One political party convention down and one to go! I'm not much of a convention watcher
for either party, but on Thursday evening I came in to the room where our TV
lives and joined Fred for a few minutes.
Grant Bennett, a leader in the same local Mormon church as Mitt Romney
led, was speaking—he called himself Mitt's assistant. He spoke about Mitt's service to others in his church who
were in need. Suddenly my ears
perked up, because he was referring to a portion of scripture we heard this
morning from the Epistle of James:
true religion means helping widows and orphans in their distress.
Helping widows and orphans was an important activity in the early
church. In the 6th chapter of Acts we learn that in Jerusalem
Christians were growing in numbers, and there was increasing tension among
them. The Greek Christians
complained that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of
food. They were comparing the
treatment of their widows with how the Jewish Christian widows were being
treated. So to resolve this issue
seven men were selected by the Christian community and appointed by the apostle
to make sure the distribution of food was equitable. Then the apostles could
“devote [themselves] to prayer and to serving the word.”
Helping those in need has continued to be what most religious
communities do with whatever resources they can. True religion involves cooking
for Emmanuel Dining Room, stocking and packing food for Hudson Center clients, participating
in the activities to raise money for our grants to organizations who serve the
poor, and opening our building up to groups—such as, AA—that need space for
activities that serve our community.
James calls our Christian responsibility to “be doers of the Word
and not merely hearers who deceive themselves [that hearing and believing is
enough]. He says that “doers who
act . . . will be blessed in their doing.” This practical approach to
expressing one's faith can be seen in many religious traditions. The problem, of course, becomes how to
determine who is needy and how generous we believe we should be towards
them. But we must puzzle through
our confusion, for not to act denies what we know we have been commanded
to do. We remember in Matthew 25
Jesus says that when you have done it to the “least of these” you have done it
to me.
This well and good, but does it matter what the beliefs we
hold? Or are supposed to hold.
Does it make a difference what we believe as long as we practice generosity
toward folks in need? The tension between the relative importance religious
traditions and beliefs and a generous spirit strains to a breaking point in our
gospel reading from Mark.
The religious authorities, who never got good press in the gospels,
argued for the traditions of the elders to take precedence. The traditions of the elders were
established to “build a fence” around the Law given to Moses by God. God would be pleased, the religious
authorities believed, if people followed these rules that protected their
relationship with God and God's Law.
But Jesus challenged these authorities about their intentions
regarding rule-keeping. Did keeping these rules draw them closer to God? They were hypocrites in Jesus' eyes,
because they talked as if they wanted to draw closer to God, but their hearts
did not follow their words.
According to the gospel account the religious authorities lacked a
generous spirit. They puzzled over how anyone can draw close to God without
following the rules that guard the Law given to Moses? They could not see Jesus' disciples
were following a new path—one that had equal validity in God's eyes. It did not replace the path they were
following, but expanded or extended it.
God was revealing more of God's self through Jesus in front of their
eyes. And their lack of a generous
spirit kept them from seeing it.
So, not only should we care for those in need, but we should reflect
on our intentions as well. I believe we are asked to give generously of
ourselves and of our resources when we help others, but God expects to find a
generous spirit in our hearts as well.
Unfortunately, we human beings have great difficulty maintaining a
generous spirit in our hearts.
Jesus listed twelve sins—besides hypocrisy—that are signs of evil intentions
and hardness of our hearts to the pain we can cause others. When I read the list at the end of the
gospel reading, I'll bet quite a few of us went, “Whew, glad she didn’t mention
anything I have to worry about!” But we really do need to worry a bit.
How many of us make the assumption that “caring for widows and
orphans” and performing other deeds of mercy to those in need provide all we
have to know about someone's character? Doing good deeds, following the rules
and traditions handed down by our forebears, and abstaining from obvious bad
deeds—shouldn't this be enough?
No, it would not be enough, even if we could manage to live
perfectly—which we can't. This is
what God hopes to find in us: the intention to live, not hypocritically, but
with a generous spirit in our hearts—hearts open to the possibility God's
continuing revelation of God's will—hearts that match our best words and our
best deeds—whether we are a presidential candidate or a person sitting here in
the congregation today. And, of course, in the end, we know all this is
possible—when we are able to manage it—only by God's grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment