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Call to Worship
Every generous act of giving is a tribute to God’s love for us.
Lord, let us be people of generous and abundant gifts for others.
Be ready to listen and slow to react in anger.
Lord, prepare us to be peaceful people.
Keep our hearts and spirits ready to serve ...
Lord, open our hearts to hear and respond to your words of life in ministries of hope and peace.
https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/3027/worship-connection-september-2-2018
Opening Prayer
[We] pray that we may at all times keep our minds open to new ideas and shun dogma; that we may grow in our understanding of the nature of all living beings and our connectedness with the natural world; that we may become ever more filled with generosity of spirit and true compassion and love for all life...
[We] pray that we may learn the peace that comes with forgiving and the strength we gain in loving; that we may learn to take nothing for granted in this life; that we may learn to see and understand with our hearts... Amen
https://www.beliefnet.com/prayers/multifaith/compassion/open-our-minds-and-hearts.aspx
The Lessons
We listen for Ancient Wisdom (from Proverbs 23.7, the Upanishads, and the Buddha)
“As one thinks, one is…Let us purify our thoughts. What we think is what we are…What we think, we become.”
The Gospel According to Mark (7.1-16, 21-23)
Now when the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. (For the Pharisees…do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles [and beds].)
So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?” He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you 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 as doctrines human precepts.’ You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”
He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘Whoever curses father or mother shall die.’ Yet you say, ‘If a person says to father or mother, “Any support you might have had from me is qorban”’ (meaning, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.”
He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”
In these human words God’s voice is heard
All: Thanks be to God.
Reflection by Rev. Dr. BK Hipsher
As Within, So Without
Today’s reading from the gospel according to Mark sparked a tremendous amount of study, thought, prayer, and discussion with my partner who, herself, is a rabbi in the reform tradition of Judaism. I admit to having gone WAY too far into the weeds on this story from scripture. Although its importance is evidenced by it’s presence, almost verbatim, in the gospel according to Matthew and portions of it in the gospel according to Luke as well.
With your help in this short reflection I hope to identify and clarify the main principles of the story and see how that might inform how we function in our modern 21st century world two thousand years later. Further complicating the story is the centrality of NOT washing one’s hands before eating, a point which is paramount in all our minds at this particular time in the year 2020. A particularly deadly flu season combined with the global hysteria being produced by the Novel Corona virus CoVid-19 originating in China has called attention to handwashing as one of the pillars of hygiene, one not to be ignored in such a perilous time in history.
Let’s be clear the lack of hand washing that the Pharisees called Jesus and his followers out on was ritual handwashing, one of the 613 so-called laws that they sought to enforce upon people as a way of proving their piety. Conforming to these 613 laws, and particularly the very public show of obeying these laws, was an often hurtful and sometimes hateful way of “othering” those of whom the Pharisees did not approve. Here it would be helpful to think of how so-called Christians of our day lift verses out of Leviticus and other portions of Torah to justify hating LGBTQ people and ostracizing them from faith communities.
But Jesus meets condemnation of skipping a ritual act by harshly accusing the Pharisees of allowing people to declare money that they could have used to support their parents in their old age as qorban (korban), money set aside as an offering to God, thereby breaking the fifth commandment in the bedrock Ten Commandments of the Torah... Honor your father and mother. Here it might be helpful to think of governments who refuse to spend money on a safety net for the sick, the poor, and refugees while pouring billions, even trillions, of dollars into military spending on weapons of war that do little more than stroke the flaccid egos of would be dictators.
Certainly the most interesting and important portion of our reading today is in the conclusion that Jesus makes when talking both to the crowd and to his disciples in private. He points to the Pharisees being far more concerned with what enters the body than what comes from the heart. He points out that whatever enters the body, whether having been handled by ritually washed hands or not, goes into the stomach and eventually out of the body. But what is formed in the human heart is what informs how a person acts toward others and that is what is important.
Jesus stays with the negative connotation put on his actions (or inactions) by the Pharisees and articulates the negative consequences that ultimately follow what can come out of the human heart, namely: “...evil thoughts, unchastity (sexual immorality), theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness (promiscuity), envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly (foolishness). All these evils come from within and they defile,” says Jesus.
Now by logical inference we can turn all of this negativity around philosophically and theologically and ask, “What is it we can learn about avoiding these kinds of negative consequences from defiling our lives and causing us to break the most basic rules of humanity? How can we live more perfectly the command to love our neighbor as ourselves and treat others as we would like to be treated?”
I believe Jesus’ teaching is that we have the capacity to train our minds to concentrate on goodness, see the best in people, give those around us the benefit of the doubt, and expect the best of ourselves and each other. Jesus made clear, on numerous occasions, that rituals and religious traditions which cause us to exclude people and treat people and animals in unloving ways are not coming from a loving God but rather from leaders who aim to sort people into the good ones and the bad ones.
So when you consider our time together today, understand that hand washing to avoid disease is a must to keep healthy. And training our minds to love our neighbor as ourselves and treat others as we would like to be treated is the way to a healthy spirituality that can quite literally change the world.
Let us pray... Let us think thoughts of hope, goodwill, generosity, love, peace, healing, and joy. As we focus on these blessings, we will manifest them. Thanks be to God. Amen.
For a list of music suggested to meditate on for this service click the link below.