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12 PENTECOST LET THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH AND THE MEDITATIONS OF OUR HEARTS, BE ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE IN THY SIGHT, O LORD, OUR STRENGTH AND REDEEMER. AMEN. Jesus said, quoting Isaiah: “This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.” He then said, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” When I was growing up we played, “good guys and bad guys”, cowboys and Indians, boys against girls, and even us against the Germans. That certainly dates me. The world was black and white then. We always knew where we stood. Even when we grew up and the civil rights marches started. We all in the North knew the South was wrong and were horrified. When we went to church, we would hear about Good Jesus and those bad guys the Pharisees and the scribes, as we did today. The Pharisees and scribes were always after Jesus, trying to trick him but he was always able to be cleverer than they, and was able to teach them. He was our man. But now that I am older, I wonder if the struggle Jesus had with the Pharisees and scribes really was about being on two difference sides. Recall the Pharisees were religious people as we are. They were concerned about honoring God and furthering the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, some scholars would argue that Jesus himself was a Pharisee, a religious Rabbi teaching about the Kingdom of God. He with them taught the Shema, the commandment that we should love the Lord our God, with all our heart, and with all our soul and with all our mind. It is true that Jesus appeared to be the most popular teacher of his time, but I do not think that it was jealousy that made them rise up against him. Rather Jesus taught a universal message of love, and a Kingdom of Heaven that included all people. Recall Jesus ministered to everyone, Jew and Gentile, male and female, hated soldiers and fallen women, children as well as to the chosen men of Israel. He was pushing the boundaries of the accepted religion of his day. He believed that God’s reign was over all, that God’s love was for all, and invited all into a loving relationship with God. This is why he found the old laws of washing hands and pots objectionable. For not only was more care taken in fulfilling the laws of the Old Testament more important than love, but the emphasis on washing, excluded Gentiles from life in the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ arguments went further than washing. He broke the rules of healing on the Sabbath, caring for the lepers, healing women and children when Rabbis were not supposed to speak to them for the same reason. His love and the love of God that he taught were all inclusive. In many ways the controversy that is facing the Anglican Communion and our church, is over a similar matter. The questions are what human precepts are and what the commandment of God is. Many want to avoid mentioning the issue, it is not one to belabor, but where all of us need to understand the reasoning and concern that brought about the election of Bishop Robinson. The traditional teaching of the church is that homosexuality is a sin, because it is taught that way by both the Old Testament as well as St. Paul, and a couple of the other Apostles. It is furthered argued that looking at the life-styles of so many we see promiscuous behavior, which is outside Christian living. Promiscuous behavior is a sin for it is narcissistic and self-centered and takes one away from the concerns of the love of God. Indeed it was such promiscuous behavior that horrified St. Paul when he went into the Greek world. Yet we must be honest with ourselves, that many heterosexuals live in a similar manner today. But the arguments remain that it does not seem natural, and that God has made us male and female. So the church has taught that if you are gay, you should remain celibate. The other argument assumes that all of us do not have a choice on our sexuality, when modern science is suggesting that nearly 8% of our population are born differently and cannot make lasting relationships with the opposite sex. The truth is all those who are gay confess that they wish they were straight and find that it is a very painful position to be in that minority. The election of Bishop Robinson suggests that the 60% of our church leaders, have come to the conclusion that it is unfair to request that people of same sex orientation not to be allowed to have life long companions. They therefore have accepted that if one is gay, one must not be promiscuous but either be celibate or be monogamous and in a life long relationship. This is a new teaching. It was believed by our church by doing so, that we are extending the boundaries and being more inclusive to all children of God. Which is human precepts and which is the commandment of God? This is the argument. Some feel that the church has given into modern and liberal life styles, while others argue it is being compassionate and inclusive and God is teaching us a new thing.. Our Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold, in a letter to the clergy this week emphasized the diversity of the Anglican Communion and all the parishes and Dioceses that make up our church. He described the church as a whole as a giant web made up of parishes and Dioceses and Provinces linked to the self-governing churches in the Anglican Communion. “The Communion,” he said, “in its various forms is nothing less than our participation in the Triune God.” He went on to say, “Difference, and the capacity to welcome others, are essential to the vitality of these various parts. And the energy that gives them life is love. This is my understanding of what it means to be the body of Christ. We are members of one another, differentiated and yet one, not according to our notion of unity, but one in the power of the Holy Spirit who binds us together. So the fundamental question is not how do we create unity or overcome our differences, but rather how do we live into the communion into which God is always drawing us. The challenge before us at the present moment is to live into communion, to go to the deeper place and draw more fully from the springs of God’s eternal and deathless love, which alone can give life for us all.” We therefore are not called to agree with one another but to love. Or in other words, our central concern should not be about what are human doctrines as much as what is God’s commandment that we are called to live by. It is none other than to love and to do what love commands. We are called to live in the Holy Spirit and honor God with all our heart, soul and mind. We are to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. For recall Jesus said, it is not what goes into us that defile us, but what comes out of us, our mean-spiritedness, our self-righteousness, our pride, our folly, our gossip, our laziness, our dark thoughts, our deceit, fornication, theft, murder, adultery and all sorts of wickedness. All these things need to be let go of, so that we can receive the forgiveness and love of God and share it with others. Our main concern then is how we are we to be faithful to the love of God and share it with others. When we do this we will be living in the inclusive love of Christ Jesus and then we will not be like the Pharisees. Amen.
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