set of rules. He speaks to the crowd to transform their hearts from the inside.
Cynthia Bourgeault helps us gain a new perspective on what and how Jesus taught by saying, “Perhaps the fundamental flaw […] is to picture God as an object in the first place, a ‘someone’ or ‘something’ that you can love all the way. God is never the object of love. That’s just another example of the egoic operating system splitting the field of perception. God is always and only the subject of love, flowing through our relationships, through our opportunities and also our challenges, through each and every one of the particular conditions we find ourselves in at any given moment. No one and nothing is excluded. [For Jesus…], what matters is that you become a living spirit [… moving] beyond opposites. […] Anyone who is willing to take up the burden of the much more difficult task – not the manageable complexity of rules and regulations, but the unmanageable simplicity of being present to your life in love – that person is walking the path of Jesus.” (Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus, Shambhala press, Boulder, 2008, pp. 87-88).
God is always and only, love, flowing. This is the reality Jesus lived, showing us how to follow. The Pharisees and some of the scribes from Jerusalem, the religious elites, preferred the “manageable complexity of rules and regulations” and keeping God external and object-ified over the more simple, unmanageable invitation to awaken to love within, to your life connected with larger life, directly in relationship with the source of love.
In the last several days there has been news reports about the Roman Catholic Church and the clergy sexual abuse scandals, the cover ups from those in authority, and questions of how things like this could happen. One of the conversations involves how many people in the church structure, such as bishops, cardinals, priests, people in authority, are taught from the very beginning that their commitment is for the tradition, the institution of the church; not Jesus, not their faith, not the people in the parish, but the tradition and structure, which have taken shape to define and defend the doctrines and the teachings, from a particular point of view. As our story from Mark shows us, this dynamic has been going on for thousands of years. Transformation of the heart is a deep need, part of the human condition. In this Gospel reading, Jesus isn’t so much confronting people from Jerusalem and he’s addressing a huge and present need of the human species to be freed from that egoic operating system, which lives from the mind in dividing ways that judge and defend, and rather, opening the human heart and perceiving life from the middle of the flow of love itself. This is what reflects our deeper identity as those created in the image and likeness of God.
Rabbi Rami Shapiro helps us find words to express this deeper connection with our life and love rooted in God. He says, “God reveals the essence of divinity to Moses: ehyeh asher ehyeh, most often translated as I AM what I AM [Exodus 3:14]. A more accurate Hebrew translation would be ‘I will be whatever I will be.’ In either case, the Hasidic understanding of the text is the same: God is all that is. God is all that is happening at every moment. God is I AM—not a being or even a supreme being, but Being itself. . . . [Each of us is] a keeper of the I AM; just as a wave is a ‘keeper of’ the ocean in its particular place and time, so are you a keeper of God in your particular place and time. To realize this about yourself is to realize it about all beings. —(Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Hasidic Tales: Annotated and Explained, Jewish Lights Publishing: 2004, 2013, 4, as quoted on Richard Rohr’s Daily Email, Wednesday, August 29, 2018, https://cac.org/absolutes-2018-08-29/).
He says this another way as well, saying, “[We come into this world to] align our souls with God: The relationship between God and soul is analogous to that between the sun and its rays. We are the extension of God in time and space. How, then, can we be misaligned with God? Misalignment is a state of mind that arises when we forget our true relationship with God and act as if God were other.” (Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Hasidic Tales: Annotated and Explained, Jewish Lights Publishing: 2004, 2013, 4, as quoted on Richard Rohr’s Daily Email, Thursday, August 30, 2018, https://cac.org/an-evolving-faith-2018-08-30/).
Friends, this morning we read the beauty and joy of love in Song of Solomon as we are rooted in idyllic care and the balance of creation at it’s best. We are reminded by James that we have a choice, and we can choose to rid ourselves of “all sordidness (which is a type of squalor) and rank growth of wickedness.” Transformation of the heart involves humility, setting aside our pride in order to “welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save our souls.” It is through meekness that we welcome God’s image to grow within us, indeed God has implanted the word, and we have the power to save our soul, given in this gift. When we deceive our hearts our religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion involves caring for orphans and widows in their distress, and not joining the world in creating the distress or adding to the number of orphans.
We are the extension of God in time and space. God is all that is. God is I AM—not a being or even a supreme being, but Being itself. Caring for orphans and widows implies many things. In order to do this one needs empathy, caring, and concern. These are symptoms of a deeper and more pervasive condition called LOVE. I said it again, that four letter word which shapes the heart, aligns our lives, and grounds us in the Source of our being. LOVE is the subject that holds us in unity with all things created, seen and unseen. LOVE is the energy that exists without the need to divide or define or distinguish. Love redeems, renews, and releases us to live in the deep Peace of Christ. As we open our hearts to love, may God be glorified, NOW, even as forever. Amen.