Sermon for the 11th Sunday after Trinity: You are not what you Eat.

Deuteronomy chapter 14: 4-18

These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5 the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep. 6 You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud. 7 However, of those that chew the cud or that have a divided hoof you may not eat the camel, the hare or the hyrax. Although they chew the cud, they do not have a divided hoof; they are ceremonially unclean for you. 8 The pig is also unclean; although it has a divided hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses.

9 Of all the creatures living in the water, you may eat any that has fins and scales. 10 But anything that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; for you it is unclean.

11 You may eat any clean bird. 12 But these you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, 13 the red kite, the black kite, any kind of falcon, 14 any kind of raven, 15 the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, 16 the little owl, the great owl, the white owl, 17 the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant, 18 the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.’

Matthew 15; 10 – 20

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, ‘Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.’

12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?’ 13 He replied, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.’

15 Peter said, ‘Explain the parable to us.’

16 ‘Are you still so dull?’ Jesus asked them. 17 ‘Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts – murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.’

What you say reveals who you are.

Of course, we all know that, and are concerned to present to the world the person we want people to think we are, so there is a certain amount of judicious editing in what we say, a hiding of our heart, or at least a presenting of only the most acceptable of our inner self.

The trouble is, as time passes, we eventually give ourselves away in what we say and do.

Religion is an excellent way of trying to present an acceptable outside whilst hiding a shameful inside. By scrupulous observance of religious ordinances it is possible for someone who is rotten on the inside to appear to be absolutely worthy, at least for a time.

This requires that you tolerate of your own hypocrisy, and then there is the danger of being found out. However, attention can be distracted from both your personal disquiet, and the perceptiveness of others, by a noisy condemnation of those who do not observe the religious laws behind which you hide.

It seems the Pharisees were past masters of this, they very publicly observed the religious law, and very publicly condemned those who did not.

The Old Testament gave a plethora of rules about what you could and could not eat, and both the Experts in the Law and the Pharisees subsequently added many more layers of complication, amplification, and embroidery to these dietary laws.

So for example in Deuteronomy chapter 14 we heard, ox, sheep, goats and deer, are on the menu, but camel, hare, and hyrax are off the menu.

Generally there is no explanation given as to why certain foods are forbidden.

There may have been practical reasons why certain foods were to be avoided given the context of climate and culture, but to be honest it is a little hard to discern much logic in these ordinances.

At least part of the explanation lies in the idea that God wanted the Israelites to be ‘sacred’, that is ‘separate’, and this separateness was marked out in part by their diet. Circumcision has it's limitations as a public mark of separateness.

Also, it would have compromised the Israelite’s uniqueness to be eating animals commonly used in ritual sacrifice by other peoples. In a world of peopled with gods of every kind, were every part of life had a divinity and a ritual, everything, animals included, had a symbolic and cultic meaning.

Whatever the reasoning behind these ordinances, by the time of Jesus those who wished to present themselves as religious were in part doing so by being very publicly careful about what they put in their mouths, and condemning as unclean those who were not so careful.

It was as if both holiness and sinfulness could be ingested.

Jesus is having none of this, he tells them, ‘Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.’

It seems judgemental condemnation was coming out of the mouths of the Pharisees, a sure sign of the hypocrisy within their hearts.

Notice that what Jesus says offends the Pharisees.

If the sensitivities of your religion, or ideology, or world view, require protection from offence, then your religion, or ideology, or world view, may not be as well founded as you suppose.

We shouldn't seek to give offence, our words should be characterised by love of God and neighbour, but if even Jesus offended religious sensibilities we may find that what we say as his disciples may also be deemed offensive.

Such is now the power of 'offence' most of us self-censor for fear of saying something 'wrong', while others have realised being deliberately offensive is a sure fire route to publicity.

In the Old Testament if you broke society's rules, you could make atonement through ritual sacrifice at the temple, Christianity teaches forgiveness, but now there seems to be only condemnation and exile for our transgressions.

We need to speak both with the freedom God has given us, and with the respect for others that God requires of us. So listen to yourself – what do your words reveal about your heart? And listen carefully to others, and do not accept any religion that is based on condemnation rather than forgiveness.

We all have hearts created good and holy by our Father God, but corrupted by the wrong we do, and ultimately we cannot hide this from others, or from ourselves, and we especially cannot hide it from God.

Thankfully God does not seek to condemn us, if we turn to Him we can receive healing and forgiveness. He can restore our hearts within us.

I know this to be true because the words God speaks reveal His gracious heart. It is just as true of the Almighty as it is of us, that our words reveal our hearts.

Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, the speech of God in human form, in Jesus we see the heart of God, the true nature of God, His inner self, made plain for all to see and hear.

In the grace and truth of Jesus we see the heart of God.

Amen.