Pentecost 14

Pentecost 14 (Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23) “For it is from within….”

Sin is an inside job.

There is nothing external to the human soul that is inherently sinful. Sin is a distortion of virtue and the corruption of virtue. The distortion comes from the original pain of our choice to separate from God.

Most forms of religion do not acknowledge the Biblical teaching of original separation, also called original sin. Most forms of religion assert that human beings are born in a state of innocence and only gradually learn to make choices that are sinful.

In these forms of religion the problem of sin is a lack of knowledge. Since the problem is a lack of knowledge the solution is education. That education can come in many different forms depending upon the religious culture. For the Pharisees, the knowledge was the proper education in the Law.

The Pharisees certainly had the insight that the Law, the Law of Moses, was important. Sadly, they missed the point of the Law. The Law is holy and good. But, the Law can only reveal to us our original choice to separate from God and our need for reunification with God.

The Pharisees assumed God gave the Law so people would obey. They further assumed that God’s love was conditional. Only those who obeyed the Law were entitled to the conditional love of God. For those who chose to disobey the Law God brought forth only wrathful condemnation.

Since the Pharisees believed that God’s Love and therefor God’s favor (grace) is conditional upon obedience to the Law, it was vitally important for them to know just what the law required. Sadly, these assumptions led to a series of questions, speculations and answers that formed the body of what the people came to call The Tradition.

As the question of what must I do to earn God’s love and avoid God’s wrath became the central question of religion The Tradition became the most important element of religion.

The Tradition was a body of commentary learned by students in question and answer form. In Jesus’ day is was still largely an oral tradition. With the destruction of the Temple in 70AD and the 2nd exile of the Jews in 140AD it became important to record The Tradition in order to preserve it.

The Tradition had emerged after the destruction of the first Temple some five hundred years before Jesus’ birth. It that five hundred years it grew and developed and branched into many different schools of thought.

Ironically, the very effort to help people keep the Law of Moses actually subverted the Law of Moses. Law based religion tends to be fear based religion. It focuses on the external observance of rules and regulations. It produces religious courts to decide disputes over interpretation. It creates religious lawyers to administer the system. And, it creates a culture of rigid inflexible uncompromising judgment.
As Jesus pointed out, such a system also creates the minimalist mentality that asks the question: what is the least I must do to get credit and avoid punishment. The minimalist mentality leads to the invention of the loop hole.

Loop holes allow the rich and powerful to avoid the most troublesome commandments of the Law. Most of these troublesome commandments derive from the three fold principle of the Sabbath. More specifically, the loop hole allows the wealthy to hold an outward form of right belief and right behavior while avoiding the inward transformation of our attitudes and actions.

The tragedy of the Pharisee is in the belief that God’s love is conditional on human behavior.

So, as Jesus points out, the oral tradition of commentary, interpretation and loop holes allows the wealthy to claim God’s favor based on the minutia of daily activities- the right clothes to wear, the right food to eat, the right way to prepare the food, the right way to serve the food, the right dishes on which to serve the food, the right way to wash those dishes before and after the meal, and the right way to wash your hands before, during and after the meal. The rules become the reality.

If and only if you have the time and resources to observe all of the many traditions that govern your daily activities can you lay a claim on God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. The poor and the uneducated lack the advantage of the rich and powerful. By definition, the poor are poor because they are unrighteous. They deserve God’s wrath and they receive God’s wrath.

The rich by definition deserve God’s love and receive God’s Blessing. Since they are the righteous they are the ones who write the rules to interpret the Law. And , they are the ones who create the loop holes to avoid the weighty matters of the Law of Moses. Those weightier matters address issues of mercy, compassion and the responsible use of wealth. Those are the Laws the rich and the powerful subvert through the process of interpretation. The system is flawed and hypocritical because it is based on a flawed assumption. It is based on the assumption that God’s love is conditional.

Jesus’ simple message is that God’s love is unconditional. God just doesn’t have love. God is love. God’s love is universal.

The purpose of the Law is to act as a perfect mirror to the soul. The Law of Moses reveals not only how we separate from God by our attitudes and actions but why we separate from God. The Law shows us that we separate from God in order to assert our will to power to be God.

The Law is holy and good. It has its place in our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. It’s place is not to make us righteous. It’s place is to reveal to us that we as a species have chosen to separate from God. It’s place is the show each of us how we actively and deceitfully participate in separation. And, its place is to lead us to the One who is the final solution and the only solution to the problem.
The solution is Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the unconditional love of God the Father. He is the infallible Plan of Salvation for all people for all time.

Jesus is the perfect mirror to the human soul. He shows us where we are in separation from God. He shows us how we can receive the divine gift of reunification with God.

Jesus also shows us where the distortion of sin lies. It is not outside. It is not in an institution or a policy or a program. Sin lies within. It is a distortion of the mind, heart and will that proceeds from the will to power of a soul lost in separation.

The solution to separation is reunification.

The solution to sin is transformation.

Transformation is an inside job. It is the identifiable and measureable result that emerges from a personal relationship with the Father, through the Son by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

You cannot just say “no” to sin. You can say “yes” to God. You can say “yes” to God by receiving the gift of God’s unconditional love in Jesus Christ. That unconditional love transforms our desires. That unconditional love transforms vice into virtue. That unconditional love leads us into a journey of self-discovery. As we discover who we truly are in Jesus Christ we discover the power to change our attitudes and actions in Jesus Christ.

For some of us the change is revolutionary: dramatic, bold and quick. For some of us the change is evolutionary: slow, measured and even understated. For each of us the change is the real choice to become the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved of the Father.

For it is from within that the Real Presence of God sets us free in love to become transformed by love – the unconditional love of God in Jesus Christ.