Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity Mark 7:1-8; 14-15; 21-23 James 1:17-end

Appearances can be so deceptive. And how we like to fool ourselves into thinking that we are always everything we claim to be…! Last week I spoke about fashion, not just with reference to clothes, but also in terms of behaviour. And behaviour is what Jesus is talking about in the passage from Mark’s Gospel; and also James, in the first chapter of his letter, speaks about that. The main issue is the discrepancy between what goes on inside a person and their outward appearance; they don’t always add up! It’s only human, we might say, when we say something that is not totally in accordance with what we do. As the saying goes: do as I say, not as I do. And we all make mistakes. But how does that relate to the Christian life? After all, our journey with Christ through life is a process of change. When we accept Jesus as our Saviour, we know that we are accepted as we are, but God loves us too much to leave us like that – he wants the very best for us and that includes a change of heart in the right direction. God, by his Spirit, works on us, so that we grow into strong, righteous and dependable people, when we have been weak and unreliable before. He is a true life-changer! The figure of speech that God uses in the Bible is about clothes: we need to be dressed anew, in clean robes that reflect our new status as children of God. This is not about our outward appearance, but about the heart. That’s another kind of fashion than the one we tend to think of!

In Mark’s Gospel reading for today, Jesus is challenged by the scribes and Pharisees about the disciples eating without first washing their hands. It’s a good custom, of course, to wash hands before touching food, and we do well to observe hygiene; but in the case of the Pharisees, they tended to make a bit of a show of it. Which is why Jesus answers by quoting the prophet Isaiah, saying: ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.”’ For Jesus knew what was in their hearts and their inner motives, and their behaviour did not match their words or outward appearance. He then called the crowd again and said to them: ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’ When the disciples ask him later what he meant by that, Jesus explains: ‘Whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer. It is what comes out of a person that defiles, for all evil things come from the human heart.’ It is something that James also writes about in his letter, in the translation of The Message: ‘Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.’ Wise words and helpful to remind us that our actions speak louder than our words. I like what comes a little later in James’ letter: ‘Anyone who sets himself up as religious by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.’ He doesn’t mince words and he goes straight to the heart of the matter, or, to the matter of the heart, as Jesus might say. It is a summary focus of the way faith works out in practical and social observance that honours God. Righteousness, then, in word and deed, when words and actions add up. That’s what wins God’s approval and helps us grow in faith. Amen.