Season of Creation

Proper 15, Year B

September 1, 2024

St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, Shoreline

Readings: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Ps 15; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

You may have noticed from our lessons this morning that, for one, we’re back to Mark’s gospel—the litany of bread is finished—and, secondly, that we’re back to the blunt sayings of Jesus, which is also how you know for sure that you’re reading the gospel of Mark. To the religious elite he says, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” He’s telling men who have dedicated their lives to following commands written in the Scriptures that their fixation on a slurry of religious practices and markers of holiness misses the point. Their rules bypass the heart and the practices of ritual purity are more for public display than personal piety.

The gospel along with the other lessons today speak of right behavior, of keeping commandments and ordinances, of adhering to rules in order to be blessed and to be a blessing to others, but not focusing on the rules to the point where you create a barrier between those privileged to conform and all others.

Right actions and following rules help us to live in society together, which is primarily what James addresses in his letter. On a more localized level, there are the practices and daily or weekly regimens that we choose for our communities—those we spend the most time around—and for ourselves or our households. Our religious practices can overlap with being a good member of society but, for the most part, they are more impactful for ourselves, our households, and our communities.

We can also think of our set patterns of behavior as our rules for living. Many of you here follow the ‘rule’ of praying the Daily Office in the morning and in the evening. It’s a beautiful practice. Daily prayer provides a rhythm and a pulse to time that can act as a counterweight to the pull of our tech-driven consumer society. At St. Luke’s in Ballard we have a weekly prayer group on Thursdays that provides a similar kind of punctuation to the week. These moments not only nourish us, they also help to build beloved community.

Religious and spiritual practices have material, real world implications. If Jesus’ rebuke to the religious leaders seems harsh, it’s because their purity codes and rules had evolved to a degree that undermined the very commandments given to Moses. Rules and traditions intended to draw the people together had morphed and fractured to the point of exclusion and even oppression.

In today’s gospel lesson, there are a couple chunks missing from the middle that shed some light on what’s going on with Jesus and the religious elite. Verses 9-13 recount Jesus using the example of Corban, which the Pharisees and scribes allowed, to illustrate how the religious tradition voids out the command to honor father and mother. The vow of Corban was a practice of willing or dedicating one’s property and resources—one’s estate—to the temple. This meant that when a man entered into Corban he was no longer obliged to take on economic responsibility for his parents (as mandated in the Torah). He would not have to support them, help in religious duties, care for them in sickness, or tend to their financial affairs. While Corban elevated a man in the sight of the religious elite, it effectively left his elders impoverished.

Verses 17-20 notes a transition from the crowd to Jesus speaking to the disciples, explaining his parable. In typical Markan fashion he chides them, “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes into the sewer?” (See what I mean about the blunt sayings of Jesus. . . .)

This passage as a whole (chapter 7) follows the miracle feeding of the five thousand (recounted in chapter 6). The religious leaders comment on the disciples eating with “unclean” hands almost immediately following the multiplication of bread and fish for the crowd. The juxtaposition between the two events sets them in high contrast to one another. Where Jesus and his disciples provide food, nourishment, the religious elite comment on purity demands. Where do you hear God’s heart to be?

So, We could interpret the gospel lesson as another instance where Jesus is poking at the religious establishment, turning tradition on its head, and re-interpreting the teachings. But I would like to encourage us today to consider how our religious practices, our rules and intentional habits, express and manifest an underlying ethic.

Unlike the religious leaders of Jesus’ time, for many of us the rules for living tend to be practices we didn’t necessarily grow up with—rather, at some point in our life, we choose to adopt them. For example, I know of a pastor who, as part of his interest in exploring a monastic expression for the Vineyard Movement/Church, composed a rule of life called “The Order of Sustainable Faith.” In it he describes a rhythm of life that includes labor, prayer, study, and rest. When introducing the section on “Commitments” he notes, “We make the following commitments not out of compulsion, but out of sensing an invitation from God to move more deeply and with greater intentionality into both the contemplative and active life.”

In this day and age our rules and commitments are more successful when we choose them from a place of freedom and not out of obligation. Which also means that we have an opportunity to pause and examine our practices, and to ask how they relate to our actions in the world. Does spending time in daily prayer help us to keep our heart soft and pliable to move with the Holy Spirit? Does managing our diet in a certain way sharpen our awareness of communities faced with food insecurity? Does the spiritual practice of gardening or yardwork lift our gaze to see the ways we are entwined with the whole community of creation?

Ah, there we are: Creation. The funny thing about our human societies—the rules we keep and the commitments we hold—is that we are always surrounded by and interacting with the rest of the community of creation, whether we’re aware of it or not. Our commitments, our practices and rules have material implications not just for our fellow human creatures, but for all God’s creatures. Perhaps that is an obvious statement, but how often during the day are we encouraged to pause and notice life outside the window? More often our gaze is directed toward the notification buzzing on our smartphone devices. (For those who have silenced their notifications, or who do not partake in the smartphone device economy, you are blessed.)

Today begins the Season of Creation – an ecumenical initiative that’s emerged in the past few decades. In 1989 Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I proclaimed 1 September as a day of prayer for creation for the Orthodox Church. Following that, the World Council of Churches proposed a “season” extending from September 1 to October 4, the Feast Day of St. Francis. And Pope Francis made the season official in 2015 for the Roman Catholic Church, the same year he published the encyclical Laudato Sí, On Care of our Common Home. The Anglican Communion is one of many ecumenical partners to acknowledge and encourage its regions to participate, and the Episcopal Church has been putting out a liturgical resource for some years now. There is much more information on the season of creation website, which I’ll be linking to on our St. Dunstan’s social media over the next few weeks. (Ah, the power of the church admin.)

I’ve been using the terms “rule,” “commitments,” “practices” somewhat interchangeably this morning—which, academically speaking, is a bit sloppy. Yet, unlike the religious leaders of Jesus’ time, we in the Protestant tradition have few equivalents for their purity codes. The ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldnts’ of behavior in the first quarter of the 21st c. are highly contextual. What remains true is that the rules and patterns for living practiced by each of us and by our communities have ethical and material implications. When we pause and reflect, listening to the wisdom of others and to the rest of the community of creation, we have an opportunity to engage our hearts and change our ways, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. May it be so.