What Defiles Us

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles). So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things the come out are what defile.”

Mark 7:1-8; 14-15

"What Defiles Us"

“This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me…you abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition…there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” Some pretty tough and harsh words, some pretty telling words from Jesus to the Pharisees here. You know, the Pharisees often get a bad rap—they get blamed, discounted for being self-righteous, rigid, and unyielding, for being unfaithful. They cling to the laws of the temple, wanting everyone to be clean before they can worship, calling out folks when they disobey the laws they think keep them from God. I don’t think they are unfaithful, but just the opposite—they are incredibly faithful folks, leaders who have spent much time studying, leaders who know the law backwards and forwards, leaders who want folks to spend their time worshiping God in the best way possible. I don’t think they’re unfaithful, but I do sometimes think their religious fervor for God shields them from seeing the bigger point—that God has created each one of us, that we are all called to worship God no matter who we are or what is happening in our lives, no matter whether we have time to stop and wash our hands first. Because of their fervor, they miss the idea that their words and actions can sometimes be so harsh that they keep wanderers and non-believers and people who have been hurt by the church from seeing God through each one of them. Their words and actions turn people away from God instead of welcoming them to God, and Jesus rightly calls them out on it. It is not what goes into us that defiles and keeps us from God, but instead what comes out—our harsh words and horrible actions towards each other, our judgments about our neighbors. Indeed, what comes out of us is what defiles.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news in our country this week, you’ve seen much that defiles, much that hurts, much that keeps us from God. You’ve seen defilement through internet and body shaming—an intelligent, beautiful weather reporter in Philadelphia, a woman who is healthy and 38 weeks pregnant with twin girls (and somehow still on air when I would be in bed)—called fat, called a sausage in a casing, told online that her pregnant abdomen sticking out is disgusting. Horrible. Internet shaming. Body shaming. It is what defiles us.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve seen a fraternity at Old Dominion University suspended for signs hung on its house at freshman orientation: “Freshman daughter drop off. Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time. Go ahead and drop mom off, too.” Horrible. Blatant misogyny and sexism in a university where parents hope their 18 year old daughters will be held safe from harm. It is what defiles us.

And even if you weren’t watching the news this week, you still know about the tragedy in Virginia. A 24 year old reporter shot to death on air while her 27 year old cameraman dropped his camera as he also died from the gun. Both in love, both happy, both remembered in pictures with great big smiles on their faces. A gunman who was disturbed. A gunman who was able to buy 2 handguns at the same time. A gunman who was too angry to seek healthy help, angry enough to attach a Go Pro to himself and record the whole thing as it played out. Anger, and the inability to find healthy ways to deal with it. Violence. Weapons strong enough to kill someone in one shot. It is what defiles us.

I don’t confess to know whether the gunman was a Christian, or the folks who said and say horrible, shaming things to others on the internet, or the guys in the fraternity who actually thought it was ok to say sexist things to their classmates.  I don’t know anything about their faith journeys, but my hunch is that some of them proclaim themselves to be followers of Christ. I don’t know. But what I do know is that there is so much out there to defile, so many ways in which we, ourselves, defile our world and each other. And I also know that we, who call ourselves Christians in Christ’s name, need to do something about it.

We are angry—there is so much anger out there right now that we can’t handle it. We no longer know how to listen in love, or to disagree in love. We say horrible sexist, racist, homophobic, unwelcoming, senseless, unloving things to each other without even thinking about the person on the other end of our vitriol. We say these things without ever giving a second thought to how they defile. And, sadly, the church is the often the entity on the front lines, holding signs up, screaming at people, banning folks from Christ’s table, telling them they are unclaimed and unloved. It’s pretty clear that we who are Christians need to change that. It’s pretty clear that we have more work to do in undefiling the world—in proclaiming a loving, welcoming, caring, reconciling Christ to the world, in proclaiming a saving Christ to the world.

Friends, younger folks are leaving the church in droves for many reasons, chief among them because they see the church, US, as folks who talk and say nice, fancy words about Christ, about his love and grace and forgiveness, but do nothing to mirror his actions through our own. As many friends as I have in the church, I have many others who won’t darken the doors of a sanctuary because they have been left behind, hurt, crushed by condemning words said, by judgmental things done to them by folks who call themselves followers of Christ. This is how we defile. This has to change.

It’s no accident that there are so many stories about tables and food and parties and dinners in our Biblical story. It’s no accident that the table, Christ’s table, sits before us every time we worship together. Food is part of our story together, part of Christ’s story with us. As we look at the table every time we worship, we are reminded that the invitation to the table is always given to us by Christ. We are reminded, every time we gather together, that Christ gave his life for us and was resurrected for us to offer grace and forgiveness and new life for us all. This table is a sacrament for us—the word sacrament comes from the Latin, “sacramentum,” meaning that we are consecrated through this sacrament, meaning that we are hallowed, that we are made holy through what is celebrated and remembered at this table. And because we are consecrated, because we are made holy through Christ’s grace and forgiveness, we are called and commanded to show that holiness in the world, even through, even in spit of everything that defiles it.

I’ve spent the last week reading a book called Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans. Rachel grew up in Alabama and Tennessee, spending her teenage years in the town where the Scopes monkey (evolution) trial was held. She describes her church as very evangelical, very legalistic and rigid, known more for what it was against than what it was for. I can imagine the Pharisees might’ve loved a church like that. Although she was very dedicated to her church (and they to her), and although her faith is a vital part of her soul, she eventually left the church because of its fight against women’s ordination and gay rights.  She is still working through her faith journey, thinking and writing and blogging about faith. Although she often shares her frustrations about the church and the ways its members can defile, she also shares the joy of the table:

This is the purpose of the sacraments, of the church—to help us see, to point to the bread and wine, the orchids and the food pantries, the post-funeral potlucks and the post-communion dance parties (maybe she’s not talking about Presbyterians per se), and say: pay attention, this stuff matters; these things are holy…At its best, the church administers the sacraments by feeding, healing, forgiving, comforting, and welcoming home the people God loves. At its worst, the church withholds the sacraments in an attempt to lock God in a theology, a list of rules, a doctrinal statement, a building. But our God is in the business of transforming ordinary things into holy things, scraps of food into feasts and empty purification vessels into fountains of fine wine. This God knows his way around the world, so there’s no need to fear, no need to withhold, no need to stake a claim. There’s always enough—just taste and see. There’s always and ever enough.

I love her words here. Our God is indeed in the business of transforming ordinary things into holy things, of transforming us into holy things. And because God is in the business of transforming us, we are called to go out and be God’s people in the world. Instead of defiling our neighbors and our world, we are created and forgiven and made holy so that may transform them. There’s always and ever enough. Thanks be to God.

Jesus and Atticus

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

John 6:16-21

Atticus stood up and walked to the end of the porch. When he completed his examination of the wisteria vine he strolled back to me. "First of all," he said, "if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

This line, this scene, is given to us in one of the most famous novels of all time. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Atticus Finch, the tall, handsome (at least in the movie version), gentle lawyer and father of Scout and Jem, says this in To Kill A Mockingbird. The book, told from Scout’s point of view as a child who worships the ground her father walks on, tells the story of Atticus, a hero, a lawyer who believes in the whole value of the justice system, a hero who defends Tom Robinson, a black man in Alabama in the early 1900s, a man who is innocent of the crime of which he is accused, but a man who will be convicted of it anyway. Scout tells us of a father who will go against popular belief to defend what he thinks is right, a man who is willing to sacrifice his livelihood and his life for the sake of the law, for the sake of humanity.

If you’re anything like me, Atticus Finch has always been one of your heroes, the hero who does what he thinks his right, no matter what anyone around him says, no matter how much they threaten livelihood, threaten life. For me, and I’m sure for many of you, Atticus has been a hero who we believed could walk on water. I have grown up loving this book, looking up to this father, so much so that I named my girl dog Scout, so much so that I smiled with glee with from the news that a new Harper Lee book, a prequel, would be released after so many years. There is not much better in the world than reading her words. And I have to admit it—these words in particular from To Kill A Mockingbird, about climbing into someone else’s skin and walking around in it for a while, have always seemed pretty biblical to me.

I was so excited when the first chapter of the new book, Go Set A Watchman, was released a bit early—I read it as soon as I could sit down in a quiet place to soak every single image and word of Harper Lee’s newly found writing in, and I loved it. But the next day, as I checked twitter, the words jumped out at me, scared me as any nightmare would: “Atticus Finch is a racist. Atticus Finch is a racist.” If you loved To Kill A Mockingbird, prepare to be disappointed if not disgusted by Go Set A Watchman. WHAT??? Not possible. No way, I thought, that this staunch defender of justice, the man who defended an innocent black man knowing he would still be convicted, could even be a bit racist. No way that this man, who talked about walking around in someone else’s skin could really be judging people because of the color of that skin. I thought to myself, “This is way too much to handle. Not sure if I can read this and imagine of my heroes to be less than I always thought he was.” But as I settled down a bit, I realized that I owed it to Harper Lee, the woman who had created such divine words, the woman who had painted such incredible imagery, the woman who wrote my favorite story, to read her book without judgment, to go into it with eyes wide open.

So I did. And I loved it. And I hated it. Helpful, right? I loved hearing more about Scout and Jem and Dill’s childhood—the scene where the three of them go to the Presbyterian/Baptist/Methodist revival (I bet that was fascinating), and then come home to play revival and baptize each other in the pool, leading Dill’s Aunt Rachel to yank him out and slap him across the head, is worth the cost of the book alone. I loved seeing Scout as a woman, a woman who defied the social beliefs of her day that women here age were worthless if they weren’t married and mothers by the ripe old age of 26. Scout’s spirit as a 6 year old did not disappoint in the first book, nor did it as a 26 year old in this one. There is nothing better than Harper Lee’s use of Southern imagery and charm, the way she crafts her words around the thoughts of a girl who can steal your heart. Yes, I loved it.

And I hated it. I hated that Atticus did indeed attend a meeting of the earliest version of the KKK, the White Citizen’s Council. I hated that he let a horribly racist man drone on and on about how he hated black people—I needed Atticus and his stately self to step in and put that awful man in his place with one, gentle, sweeping statement. I hated that Calpurnia, the family’s maid, was deeply separated from the children she helped to co-parent because she had been put down so often. I hated that Scout finally had to confront her father—AND I MEAN CONFRONT—about how he had raised her to seek justice for all, but that he didn’t ultimately rail for that justice himself when the time drew near to do so.

There were times, as I read the book, when I hated and loved what was happening at the same time. I hated that Harper Lee made me realize that Atticus did not walk on water like I thought, that he was ultimately a man formed by his environment and upbringing--a man who could break free from his environment enough to protect the integrity of the law and seek justice for a black man in Alabama in the early 1900s, but one who could not ultimately break free to seek freedom for all of those with dark skin. I hated that, but I loved that he realized his own limitations and prejudices and that he could not ultimately rise over them—so he raised Scout in a way that she could see that freedom for all in the future. I loved it and I hated it, that although he couldn’t break free of his brokenness, he raised her to see things differently and to do what she could to change the world. And as much as I hated it, I also loved how this book made me see once again that none of us actually walks on water as much as we would love to do so, that each of us is formed by our environment and upbringing—for good and bad—and that each of us is broken and sinful in our nature.

I’ve been thinking so much about this since I preached the lectionary text from the 6^th chapter of John last month. I had just finished reading Go Set A Watchman, and my thoughts about Atticus, my literary hero, had been shattered, changed, transformed. And then along came this text as I was trying to wrap my head around all I had read.

The first part of chapter 6 tells us that Jesus had just performed an incredible miracle by feeding thousands of hungry people with only five barley loaves of bread and two fish, and they were all beginning to disperse as night was falling. Today’s text tells us the disciples had seen all that had happened, and they walked down to the shore, probably still in disbelief from it all. They all gotten into the boat and sailed into seas that were rough from a strong wind. They weren’t anywhere close to shore, 3 or 4 miles out, but they saw someone walking to them. Jesus was walking on the water toward them. Naturally, the disciples were scared, but Jesus gently said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” And somehow the boat drew towards land. As if the disciples and the people gathered that day hadn’t already seen enough evidence that this man was special as he fed all of them, here was something more. All of it together was evidence of his divinity—we have already heard in other Gospels that Peter himself had tried to walk on water and failed, but here was Jesus—walking on the water for 3 miles or more, walking towards all of them as they sat in disbelief and wonder.

This miracle story of Jesus walking on the water was what I needed to hear to help me process Go Set A Watchman, that Atticus was just as broken as I, just as broken as us all—that he was indeed a product of his upbringing, his environment, his beliefs, and yes, his deep prejudices. I needed this story to help me realize that Atticus, just like Peter in the Gospels, just like the rest of us if we had tried, could never have walked on water. That’s Jesus’s deal. That’s his job. That’s his miracle—his miracle for every single one of us who are just as broken as the ones sitting next to us, just as broken as our literary or real-life heroes.

The fact that the miracle of the feeding of 5,000 folks precedes this story shouldn’t escape our minds here—Jesus didn’t stop to ask a single one of the folks gathered on the hillside that day if they were sinners. He didn’t tell them to list their prejudices or ask how judgmental they were towards others. He didn’t get them to think about how broken they truly were inside. Jesus didn’t ask for confession. He simply fed them. He fed every single one of them and he displayed his divinity once again by walking on water when so many others had tried and failed. My hunch is that folks just like Atticus Finch were fed that day—folks who could say beautiful things and encourage their children and fight for justice for all one day, folks who could then turn around to belittle and demean and judge others for no other reason than the color of their skin the next day.

When the sun rose the day after Jesus walked to the disciples on the water, Jesus encouraged everyone there—no matter how much they doubted and questioned, no matter how broken they were—to go out and share what they had seen, to go out and work. In the 27^th verse of chapter 6, Jesus again answered the disciples’ questions by saying, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” No matter who you are, go out and work for the food that lasts, the food that endures, Jesus reminded us. No matter that you are a sinner, go out and share and love he said. No matter that you are are broken and prone to judgment, go out and climb in someone else’s skin and walk around in it for a while. Share God’s love, and yours, with them. Thanks be to God.