‘Listen to me, everyone, and understand’ said Jesus.’ - Mark 7:14
Friends, well it’s almost upon us, the new school year, I mean. some of us—parents particularly—will be celebrating…you’ve done it, you’ve made it! For others it will be a sad that the holidays are over. Next week we’ll be having our ‘Back2School’ service and we’ll be praying for all our children and all our teachers. However, as we reflect upon school—having forgotten about it for six weeks—what came to mind for me were the final speeches. Most of you know the Headteacher at St George’s he usually makes an impression! One of the ways he does this is in writing little poems or speeches all about making the most of the year or, at the end of school, making the most of the future. Whether you know St George’s School or not, you will have had something similar; perhaps at Secondary School or University even students, encouraging us all to make the most of the future, to be courageous, to make a difference, to live our best lives. These speeches—if done well—lift us up, inspire us, and make us promise to change the world… and then the next day as we roll out of bed, well, we’re slightly less enthusiastic. For school kids probably the TV, the football, or the computer beckons, and they think: ‘I’ll do that, I’ll be courageous, I’ll change the world, tomorrow, I’ll do that later!’ For those who’ve graduated university, or for adults in general, there is work to face, bills to pay, and when you finally relax Netflix to watch. We think: I’ll be courageous, I’ll change the world tomorrow, I’ll do that later!’ But here is the thing: later is now!
Our first reading is from Deuteronomy chapter 4 and it comes at the end of the wanderings of the Hebrew people. In the summer we studied the rescue from Egypt, the plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, and meeting God at His mountain. All the while, all through these events, the hope, the dream, the thing which each Hebrew was looking forward to, was getting to the Promised Land. Well, Deuteronomy 4 is, if you like, the Headteacher’s speech the night before. God’s people have arrived at the border ,they have arrived at the Jordan River, and tomorrow they will cross. The people we used to saying ‘Someday we’ll get to the Promised Land, someday we’ll enter the Promised Land’… well, that ‘someday’ is now. However, don’t you think that as some of the people went to sleep that night some of them—possibly mums and dads among them—were thinking ‘I’ve got enough to do, I’m busy enough already without crossing rivers and fighting enemies; let’s do the Promised Land later!’ Isn’t that how we think?! As we reflect on our lives now, as we think about fully choosing, fully following, God—I don’t know about you—but I start to think I’m already too busy, I’m already too tired, I don’t have the energy or the time for a new thing even if it is a great thing, even if it is the best thing, let’s do that God thing later!’ The question to ask ourselves today is: ‘Am I doing ‘everything but?’’ That is ‘Am I doing what I need to do or am I doing everything but what I need to do? Are we living for later? I know I have to do the thing, I know I have to follow God to the full but we’re just going to do it later. As a result we end up filling our lives with non-essentials, and those non-essentials distract us—and those around us—from the reason to follow God at all. That’s what we learn from Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees in our Gospel reading.
Often, if we think about the Pharisees we label them as the bad guys and the disciples as the good guys. However, the Pharisees are not bad people. The Pharisees are people who believe in God and want to follow Him perfectly, and so in order to follow God perfectly they’ve come up with, what they think of as, helpful rules. You see, God has told the people how to worship Him, for instance, before entering the temple to worship make sure to wash your hands. The Pharisees have taken that worship rule and—in an effort to be perfect—they’ve applied far wider, to always washing hands before, well, pretty much anything. ‘The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the market-place they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles’. They weren’t trying to do less for God, they were trying to do more, to follow God as best they could. So, they came up with some optional helps on top of the essentials God had given them. The problem was, in time, the Pharisees took the optional things and made them essential things; the problem was, in time, the Pharisees started to do the optional things instead of the essential things. How like us! How often do we do the optional things instead of the one thing, the essential thing, we should be doing; doing everything else but loving God. That’s what the Pharisees did. Jesus tells them: ‘You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions’. When we do that, when we focus on the optional, when we focus on the do’s and don’ts, not only does the Faith become a drag for us but we make it a drag for everyone else. Friends, it’s time to remember why we chose to follow God in the first place.
When I was a kid I read ‘Swallows & Amazons’. If you haven’t read it, or seen the film, it’s an absolute must. The story is all about adventures on Lake Windermere with pretend pirates, awesome escapades, and some robbers thrown in for good measure. Reading that book got me excited about sailing and soon enough I was on a boat, on a sailing course, on Lake Windermere. Why? Because I’d grasped the essential love of sailing, and the optional things, well, they came along later, they helped but they didn’t replace the essential: the love of sailing. And it’s only those who grasp the essential, who get the point, who are able to help others into what they love. Imagine if someone had tried to convince me to go sailing for the first time by saying: ‘Well you must always have the wind behind you, and you mustn’t get too much water in the boat, and you mustn't go too fast, and you must always wear a life jacket’. There is no way I would have tried the sport. No one tries something for the first time because of the rules. No, in order to get someone to try something you’ve got to tell them why you love it, what causes you joy, why you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. If I want to convince Amelie, my daughter, to sail, I’m not going to give her a sailing rule book, I’m going to give her ‘Swallows & Amazons’! If you want someone to fall in love with God you don’t sell Him with ‘Don’t talk in church’, you don’t sell Him with ‘You stand now, you kneel next, then you sit’, you don’t convince someone to follow Jesus with ‘And we give money in the song before Communion’. Those guidelines may help people at a service but they’re not the point of the service, and they’re certainly not the point of the Christian life. Too many of us get bogged down with the rules, we get focussed on the do’s and don’ts that we forget the point, we forget it’s about having a relationship with God, and, as result, we put off all those around us.
Friends, this morning like the Hebrews in our first reading are you waiting on the side of the Jordan River? It is time to choose. Time to do the essential thing and stop putting it off in favour of optional things, and when you do suddenly you’ll find the people around you will want to join in too. When you choose adventure, when you choose love, when you choose God putting aside the rules and the optional extras, strongly enough people want in on the adventure, want in on love, want in on God. So, whether you’re putting aside the distractions for the first time and finally going all out for God, or whether you’ve realised that—like many of us—you’ve become too focussed on the rules and need to get back to your first love, be clear, today is the day! Don’t put God off ’til tomorrow, grab Him with both arms and your life will be changed and so may the lives of those around you. Amen (from Fr Mike).