Pentecost XIII Proper 17

Pentecost XIII Proper 17
It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come. Listen to me.

Evil has no existence in and of itself.

This does not mean evil is an illusion. It also does not mean evil is a matter of personal opinion. Evil is a corruption of Love. The foundation of evil is separation from God. It is the exercise of real choice to say no to the essential qualities of love. Those essential qualities are compassion and holiness, service to other people and worship of God.

Evil is a self created parasite that feeds upon fear, self will and pride. The goal of Christ is not to destroy evil but to transform it back into its original essence. That essence is eternal love.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day missed this fundamental truth. They had been influenced by the dualistic philosophies and religions of the surrounding pagan cultures that taught evil is an equal and opposite power to good. This is called dualism.

Dualism is a misunderstanding of duality. Duality is simply the observation that there are opposites in the world as we experience it. There is light and dark. There is hot and cold. There is pleasure and pain. There is life and death.

Dualism attempts to provide a reason for duality. The reason it offers posits the scenario that there is a god of light who is good, and a god of darkness who is evil. Humans are stuck in the middle between an eternal conflict of good and evil.

Dualism teaches that the problem confronting humanity is in a lack of knowledge or a lack of will to chose good and reject evil. Dualism teaches the solution to the problem is the right knowledge and/or right behavior.

Religions that emphasize right knowledge speak in the categories of enlightenment. The enlightened soul is the soul that has the secret knowledge of the Dualistic nature of the universe. The strategy for living on earth that this form of religion emphasizes is withdrawal. In Jesus’ day the religious group that most embodied this approach were the Essenes.

The Essenes believed that they and they alone had the secret knowledge about the nature of reality. That knowledge led them to separate from society into their own self contained and closed compounds in the desert where they performed their rituals and studied esoteric books about the coming apocalyptic war between good and evil.

The problem with enlightenment is how do you really know that you have the right knowledge? Who do you trust to teach you?

How can you be sure you are performing the right rituals, doing the right meditation, or reading the right books? The emphasis on right knowledge leads to pride or despair. Pride that I have it and you don’t. Despair that I can never be certain I am perfectly enlightened if I continue to live in the complex world of duality. To achieve any sense of certain knowledge I need to isolate myself from the world. In that isolation the soul experiences even greater levels of pain, the recycled pain of suffering and finally despair.

Those who emphasize right behavior speak in the categories of righteousness. The righteous are the ones who by their own will submit to the absolute and inflexible will of God as revealed in the Law of Moses. The problem with submission to the Law is who gets to interpret the Law? There were dozens of religious movements in Israel that claimed they had the one and the only interpretation of Moses that would produce righteousness.

In the gospel reading this morning we see how these groups, the Pharisees and the Scribes, argued amongst themselves over the proper way to wash their hands, their cups, pots and bronze vessels. They also disputed about the proper clothes to wear, the exact time of day when the Sabbath began and every detail about living. None of this debate appears in the Law of Moses. It was all a creation of religious lawyers who believed so passionately that righteousness is right behavior, perfect behavior, that they developed an incredibly complex commentary that attempted to define every aspect of human behavior.

Law based religion is a system of debits and credits. It requires religious lawyers, religious accountants, religious judges and religions courts. In the end, law based religion faces the same problem as knowledge based religion. It becomes inflexible. It cannot force every aspect of this world of duality into a rigid system of Dualistic perfection. It leads to insufferable pride or unbearable despair.

There is a third form of religion Jesus encountered. It is religion based in aggression. The Zealots believed right religion is not just based on right knowledge which leads to withdrawal, or on right behavior which leads to submission, but on right action that leads to focused and purposeful aggression. The Zealots preached and practiced holy war. They demanded direct action against the unrighteous. Sadly, as with the terrorists of the 21st century, the first century Zealots spent most of their aggression against their fellow Jews who followed the way of law or knowledge, who failed the test of perfect action.

Into this tumultuous and violent religious conflict Jesus appeared bringing a very different message. Jesus embraced the dualistic nature of the world as it is. Jesus rejected the philosophy of Dualism that spoke in absolute terms of good and evil; that produced religions of aggression, submission or withdrawal.

Jesus affirmed the essential unity of God, the reality that we live in a universe. Jesus not only taught but he embodied the truth that the unity of God is the love of God.

Jesus taught that perfection is not expressed in an accountant’s leger of debits and credits. Perfection is not submission to Law. Perfection is the total immersion of the soul in the never ending process of transformation in divine love and compassion. Perfection is surrender to the Beloved.

Jesus proclaimed that God just doesn’t have love God is love.

Jesus taught what Moses and the prophets taught. The problem confronting the human race is not wrong knowledge, wrong behavior or wrong action. The problem is not even in the duality of pleasure and pain. The problem confronting the human race is separation.
Separation is not about law, knowledge or action. Separation is about relationship. That is why Jesus directs the Pharisees, the Scribes, the Zealots, the Essenes, the Sadducees, away from the mind and the will to the heart.
　
The Pharisees were working with categories of clean and unclean. These are the categories of duality. This is the way the creation exists right now. But, the Pharisees moved from duality into Dualism when they made "clean and unclean" absolute religious laws. When they moved from duality into Dualism they sought to perpetuate separation. They declared the proper way to clean objects was an expression of right behavior that produced merit. That merit obligated God to give them what they wanted.

For those who disagreed with the Pharisees, or who could not afford the massive amounts of water for the rituals of purification, there was condemnation. Failure to clean a cup, a pot or a bronze kettle in the right way, the only approved way, generated debits in your account with God. It also resulted in further separation among those who did it right, those who did it wrong and those who gave up trying. A righteous Pharisee would not risk God’s wrath by associating with any one who did it wrong or not at all. A righteous Pharisee would shout and proclaim: you are wrong, you are wrong. Do it my way!

It is no accidental or incidental comment that Jesus makes when he says. In vain do they worship me. Worship is the highest expression of love. Love is not about self will. Love is not about separation. Love is reunification with God the Father just as you are. Love is transformation in God the Holy Spirit so you can become more of who God has called you to be . Love is grounded in the truth of duality and the reality that in God the Son, Jesus Christ, there is no condemnation.

Condemnation is not out there in the realm of the divine. Condemnation is within the human heart. That is the seat of the problem. It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come. The evil intentions are the distortions of love that proceed from the demands of self will.

Religion grounded in knowledge, law or action will not bring forth love. Religion grounded in love will, as a natural consequence, lead us to discern the principles underlying knowledge, law and action. There is a place for knowledge, law and action. That place is subordinate to Love, informed by love, and empowered by love. It is activated when we join with Jesus in praying: Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done.

That is also the place Jesus offers to meet us. Here. In our hearts. Here in the seat of longing for acceptance and approval. Here where God the Father, by the power of God the Holy Spirit, designed human beings to live by the steadfast holy and eternal love of God the Son, Jesus Christ. That is why Jesus does not direct people first to a law, a book, or an action. He directs us to a relationship. He tells us: Listen to me.