This is the text of a sermon preached at Guildford Cathedral on Sunday, 2nd September. A couple of years ago a friend recommended Richard Beck's book "Unclean"; and the themes of disgust, holiness and hospitality resonated with the questions about the law raised by the following texts: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; James 1:17-end; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15,21-23
It’s
19th April 1987. A 25 year old woman visits a London hospital. She’s perhaps
the most photographed fashion icon of her generation; but the image captured on
this day isn’t remembered because of her striking blue dress.
Instead
it continues to be remembered because it broke down barriers of stigma.
Princess Dianna had looked a nameless AIDS patient in the eye, smiled and shook
his hand without wearing gloves.
Research had demonstrated a few years previously that HIV AIDS couldn’t be transmitted by person to person touch. However, it was this ordinary gesture of human interaction, in front of the world’s media, which began to challenge ignorance, misunderstanding and fear.
A
nurse at the London Middlesex Hospital said, “If a royal was allowed to go in
shake a patient's hands, somebody at the bus stop or the supermarket could do
the same”.
Today,
HIV-positive people live full, healthy, loving lives, serving in professions
from lawyers and haulage drives. Nevertheless, HIV remains an urgent global
challenge with more than a million people dying from AIDS in 2015; and many
more being infected, orphaned or losing their livelihood or social status.
HIV-AIDS
induced fear and exclusion because it touches on triggers of disgust outlined
by the psychologist Richard Beck in his book entitled “Unclean”: sex and bodily
fluids, sickness and contagion, contamination and death.
He
explores the visceral reactions of disgust and avoidance, but this is more than an exercise in psychological
analysis. He also explores what it means for those patterns to be
redeemed. Beck grapples what it means for
God to desire mercy and not sacrifice; for Jesus to eat with tax collectors and
sinners; or for the church to draw boundaries of inclusion and exclusion.
He
sets this out as two impulses: “one impulse - holiness and purity - erects
boundaries, while the other impulse - mercy and hospitality - crosses and
ignores those boundaries”.
The
commandments in Deuteronomy, negotiate these impulses of holiness and mercy.
They were teaching about giving honour to God in worship, delighting in sabbath
rest and by shunning forms idolatry; and observing them all to strengthened
community through giving honour to parental and martial relationships;
outlawing false witness, theft and murder.
The
people of Israel were called to be a distinctive community; to be wise and
discerning. It’s not surprising that as they encountered other nations and
traditions debate arose as to how to guard, teach and live out these
ordinances. What was allowable on the
sabbath? Should wealth be set aside for God or family obligations? What about
food was safe or unclean? What about sex, sickness and death?
Teachers,
priests and scribes didn’t the people to forget. They didn’t want to take
anything away from the commandments; but diligence in observing them led to
more burdensome detailed laws were added
in.
In
Mark’s gospel we glimpse part of that ongoing debate. The scribes and Pharisees
have continue to challenge Jesus about the nature of purity and the keeping of
the law. Elsewhere, this division is focused on human need such as hunger,
illness or isolation; in part Jesus exposes our vulnerability and kindles a
desire for mercy; for loving embrace.
In
order to remain ceremonially clean, the priests had to be careful about what
they ate or touched. Over time such prescriptions were observed more widely. So
they attack Jesus and his disciples - for eating with unclean hands.
As
Jesus’ explores elsewhere in the parable of the good Samaritan, the impulse for
purity set up boundaries which made it hard to fulfill the impulse for
mercy. Today, he challenges the
hypocrisy of getting things out of proportion. By focusing on the minutiae of
the tradition, Jesus accusers risked failing to fulfill the will of God which
the commandments embodied.
He
goes on to describe with a bluntness, which may evoke an element of disgust,
the way in which food is eaten and digested, asking: how can something which
passes through our bodies be a source of defilement?
Instead
we are to examine our own hearts and consider what human nature is capable of:
envy, deceit and adultery; greed, pride and stupidity; anger, self-indulgence
and deceit.
No
wonder the psalmist cries out: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and put a
new and right spirit within me” (Ps 51). As my spiritual
director put it. We have to guard our hearts. We guard our hearts from being misled by the
overwhelming power of sexual chemistry which plays on our loneliness, and
desire for intimacy.
We
also have to guard our hearts when we seek self-advancement at the expense of
others; when our guilt or failure tempts us to be less than honest, eating away
at trust within community; when our envy, conscious or not, diminishes others;
when our frustration drives us to despair rather than facing the challenging
but creative conversation.
It
is because of the frailty of these human hearts, that God’s only begotten Son,
Jesus Christ, came from the intimacy of his Father’s heart to be with us. To be
with us in the fleshly and messy reality of our lives. Love draws near in our
bodily lowliness and prideful hearts.
As
the poet, W B Yeats puts it: “Love had pitched his mansion in / The place of
excrement; / For nothing can be sole or whole / that has not been rent”. It
takes our proximity with birth and intimacy, illness and death to realise that
that is where love is; in the midst of nappies and bedpans. And God goes there
What
then does it mean for our fragile, sensual, muscular, ageing, graceful and
imperfect bodies for the Word to become flesh? Out of his fullness, we have all
received endless grace. The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came
through Jesus Christ”. We are redeemed by grace; by God becoming one of us.
Jesus
touched the sick with healing love and restored the dying to life; he embraced
those made ‘other’ through sexual exploitation or mental distress; he ate with
those whose hearts were open. He was betrayed and abused; cursed and
humiliated. He died. And in dying broke death’s power; in his risen life is
forgiveness, mercy and love.
The
aspiration of our cathedral community to be warm-hearted is an expression of
the commandments to love: to love God and neighbour. We cannot do that in our
own strength; it is God’s Spirit who warms our hearts, kindling that flame of
love. As James writes, all our generous acts of giving come from above; through
grace our creatureliness bears the truth of God’s image. The fullness of life in God is revealed in a
fruitful life.
James
uses language which is vivid and physical. He senses that the good that we do
begins with what is planted in our hearts, that God’s word of love. We are to be quick and attentive in our
listening; but slow in our speaking and our anger.
Doing
what we hear is mediated in a multitude of loving gestures. The gentleness of which he speaks is not a
soft option. It means caring for orphans and widows; protecting the vulnerable;
listening to the dispossessed; showing
compassion to the stranger. Seeking what is just in this world - walking with
humility before God.
No
human being, whatever age, should feel alone. As Christians we don’t offer
simple answers to complex problems. But we do commit to being alongside those
who feel unloved, isolated, scared; those who self-harm, who’re grief stricken
and unable to cope. As the Children’s Society tagline puts it: We listen. We support. We act.
In
our workplaces and homes, may we who are united in prayer and the breaking of
bread bring hope and hospitality to others. The impulse for holiness is made
real in the impulse of mercy; breaking down barriers of stigma and despair.
© Julie Gittoes 2018
