Make It Personal

Matthew 15:1-9

Sometimes you get two scripture lessons in one. Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13 (LXX) as he argues with the Pharisees.

Like all good church fights, this one is over something trivial—how to wash your hands before dinner. Having sat through too many Session meetings where we argued about the grass of the church lawn, I see that such arguments have seemingly always been with us. We argue the details of being church, missing the whole point of being the church.

Jesus cuts to the chase—if we are not about embodied compassion, then we are far from God. 

Heed this warning on a day when we talk about making changes to the Book of Order, on a day when many around us are still reeling from the daily Twitter pronouncements from the White House, and on a day when the church has been given a golden opportunity to reclaim an immediate relevance within the world and right here in River City—Sacramento and environs. If we do not make love our aim, we are, as Paul fumed, a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal better left outside. 

I say this knowing full well that as we gather, we are gathering in many different ways of thinking—this is California, after all. I know full well that we have folks who voted for the change in administrations and folks who now feel compelled to resist the new administration at every possible turn. But I believe with every fiber of my being that Jesus shows us a way to all find a place at the table. If he could get Simon the Zealot and Matthew the Publican to sit together in peace, there is hope for us (Zealots sought the actual destruction of collaborators like tax collectors in 1st Century Israel). 

Focus on what Jesus says. Hear his powerful admonition carried in his illustration. The Pharisees fret over hand washing while accepting a fundamental exception to God’s command to honor one’s parents, which, for Jesus and his contemporaries, meant providing for them until they died. The Pharisees accept that an offering to God from the funds meant for parents was perfectly all right, even if the parents needed it! The Pharisees worry over dirty hands, but Jesus worries over abandoned parents. 

So, we need to stop fretting over dirty hands and think about real human beings right before us, right now.

In other words, what I want us to do is stopping thinking about intellectual or policy statements on issues and start personalizing them. I don’t want us to waste time making a statement on what we believe to be the proper way to deal with our Muslim neighbors, I want us to get to know our Muslim neighbors. I don’t want us to waste time making statements on immigration, I want us to get to know our immigrant neighbors. I don’t want us to waste time making statements about our educational system, I want us to get to know teachers and students. I don’t want us to make statements on race relations, I want us white folk to get to know people of color and for people of color to get to know their white neighbors. I don’t want us to waste time making statements about homelessness, I want us to get to know our homeless neighbors. 

You see how this works?

Making statements is akin to worrying over hand washing; getting to know someone is dealing with the neglected parents. 

Let me bring that home—how did Simon and Matthew ever learn to coexist? They got to know each other. Walking along the road behind Jesus, one or the other of them asked a question. Ice broken, they got to talking. Maybe they talked about why they were following Jesus. Maybe they talked about what they were. Maybe the talked about their mommas. Whatever it was, it overcame all the fear, assumption, and prejudice that made them mortal enemies to become fellow travelers, even disciples who would make disciples.

So—here’s a thought—find someone near at hand you don’t know, who may well represent some ideas, ways of being, or stances you never considered. Sit with them at lunch. Talk. Start safe—Think the Warriors can win the NBA this year? How about all this rain? Man, Noah might be coming… Then go deeper. Where are you from? What do you do? What’s your church like? Then go deeper still. Why do you like your church? What do you think we should be? Then, the most important question of all—Why?

You may find that you and a Zealot are closer than you thought, or you may find that the poor tax collector over there is on the same rocky road as you. 

Then, take that and let it transform you. 

Long ago, as a young seminarian, I had all sorts of ideas about how things should be, all kinds of strong positions I held, and all manner of rule I felt absolutely essential, then I started meeting people, dealing with people, walking with people, and working with people. Stances meant little as I held the hand of another person suffering. Positions emptied as I looked directly into the eyes of someone needing something. Rules got amended on the spot as a human being needed to get somewhere. I realized no act of faith is impersonal. To follow Jesus means getting dirty hands as you work with, for, and among human beings.