14 Pentecost B – August 30, 2015

14 Pentecost B – August 30, 2015

14 Pentecost B/ Proper 17/ Ordinary 23            August 30, 2015
Luther Memorial Church          Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Deuteronomy 4: 1-2, 6-9  +  Psalm 15  +  James 1: 17-27
Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

 May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen. 

          Earlier this week there was an article in the Seattle Times about a bicyclist who has been riding across the country.  Paul E. Fallon started his journey in Massachusetts.  So far he’s ridden through twenty two states and arrived in Seattle last week.  Along the way, his task has been to engage people with a singular question:

How will we live tomorrow? 

In the article, Fallon said that his concern about the negativity in our country was the force that propelled him to bike across the country and engage in these conversations.  He noted: “I am concerned about the negative tone of our national conversation. I’ve no confidence the 2016 election cycle will rise above partisan discord to generate the thoughtful debate we deserve. So I decided to generate my own discussions, one-on-one, with people I meet riding a bicycle.”

It occurs to me that perhaps this is also the task of the church….to engage in asking this question of ourselves and to be in conversation with the community around us.  How will we live tomorrow?   On the one hand, it is a question that this congregation has been prayerfully and powerfully considering for the past couple of years.  What will we do with the paved expanse of land that is a parking lot in a culture that is slowly but surely becoming less dependent on cars?  What do we do with land of this size, located right across from a school when the Holy Spirit continues to bring homeless families right into our very doors.  Literally, ringing our bell daily as if to ask “is anyone home?”

How will we live tomorrow?

Fallon has detailed his ride across the country on a website that you might enjoy exploring on this rainy day or another day.  It’s www.howwillwelivetomorrow.com.  He describes his arrival this week in Seattle in some detail, writing that “Seattle is full of thin androgynous people. All that coffee, all those grey skies, all that progressive thinking blurs lines in every direction.”

The answers to his question about how we will live tomorrow range from deeply thoughtful to playful.  Some people speak of taking greater care of Creation.  Others talk of being more present for their loved ones, or just for themselves.  Others imagine that the flying cars we were promised in the Jetsons cartoons might finally arrive with tomorrow.

But as Jesus people this is an important question for us to consider:  How will we live tomorrow?

Jesus had much to say throughout his ministry about how we are to live.  Things about non judgment and turning the other cheek and seeking peace.  He talked at length about caring for the outsider, especially, he said, orphans and widows, who were among society’s most vulnerable of his day.

In today’s Gospel reading the Pharisees and the church leaders who had come from the church home office in Jerusalem started in once again about how Jesus’ disciples weren’t keeping the law of their Jewish religion.  (Remember, Jesus was a Jew.) Today’s specific complaint was that they were eating before washing their hands.  This wasn’t the usual ‘go wash your hands’ your grandma advised before supper.  This was a complicated ritual.  A beloved tradition.  One that the disciples had apparently abandoned or at least let lapse in favor of following Jesus.

A tradition that was let go of in favor of following Jesus.

How will we live tomorrow?

And what is Jesus suggesting in his answer to the Pharisees?  Because what he does is call them hypocrites and reminds them that what is in a person’s heart is what is important.  Apparently Jesus forgot the words from Deuteronomy we read in our first lesson today.  Moses writes of the importance of observing the law in order that Israel might be known as a great nation.  Moses extols the virtue of the statutes and ordinances.  And Jesus says “ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

While it may appear that we have two competing Scripture readings, they are well served by the writer of James.  James writes of the law of liberty….a law, if you can call it a law, that sets us free to not only believe the Gospel but to live the Gospel.

You see, I would contend that the Gospel is a verb.  That it is an action word that means good news AND calls us to live out good news.  The writer of James says “But be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.  For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.  But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act – they will be blessed in their doing.”

How will we live tomorrow?

How will we live tomorrow?  Will we engage in the traditions of our own church no matter how life giving they are or are not?  Will we neglect the widow and the orphan and the homeless and the hungry and the frightened and those just trying to figure out how to FIND a roof to put over the heads of their children because we are afraid we won’t have a place to park our cars?

Will we keep silent on topics like gun violence or marriage equality or black lives matter because they are hard topics and we just don’t think they affect us, after all?  And we describe them as being political when in fact they are about justice making.

Will we let the same people continue to do the bulk of the work here because they’ve always done it and surely they won’t mind doing it one more year?

Will we resist the things we can absolutely do to mitigate climate change because after all, we’re going to die before it gets really bad anyway?

How will we live tomorrow? 

How we answer that question says more about our response to God’s generosity to us than it says about anything else.  In our choices, in our answers to that question, we respond to God.  The writer of the book of James puts it like this in our reading today:  “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.  In fulfillment of God’s own purpose we were given birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of God’s creatures.”

We have become a kind of first fruits.  We are here because of the word of truth.  How will we live tomorrow?

Will we live in fear?

Will we live in regret?

Will we live in scarcity?

Or will we live trusting God, that no matter how many fearful things come our way….no matter how much change and how much sorrow and how many burdens we bear in this lifetime….will we live believing that death and fear will not have the final word.

Will we live in trust?  Trusting God’s word to us and to the whole communion of saints…that God is always with us and will never forsake us.

Will we live in the reckless generosity of God?  Believing that for those of us who have been entrusted with much… that we are to follow the example of the God of all creation and act in generosity, caring for those the world has not cared for but who are close to God’s very heart.

Sisters and brothers, created by God, called to life and service and rest and holy living…..how will we live tomorrow?

Amen.