{"id":662121,"date":"2024-08-11T16:06:39","date_gmt":"2024-08-11T20:06:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-08-17T15:40:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T19:40:33","slug":"true-religion-pentecost-15-b-september-1-2024","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/sermons\/true-religion-pentecost-15-b-september-1-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"True Religion, Proper 17 (B) \u2013 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-green-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-green-background-color has-background is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm?e=DFMS9126236380&#038;light=true\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-green-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-green-background-color has-background is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>[RCL] Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Pr17-2024-Cover-FB-1024x536.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-312127\" style=\"width:510px\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Note: During the 2024 Season after Pentecost, Sermons That Work will use Track 2 readings for sermons and Bible studies. Please consult our archives for many additional Track 1 resources from prior years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIncrease in us true religion,\u201d our collect invites us to pray. It\u2019s a helpful qualifier. Plenty of us have religion. Each one of us has something or things that we devote our lives to, that we spend money on, that we dream about, that we worship. What is our life oriented toward? Who is it oriented toward? And is it true religion? And how would we even know\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Epistle of James gives us a pretty big hint: \u201cReligion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first two pieces of this are clear, even if it\u2019s not always obvious how exactly to go about caring for orphans and widows. But we know that we need to; the body of Christ must respond to the needs of its most vulnerable members. True religion might involve adoption, setting up grief groups, bringing meals to the bereaved, putting a roof over someone\u2019s head in times of need. This is where we begin, this is how we know if our religion is on the right track or not: Are we taking care of our most vulnerable members?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the third instruction from James, to keep oneself unstained by the world, is a little less clear. What threatens to stain us? How do we keep pure in the eyes of God? Is such purity even possible in our 21st-century world, given that we\u2019re all wrapped up in globalized markets, cross-national supply chains, the military-industrial complex, big agriculture, etc. Aren\u2019t we all sort of tainted, wrapped up in systems far bigger than ourselves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jesus himself will weigh into the purity debate of his own time. How does one keep oneself undefiled, unstained by the world? There were some disagreements among the Jews in his day \u2013 some were following certain traditions of washing hands, others were not. There\u2019s a question that people kept lobbing around: What defiles someone? What stains them? The things that go in them or what comes out of them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, Jesus didn\u2019t live in a time with insidious pollutants, food tainted with carcinogens, GMOs, etc. So, let\u2019s get clear about one thing before moving on: God created our world and called it good. God then became one of us in the person of Jesus Christ, taking on our flesh, redeeming and reminding us that we are holy, beautiful, and beloved. Thus, Jesus wants us to care for our bodies and the created world. Those things that make orphans and widows are not things that are typically of God. The things that destroy the children of God and the creation of God make our Lord weep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But pre-mass pollution and carcinogen-laced living, Jesus takes a clear stand: It\u2019s what comes out of us that defiles us. In other words, it\u2019s a condition related to the human heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you have a heart, if it\u2019s beating in your chest, then Jesus is speaking to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s too easy and far too convenient to point at everyone else and say, \u201cThat\u2019s where evil comes from.\u201d It\u2019s so tempting to parrot and create smoke screens, slowly convincing ourselves that <em>those<\/em> people are to blame. We\u2019re very good at scapegoating someone else or other groups of people. We\u2019d rather Jesus\u2019 words weren\u2019t directed at us, we\u2019d rather turn our gaze somewhere else, anywhere else besides inward, looking deep within, sitting for a moment with our own hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a novelist and chronicler of brutal prison camps in the former Soviet Union, boldly said of humanity: \u201cThe line between good and evil runs not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either &#8211; but right through every human heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That line runs through your heart. It runs through mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From our hearts, the epicenter of rationality and will in Jewish tradition, flow all sorts of things \u2013 wonderful, creative, incredible, beautiful, and good things. But also, all sorts of other things, as Jesus points out: fornication, theft, murder,&nbsp;adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly \u2013 just to name a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s the human heart that causes our own impurity, our own defilement, our own stain. And while those things named by Jesus are timeless, there\u2019s a poem by Mary Oliver called \u201cOf the Empire,\u201d that illustrates a specific form of modern defilement. Take a listen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We will be known as a culture that feared death<br>and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity<br>for the few and cared little for the penury of the<br>many. We will be known as a culture that taught<br>and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke<br>little if at all about the quality of life for<br>people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All<br>the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a<br>commodity. And they will say that this structure<br>was held together politically, which it was, and<br>they will say also that our politics was no more<br>than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of<br>the heart, and that the heart, in those days,<br>was small, and hard, and full of meanness.<a id=\"_ftnref1\" href=\"#_ftn1\">[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everything was a commodity. They will say of us that the heart was small and hard and full of meanness. Oh, dear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whatever are we going to do about such a predicament? About the predicament of ourselves. The condition of our humanity. The state of our hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If Jesus so pointedly names the problem in this text, you might be wondering what in the world is the solution. Who can take our hearts and make them new?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There was a person with a heart who walked among us; his heart was not small. Or hard. Or mean. It was large. It was soft. It was kind. His heart was beating for the orphans and the widows, the ones who felt forgotten, for the prisoners in prison camps, for the dogs and the rivers, for all of us who have forgotten that we have hearts in the first place. His heart, because it was soft and tender, fleshy and beating, broke over and over again. It broke when he saw how we treated one another. It broke when he saw how we treated the poor. It broke when he saw how we talked to ourselves. It broke when we elevated human tradition above the commandments of God.&nbsp; It broke in a garden in the middle of the night. It broke in death. It broke and broke and broke. But when his heart broke, it did not harden like ours do sometimes. It did not wither or shrink or shrivel up like a sad remnant of itself. It grew in love, it expanded in compassion, it swelled with generosity. It broke like a watermelon breaks \u2013 bearing its fleshy fruit for all of us to eat. It broke like water \u2013 a ripple creating a current for love to ride. It broke like a loaf of bread \u2013&nbsp; divided for the sake of many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">God\u2019s own heart breaks for and with our hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And in God\u2019s own breaking, his own life-giving sacrifice, through Jesus\u2019 own death and resurrection, we come alive through him. Our hearts can now beat to a different sort of rhythm. Defilement and impurity are washed away. We have been made clean. We are a new creation. We are a new humanity. In and through Jesus Christ, we have been given a new heart. Our hearts, through God, can grow large, soft, and kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCreate in us clean hearts, O God, and renew a right spirit within us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This sermon was written by <strong>the Rev. Kellan Day<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" id=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> From Mary Oliver\u2019s <em>Red Bird<\/em> (2008).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-af9f7ab5-4704-4171-9691-88f7917ba514\" href=\"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Sermon-Proper-17-B-English.docx\">Word \u2013 Pentecost 15 (B) Sermon<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Sermon-Proper-17-B-English.docx\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-af9f7ab5-4704-4171-9691-88f7917ba514\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-12e42949-6dfa-40a1-87b7-624e66ad26f0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Sermon-Proper-17-B-English.pdf\">PDF \u2013 Pentecost 15 (B) Sermon<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Sermon-Proper-17-B-English.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-12e42949-6dfa-40a1-87b7-624e66ad26f0\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[RCL] Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Note: During the 2024 Season after Pentecost, Sermons That Work will use Track 2 readings for sermons and Bible studies. Please consult our archives for many additional Track 1 resources from prior years. \u201cIncrease in us true religion,\u201d our collect invites us to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43,52,33,1953],"tags":[343],"class_list":["post-662121","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-proper-17b"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":1953,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":343,"label":"Proper 17B"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/662121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/662121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3478448,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/662121\/revisions\/3478448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}