Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And blessed be his kingdom, now and forever. Amen.
Jesus said, "The first commandment is this: Hear, O Israel: The Lord your God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:29-31
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8,9
We confess our sins against God and others.
Silence may be kept.
Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.
May Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life. Amen.
A Hymn of Praise
Glory to God in the highest,
and peace to his people on earth.
Lord God, heavenly King,
almighty God and Father,
we worship you, we give you thanks,
we praise you for your glory.
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father,
Lord God, Lamb of God,
you take away the sin of the world:
have mercy on us;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father:
receive our prayer.
For you alone are the Holy One,
you alone are the Lord,
you alone are the Most High,
Jesus Christ,
with the Holy Spirit,
in the glory of God the Father. Amen.
The Collect
Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Old Testament Genesis 45:1-15
Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there — since there are five more years of famine to come — so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.’ And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.
Psalm 133 Ecce, quam bonum!
1 Oh, how good and pleasant it is, *
when brethren live together in unity!
2 It is like fine oil upon the head *
that runs down upon the beard,
3 Upon the beard of Aaron, *
and runs down upon the collar of his robe.
4 It is like the dew of Hermon *
that falls upon the hills of Zion.
5 For there the Lord has ordained the blessing: *
life for evermore.
The Epistle Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.
The Gospel Matthew 15: 10-20
Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
The Sermon Fr. Nelson Gaetz
These summer lessons don’t get any easier do they?
The Gospel reading begins with an accusatory question that the Pharisees asked Jesus when they saw that some of his disciples were not following the religious traditions regarding ceremonial purification. “Why do your disciples eat with defiled hands?” It was unfathomable to them how this supposed holy man could ignore these traditions for purity and piety.
This is why religion is the perfect soil for the formation of hypocrites. Most people understand religion as ritual: there are certain ways of performing or behaving that make us right with God. But it is much easier to keep the rules and traditions and religious expectations than to change our rebellious hearts so that we delight in loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Give me a checklist and I’ll always know exactly where I stand with God.
But Jesus will not leave us alone with our checklist. He summons people to gather around him. “Hear me, all of you, and understand,” he says. He is about to reveal something very important and he wants everybody to hear it. But before we can really understand the power of this teaching, I can’t resist taking a detour into some Biblical study.
The issue at hand is the question of personal defilement. The Pharisees accused the disciples of Jesus of eating their food “with defiled hands. But what exactly is meant by this idea of defilement?
The word that is here translated defile is a word that can also mean “to share.” The idea is that things that are shared lose their value because they become common or ordinary. This is the meaning behind the word profane: when something becomes accessible to everyone then it is no longer sacred. It is defiled because it is not devoted, that is, it is not set aside for God and for God alone. That’s the meaning of holiness; something that is set apart for God. Inherent in the concept of holiness, then, is both a separation from something as well as a dedication to something.
So when Jesus gathers the crowd together to address this question of personal purity, it is a really significant topic. It remains significant for us, too, because here Jesus is telling us what it is that will separate us from fellowship with God.
God himself is holy because he is separated from sin and evil and is dedicated to his own glory and honor. And He commands us to be holy as He himself is holy (Lev 19:2; 1 Pet 1:16). He commanded the Israelites therefore “to distinguish between the holy and the common” or, as it came to be known, “between the unclean and the clean” (Lev 10:10). There were strict guidelines for maintaining religious purity, most notably the regulations regarding the clean and unclean foods. The Israelites were careful to remain pure by following these guidelines, because anyone who became unclean would be excluded from the public worship of God or perhaps even from the fellowship of the community (Lev 7:19-21).
Jesus delivers his speech. It is short and to the point. He knows how we settle for so much less than God is offering. “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” It’s more complicated than it seems. How could Jesus say that a person could not be defiled by what he eats, when the Mosaic Law clearly taught that he could be?
Jesus explains that we far too often get this issue of holiness all wrong. The reason is because we misunderstand the source of defilement.
The Pharisees questioned Jesus because he permitted his disciples to eat with defiled hands. We inherently think that defilement comes from outside of us. This is what religion teaches us. As long as we can stay away from certain people or places or things, we can remain pure and right with God. It’s all about overcoming bad habits and bad company because if we can remain separate from the evil outside of us then we will remain pure.
Every generation has their list of the kinds of things that “real” Christians do not do. No dancing. No drinking alcohol. No tattoos or body piercings. Or certain words that should never come from a Christian’s mouth. But Jesus says that things outside of us cannot defile us. They have no ability to do so. Why? Because, Jesus says, things outside of us, such as the things we eat, do not enter into our hearts. In the case of food, which was the issue of debate in this text, Jesus gets specific. Our bodies know how to make use of what is nutritious and how to expel into the toilet that which is of no benefit. The slogan, “You are what you eat” may be true physically, but it is not true spiritually.
It is hard for us to imagine how significant this change of thinking would have been for a Jewish audience. Jesus’ teaching for us “Thus he declared all foods clean.” The New Testament repeats this radical point. Paul says, “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself” (Rom 14:14).
Fellowship with God is made available to all people through Jesus, not through religious ritual.
This is an important point. We are all tempted to believe that our purity before God depends upon what we do with things outside of us. While we don’t usually see our diets as indicative of our spirituality, we view other things in that light. It can be as silly as how we dress when we gather for corporate worship or as serious as how we think politically. Our tendency is to judge spirituality on the basis of external practice.
Nothing outside of a person can defile him “since it enters not his heart.” And further, we are told that out of the heart of man come evil thoughts and the sins those thoughts produce. According to Jesus, this is why we sin. Because we are sinners. We are defiled.
Evil exists wherever God’s good purposes are not realized.
Nothing outside of us can, by entering into us, defile us. If the defilement of sin does not come from outside of us, then there is only one other place from which it can come. It must come from inside us.
This is why Jesus says that sin comes out of our hearts. The Times of London once posed the question, “What is the problem with the world.” The Christian journalist G. K. Chesterton replied simply, “I am.” We are the ones to blame for the evil in our world.
Look at this list of sins. Jesus says they all come from our hearts. Before we ever commit sexual immorality with our bodies, we do it with our hearts. Same with theft, murder, deceit, envy, and pride. These things are sinful not because God has made arbitrary rules to rob us of joy. They are not sinful merely because “God said so.” Here we see the “why” behind God’s prohibitions. God has created good things for us to enjoy. But sin is the temptation to hijack those good gifts. What makes things sinful is our hearts in rebellion against God and the good purposes he has for us in his gifts.
What can be done about our defiled hearts? The problem is much greater than we originally thought. I heard this quip recently. “The wicked think their sin is nothing, the moral think it is small, and the religious think it is manageable.” You see, if the problem is dirty hands, that’s easy. We can manage that with a little religion. But if the problem is a defiled heart, we need more powerful medicine. The rules of religion can address our behavior. But dirty hands are nothing compared to a defiled heart.
The good news is that God has given us a promise.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezek 36:25-26).
Through the Gospel, we are saved from our defiled hearts. God will give you a “new heart” that can respond to him, rather than your old heart of stone that stubbornly refuses to obey him. We come to Christ, then, not to rid ourselves of the impurities outside of us, but to find the only solution to the problem within us – living without a close relationship with Christ.
Amen.
THE NICENE CREED
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
THE PRAYERS
Let us pray to the Lord for all that we need and on behalf of all people, that He may bestow upon us the riches of His grace and that we may receive His gifts with faith and thanksgiving in our hearts.
Brief silence.
For those outside the kingdom; for missionaries near and far; for the ministries and agencies of our Church whereby the Gospel is spoken to those who have not heard; and for those who hear, that they may be brought to faith, let us pray to the Lord: Lord, have mercy.
For all Bishops, Priests and Deacons and church workers, let us pray to the Lord: Lord, have mercy.
For our president; the Congress; our governor; all elected and appointed leaders; all judges and magistrates; the members of the armed forces; and our police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel in their duties to protect and serve us, let us pray to the Lord: Lord, have mercy.
For the healing of the sick, the relief of the suffering, the comfort of the grieving and the peace of the dying, especially those we name in our hearts and for those who care for them in their afflictions, let us pray to the Lord: Lord, have mercy.
For all honest work and occupations, for our good use of the fruits of our labors, for generosity for those in need, and for the tithes and offerings that accompany our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, let us pray to the Lord: Lord, have mercy.
For our remembrance of the saints and in thanksgiving for their faithful witness that at last we may be joined with them in Your eternal presence, let us pray to the Lord: Lord, have mercy.
Lord God, giver of all that is good, mercifully hear the prayers of Your people and grant us Your grace, that we may endure the changes and chances of this mortal life and be found worthy when our Savior comes to bring to completion all things; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
So now we pray with confidence to the Father the words our Lord Jesus taught us:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by the Name,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
The Closing Blessing
May God almighty bless and keep us, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
We go now in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Amen.