Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
James 1.17-27
Mark 7.1-8, 14-23
1 September 2024
©Suzanne Grimmett
The great theologian Paul Tillich described “self-integration” as one of the most basic functions of our life. He is responding to the texts we have in our scriptures and the many words on the lips of Jesus which address hypocrisy. Of all the many different forms hypocrisy can take, I believe religious hypocrisy to be the worst because it has the power to hide what is most profane in the guise of what is most sacred. It takes what is most true and good and beautiful and uses it as a cover for all kinds of self-interest and evil.
Loye Bradley Ashton defines hypocrisy as;
…the disconnect between the moral values and standards that we espouse and those that we actually practice in our behaviour. From its Greek roots (hypokrisis “acting out a theatrical role” and hypokrinesthai “pretending”) we can see that hypocrisy is a negation of authentic life: it is life acted out to fool others, a role that we take on and pretend to be, that is not really us. It is a denial of our authentic self in favour of the fabricated persona that we wish to be.[1]
In a weekend where Huram comes to be baptised, it is wonderful to be given readings that point to the central task of becoming ourselves as we were authentically created to be. That is of course, is what is at the heart of baptism. When we use the water to baptise in the name of our Triune God and the oil to mark us as “Christ’s own forever”, we are being called to live into our unique and truest self, because that is the way the liberating and creative Spirit works.
It is in this light that we can hear the words from the letter of James telling us that we are to 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.
This is a call to authenticity. A call to being the same on the inside as the outside in our daily living, transformed from the inside out so that our works reflect the Spirit that is in us. Jesus makes this point again and again saying, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”
Of course, the call to an authentic moral life moves outward from ourselves to our communities and the world. Bethlehem Pastor Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac has said that Gaza today has ‘become the moral compass of the world’. In speaking as a Christian he is drawing on the teaching of life in the Spirit which seeks to live out the gospel in Spirit and in truth, aligning what we believe and how we act in a morally congruent way. He feels deeply from his place of ministry on the West Bank, the deafening silence of the Church. The very great challenge of living a moral life with authenticity and integrity is that we need to be always moving with courage from that centre which would insist not only on our freedom and life, but into the interrelatedness of life where our humanity is caught up in the humanity of others- our freedom with their freedom- across every part of the globe. Before us in the world are so many places of unspeakable violence. Around us are conflicting voices and it can be hard to discern what is true given the biases of mainstream media. It would be easy with all of this to feel overwhelmed and helplessness to prevent such events and so remain silent. To do so, however, can mean that those who suffer feel abandoned and forgotten. Not just our words, but even our silence can become that inwardly disturbing spiritual separation between what we believe and how we act.
But if we are not to forget our mirrored reflection, we need to know what our centre is. Tillich describes the centre of our being as the core of the self which cannot be divided but can be strengthened. To be a spiritually healthy person is move out from that centre in courage and freedom, practising a moral way of being in the world that is a reflection of inner integrity. The kind of hypocrisy of which Jesus so often speaks, in contrast, is a force for inner disintegration and a loss of the true self as we become disconnected from the Spirit within us. We could go further and identify sin as that which divides us against our true self at the deepest level of our being. [2]
While we need to move out from that centre in courage and freedom, we find, mercifully, that it is not all down to us. We are gifted the Spirit which enables ‘our inner self to grow strong’ as we heard in recent weeks in the readings from the letter to the Ephesians. We are also gifted with one another and the preciousness of the beloved community to help us discern the ways of living a moral life of integrity in the world.
Community can also be the way we sense when our lives have become incongruent with that inner life of Spirit. Community can become that mirror for us which reveals the distortions of our own image, sometimes in uncomfortable ways. It is no surprise to me, for example, that research has shown many perpetrators of domestic and family violence tend to have just enough religion to support their way of seeing the world, but do not become deeply part of healthy and diverse communities. To be living with integrity is to allow others to see us as we really are, which can expose parts of ourselves and our patterns of behaviour of which we are least proud. No one said community was going to be easy.
The baptised community also draws us into the daily work of forgiveness and reconciliation. Thanks be to God- when we feel, through a nudge of Spirit or the reflection of community, that sense of internal division or lack of integration with our true self, we are given the opportunity to begin again. I know I need the dailyness of that forgiveness. Christ comes to us not once, but again and again, calling us into the work of renewing the face of humanity, beginning with our own. Christ is always moving toward us and within us with unspeakable grace, inviting us to once again draw from the deep well of our centre; that core of our being where we are undivided.
May our lives reflect the integrity of the Spirit that our actions and our words may flow from that centre – which is both Christ and our truest self.
+Amen.
[1] Bartlett, David L.; Taylor, Barbara Brown. Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ) (Feasting on the Word: Year B volume) (p. 59). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
[2] Loye Bradley Ashton in Bartlett, David L.; Taylor, Barbara Brown. Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ) (Feasting on the Word: Year B volume) (p. 59). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.