Preaching text: Matthew 15:10-28
The first half of our Gospel text today contains what was, in my teenage years, probably my favorite verse in all of Scripture. It was my shield, my defense, against my detractors. You see, in West Virginia, there is a peculiar and very strong strain of pietism in Christianity. Regardless of denomination, there were just some things you didn’t do if you were a “good Christian boy.”
For instance, you didn’t listen to rock-n-roll music. That
would turn you gay and make you into a devil worshiper. You didn’t read certain
books like Lord of the Rings or Conan the Barbarian (or, a generation later,
Harry Potter) because that would turn you gay and make you into a devil
worshiper. You didn’t study “evil-ution” in school because that would turn you
gay and make you into a devil worshiper. You certainly didn’t play Dungeons
and Dragons because…well, you get the picture. I did all those things.
Jack Chick's cartoon idiocy was quite popular back home.
Now it’s easy to laugh at the obvious homophobia and
paranoia of their interpretation of Christianity, but to them it is deadly
serious. In the early 1970s, in an effort to protect the youth of WV from corruption,
riots broke out over certain textbooks in use in the schools. People were hurt,
books were burned, and things were very very ugly for a time.
And it hasn’t
changed much. When I took a group of youth to a Christian rock concert in
Charleston from my church in Davis just a few years ago, we ran into protesters
who claimed yet again that listening even to Christian rock would turn us gay
and make us worship the devil.
But, in my defense, I had the words from Jesus himself. “It
is not what enters a man that defiles him.” I felt I had good standing here and
still do. After all, I’m not gay and even if I were it wouldn’t be because of
one too many D&D games. It would be because I was born that way. And I’m
certainly not a devil worshiper. I love my Jesus now as much as I ever have.
But I have to confess that recent events have challenged my
interpretation of this text and those like it in the other Gospels. Well,
speaking of being born a certain way, I know darn well those people who marched
through the streets of Charlottesville last weekend were not born with hatred
in their heart for those different from them. That crap was learned. And it was
learned by what they took in. It was what entered into them that made them that
way.
So am I wrong? Should I read Jesus more literally here?
Since it is, in Matthew’s recording, that which “goes into the mouth” that does
not defile and I certainly did not eat my books, CDs, and games. Is this really
only about food and unwashed hands? No, I don’t think so. Jesus himself points
out that it’s what’s in the heart that determines what comes out of a person.
So what’s the difference between the ones marching in the streets for hate and
myself?
Not a whole lot actually.
I’ve done a lot of reading on the origins of the so-called
Alt-right movement and a big chunk of the followers of that movement are, for lack of a better way to describe them, nerds. Like me. People who did all those
same things I did as a youth: played D&D, read and watched stories of brave
knights and beautiful princesses in great distress, devoured sci-fi: Star Trek,
Star Wars, Dr. Who, you name it. Grew up believing, as so many do, that
courage, hard work, tenacity would all be rewarded in the end. That they’d get
the great job, win the girl, and live happily ever after.
And then real life came crashing down on them like an
avalanche. Real life is not a fairy tale and these folks discovered, as I once
did, that life does not hand you anything no matter how deserving of it you
think you are. Women are not vending machines into which you can drop coins of
kindness and wit and then sex and romance come out. Good jobs are scarce in
this economy and even with hard work you may not land them.
I had to learn all those lessons. Ask any of my
ex-girlfriends how entitled I felt I was to them because I was a “nice guy.”
Ask my college sophomore self how unfair it was that I was still flunking out
of Computer Science despite the long hours of work I’d put in. I watched my
whole life fall apart that year. Everything I thought I was going to be gone in
a few short months.
According to Eric Hoffer’s book The True Believer, it’s
people in those very circumstances that are ripe for recruitment into mass
movements. People who believe their lives are utterly and irredeemably broken.
And that’s why so many of those nerds fell in with the alt-right and the
hatemongers in Charlottesville. But why didn’t I? It’s not like those sort of
charlatans and neo-Nazi groups and so forth didn’t exist in the 90s too. That was the era of Ruby Ridge and Oklahoma City. Why didn’t I become like them?
Because I chose not to. What was in my heart, along with all
the anger and despair at how life had treated me, was also Jesus. And that part
of me compelled me to choose differently. I choose the good, as best I could.
The execution of that choice could have been better; I wasn’t perfect then and
I certain am not now. But I strove for the good, despite the temptations
otherwise.
And maybe that’s why Matthew pairs Jesus’ discussion of what
does and does not defile with the story of the Canaanite woman. What goes into
this woman but insults and rejection? Even Jesus himself responds to her with
cruelty and disdain. But I believe he does that for a reason. He knows what’s
in this woman’s heart. He knows that pouring hate and rejection into her will
not stop her from choosing the good. It will not stop her from choosing Jesus
even when Jesus himself seems to say no.
And he’s right about her. She chooses to follow. She chooses
to believe. She chooses to turn Jesus’ own words back on him. “You don’t throw
the children’s food to the dogs? Fine. I’ll just take a crumb, just like the
dogs would get. That’s all I need to save my daughter.” She does not disappoint
him. Her faith is strong and she chooses Jesus even in the face of his
rejection. What a powerful demonstration of faith.
You can almost imagine Jesus walking away from this scene
with a certain smug satisfaction. “You wanted to know what I meant about what
does and does not defile. Look to that woman. I insulted her, heaped disdain
and rejection upon her and yet still she called upon me for aid. Her heart is
pure no matter what I or anyone else tried to put inside her. Do likewise. Be
like her.”
We are confronted with myriad choices every day. And there
are forces of evil about that want our allegiance. And we’ve seen how they
work. They tear people down, beat and abuse them. Convince them of their
worthlessness and say to them their only choice to redeem themselves is to
follow evil. From the marchers in Charlottesville to the greedy-beyond-measure
CEO in the halls of power, we’ve seen how these choices are made. But we here
gathered have chosen differently. We have chosen Christ even as life has done
its worst to us. We have chosen the one who has said we are not worthless; that
we are more precious than all the wealth in the world. That we are worth dying
for.
That’s who we are and we have also been called to make
others like us. These ripe times for the church; the harvest truly is ready. We
have seen with our own eyes the vast numbers of lost souls convinced the
meaning in life can be found in hate, rage, greed, gluttony, and lust. We have an alternative to all those things.
We have a better choice. But they will only know if we show them. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment