What are you doing about it?
Christ Episcopal Church,
The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8. 14-15, 21-23
So here we are in this time of Covid resurgence—and if you haven’t been paying attention, you should be, because it is happening! I personally did not have a piano lesson this past week because my piano teacher has Covid, again. I think this is the 3rd time she’s had it! And in this time of Covid resurgence our Gospel lesson features Jesus seemingly saying people don’t need to wash their hands. Oooops!
Fortunately, Jesus is making a much larger point here. He is definitely not saying we shouldn’t wash our hands! We should and must, with great care and discipline. So we will come back shortly to Jesus’ larger point.
But first I want to back up and come at this homily from another direction. Some of you might recall that September 1—today—is World Day of Prayer for Creation, which kicks off the Season of Creation, which runs until Oct. 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. Some of you might even recall that a year ago, on the first Sunday of September 2023, I warned you that as long as you had me on first Sundays, you would hear about the Season of Creation every September and probably October.
So… today I will approach the lessons offered to us, first by Jesus in Mark’s Gospel, then by St. James in the Epistle, from a Care of Creation point of view. That is why I chose for our Canticle today the Invocation and Part 1 of Canticle 12, A Song of Creation.
But we didn’t say all of the Canticle! Please grab your prayer books and turn to p. 88 and notice that Canticle 12 begins with an Invocation, then offers three stanzas: the first one The Cosmic Order, the second one Earth and its Creatures, and the third one the People of God. Then it ends with a Doxology, and if you read the rubrics at the beginning (p. 88), you’ll see that it is acceptable to say only one stanza, but we were supposed to say the Doxology as well.
I have always wanted to have us say the whole darn thing at once: Invocation, all three stanzas, Doxology. But… like most of us most of the time, I have yielded to the god of hurry up and git ‘er done, don’t keep the people in church too long because they might get bored and, besides, they have other things to do, lunch is waiting, etc., etc.
And that takes me straight to Jesus’ point: You can make a god of almost anything. And that’s exactly what the Pharisees in today’s lesson were doing. They were not concerned about the disciples getting sick from eating with dirty hands. They were concerned that the disciples weren’t following the rules that they, the Pharisees, had elevated to the level of gods.
Jesus goes right to the heart of it. He blasts them for having completely lost sight of what is important. Eating with dirty hands might not be the best idea, you might indeed get sick from it, but, Jesus says, sickness of the heart is the far greater sickness.
We humans tend to put ourselves, our pleasures and satisfactions, our needs and wants, our desire for more and more stuff, our convenience, and our addiction to busy, busy lives, right at the heart of our existence. This, above all else, disconnects us from God and from the world around us, from our sisters and brothers around the world, and also from the remainder of creation. We act as if everything revolves around us, just as once we believed that the universe revolved around Earth.
This past week, I participated in a webinar called Singing God’s Family: Rediscovering the Radical Beauty of Franciscan Ecospirituality. Greek Orthodox priest Jim Pappas spoke at some length about St. Francis’ theology of creation, and he said that Francis used the term “kindred” to talk about our relationship to all of creation.
Francis’ point is that we are not separate from but embedded in and part of creation. But just as we once believed that the universe revolved around Earth, we tend to see ourselves as separate from and on top of a hierarchy of creation. Even so benevolent a term as “caretaker” puts us outside of creation rather than embedded within it. How different would our attitudes toward creation be if we thought of all of it—plants, animals, mountains, seas—as kindred spirits?
Jesus says, the universe does not revolve around rules and rituals that the guardians of the social and religious order treat like gods. Jesus says, you pay lip service to God, but your hearts are full of deceit and pride. Your piety is hollow.
And that brings me to James and being doers. James is often accused of not understanding the concept of grace and of preaching that we must earn our way to heaven with good works.
Not so. James calls out our empty piety. James points out that when we wear Jesus on our sleeve, or a cross around our neck, but disrespect each other and all of creation, our worship is in vain. James tells us that true and genuine love of God must and will affect how we live our lives.
Likewise, we can pay lip service to caring for creation. We can say all the right stuff and wave the conservation flag, but ultimately we must ask, What are we willing to DO? How are we willing to change our own lives so as to nurture creation and to join all of creation—as today’s Canticle suggests—in loving and praising God and each other, God as the source of all life and each other—all of our kindred, human and otherwise—as bearers of divine life.
I do get discouraged at times. At another church I serve, I think the only progress I have made in preaching this Gospel of Care of Creation is that the Styrofoam cups have disappeared from coffee hour and we now use compostable or burnable paper cups for those who refuse a ceramic mug. Ok. That’s something.
And we have a commercial
strength dishwasher there! I am always heartened when I come to
Don’t just tell me about your appreciation of a beautiful sunset or sunrise. Don’t just tell me about your enjoyment of wildflowers. Tell me what you are doing—in your church, your home, your workplace--to turn from participating in the degradation of our kindred creation through consumerism and addiction to convenience toward everyday practices that first, do no harm, and second, actually help Earth heal from our wanton behavior. Tell me what you are doing.
Let us end this homily together by saying the Canticle 12 Doxology:
Let us glorify the Lord: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
praise him and highly exalt him forever.
In the firmament of his power, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him forever. (BCP p. 90)
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
