The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
*Purge Me With Hyssop* *And I Shall Be Clean* Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen! In today’s Gospel, our dear Lord Jesus lovingly declares, “*Hear Me, all of you, and understand*: *There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but things that come out of a person are what defile him*.” Dear Christian friends, How would you feel about a group of strong men who might enter someone’s house and take all of that person’s possessions away, while that person can do nothing but watch? How close would you want to stand to the woman who is willing to push and pull and twist and punch in order to get her way, or to the man who sharpens steel and then uses that steel to cut and tear and rip things apart? How would you respond to the person who lights his neighbor’s property on fire? These are all violent actions. Your first reaction might be to oppose or to stop such actions, or to run away from such people for safety’s sake. Before we do that, we should look again and understand the context and the purpose for the violence: · All of that muscle who entered someone’s home and carry off all its contents? That is Jason and Joe and all the others who recently helped RoseMarie move to Versailles. · The woman who pushes and pulls and punches? That is Tina out in the kitchen, working a lump of dough into a beautiful loaf of bread. · Mel is the man with the sharpened steel, plowing the garden for its planting, and Marvin holds the torch, helping his neighbor improve the property with a controlled burn. Steel and fire harnessed into love for neighbor; violence placed into the service of mercy: that is today’s Gospel. Jesus called the people to Him again and said to them, “Hear Me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” Some people will hear today’s Gospel and say, “What kind of God is that? Are not the events of our daily lives already hard enough—we who must bury our dearest loved ones and watch our own children suffer while we ourselves sustain losses in business and is bodily health? Talk to us only about forgiveness and security, Jesus, or do not talk to us at all. Who would wish to serve a lord who speaks so evilly to us as finally to blame our evils and hardships in life upon us?” That is exactly what our Lord Jesus is doing in today’s Gospel. He is telling me that, no matter what terrible things other people might have done to me, their treatment of me is not really my biggest problem. A man could commit all sorts of evil against me: he can harm my body in unspeakable ways; he could dull my senses and ruin my mind; he could level all sorts of accusations against me, destroy my reputation, deprive me of my possessions, lock me into a cell, or bury me alive. Nevertheless, that man still cannot do the worst thing to me: he could not defile me and make me unclean in the eyes of the Lord my God. I do that all by myself. Hear Me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. Today’s Gospel does not sound like Gospel. These Words of Jesus do not sound like mercy and love. Jesus speaks certainly violence here. Jesus wants us to “*hear and understand*” that this violence is His supreme act of love and it is the very motion of His mercy. In today’s Gospel, Jesus acts the strong man who carries off all your possessions, and He is the woman who pushes and pulls and punches in order to get her way. Here Jesus cuts and tears with sharpened steel and here He sets our property on fire. All of these are violent actions. The first reaction might be to oppose Him, or to stop Him, or to run away. Before we do that, we should look again at the context and the purpose for the violence. Or, to use the Words of our Lord in this Gospel, “*Hear and understand*.” Come to find out, the last thing any of us should want is to oppose the violence our Lord! In today’s Gospel, · the strong man who enters my mansion and carries away all its contents. Jesus does this because there is nothing here that will do me any good. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. Since this stuff within me all poses great danger to me, Jesus breaks into my house and gathers all the hazardous material upon His own shoulders and carries it away from me—as far away as His cross. · the woman who pushes and pulls and punches the dough, so that the yeast in the lump may do its best work, expanding and rising and forming the bread. He will not leave even the smallest part of my dough unbeaten, lest the living yeast of His forgiveness of sins not find its way into that spot. · the man with the sharpened steel, cutting the sod and tearing the soil so that the good seed of His forgiveness and mercy and peace may take root and grow and produce a crop. You already know what happens in a garden of well-prepared soil: the Good Seed of Jesus’ forgiveness and life “*bears fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold*” (Mark 4:20). · holds the torch to the ground, burning away the useless undergrowth so that valuable tree of His eternal life may find its grow unopposed by my noxious weeds. “*Hear me, all of you, and understand*”! Do not oppose this particular violence! Let the Man do His work. The end will be better than the beginning. Rose Marie’s empty house in Gravois meant a happier situation for her in Versailles. Tina’s beaten dough brings both nourishment and joy to the family table. Mel’s steel and Marvin’s torch promise a better crop. How much more will the violence of our crucified and risen Lord now benefit us and deliver us into eternal life?
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