Fight Air Pollution--Watch What You Say
Then Jesus
called the people to him, and said: "Listen, and mark my words. It is not
what enters a man's mouth
that 'defiles' him, but what comes out from his mouth--that does defile
him!" Matthew 15:10-11 (TCNT)
Police chiefs, school teachers, and social workers are all reporting an
alarming new trend in the U.S. Girls are becoming more violent, more often.
Justice Department statistics show that violent acts by teenage boys outstrips
acts by teenage girls 4 to 1. However, a generation ago it was 10 to 1.
Former Baltimore school police chief Jansen Robinson, commented that girls
have gradually become as violent as boys. "It's a nationwide phenomenon,
and it's catching us all off guard." Lauren Abramson, director of the Community
Conferencing Center, a Baltimore agency that resolves disputes through mediation,
has observed that gossip is often the root of aggression between girls. "Gossip
as a source of violence is understudied and little understood. But time and
again, when we bring the parties together, get them to talk and dig into
what started it all, it invariably comes back to something somebody heard
somebody else said."1.
Gossip, thoughtless words, critical backbiting--these are weapons of mass
destruction.
Fight air pollution--watch what you say.
Jesus and his disciples are accosted by the Pharisees. Dale Bruner calls
them "The Serious".
They are offended that Jesus is being slack and not at all serious because
he is not enforcing their food and eating rules strictly enough.
Specifically, Jesus did not insist on ceremonial washing before eating.
When you think about feeding 5,000 in the open spaces, providing ceremonial
basins for them all would be a bit much. Jesus looks after real needs, not
other folks sensibilities.
Jesus calls them hypocrites as they would ignore looking after real people's
real needs, but felt holy because they washed their hands before eating.
The Serious guys were really offended and I suppose said so to Jesus disciples.
We do not read Jesus saying, "Ask me if I care they are offended."
But what he does say is "Leave them alone. They are a bunch of dead end
guys, going nowhere. God will look after them in due course."
I don't think this is his primary thought, but a reasonable application
is that you don't have to fight every battle that comes along.
Sometimes the best advice is, "Leave them alone."
I think this is particularly true when it comes to religious disputes.
Jesus says, "god will root out everything he hasn't planted."
The thing is we love to do the weeding in other people, don't we?
Jesus says in one passage, "If your eye or hand offend you, pluck it out,
cut it off!"
He is talking about your own eye or hand, not someone else's.
As far as weeding other people's garden is concerned, Jesus tells us the
angels will do the weeding because we are not so skilled at knowing a good
plant from a bad one. Has anyone here ever had someone offer to weed
your garden and have them dig out your prize plant?
I would never do that of course, but that is why I never volunteer to do
weeding either.
Jesus says, "let God do the weeding. You just keep planting.
And you don't have to take on every issue in life. Some times the best
advice is still, "leave them alone."
The Pharisees believed that they were at the center of all rightness and
that they had their relationship with God spot on.
The problem for them was everyone else. They also believed the natural
world, or some foods in it could defile them before God.
This was big time for some people too. A Pharisee could not touch a gentile
or heaven forbid, eat with one. They would be soiled in God's eyes, they
thought.
Jesus is telling them it is not the world around that is polluting them.
It is they who are polluting the world they live in.
It is tempting though to believe that where you stand really is the center
of everything good and right and that if there is a problem it is someone
else's fault.
It's never me or you, is it?
No, of course not.
Sarah McLaughlin sings we are born innocent and we are innocent. Now Sarah
would say so is the creation.
Jesus would say, we are not innocent, but we can be purified. And Paul
in Romans says that creation itself is held hostage by our sinfulness and
waits for full delivery for us. We are not polluted by natural world, though
there are many influences in our world that will corrupt and Jesus words
are applicable there: "Leave them alone."
What do you do if you encounter a poisonous environment. It may be because
of a hostile attitude, or gossip or backbiting. But those kind of environments
are corrosive like acid rain. What do you do?
How do you deal with poisoned air?
Not by retaliating. Not by coming under its toxicity. (not easy)
Like a brush with a porcupine—you might get all stuck with verbal needles
and may take a bit of time to get unstuck.
Some folks vulnerable to coming under others judgments.
Some could care less what anyone thinks.
Best way to deal with poisoned air, is to get to where you know you
will have clear air.
Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of The Science
of Good and Evil, writes:
I once had the opportunity to ask Thomas Keneally, author of
Schindler's List, what he thought was the difference between Oskar Schindler,
rescuer of Jews and hero of his story, and Amon Goeth, the Nazi commandant
of the Plaszow concentration camp. His answer was revealing. Not much, he
said. Had there been no war, Mr. Schindler and Mr. Goeth might have been
drinking buddies and business partners, morally obtuse, perhaps, but relatively
harmless. What a difference a war makes, especially to the moral choices
that lead to good and evil.
Shermer goes on to quote Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: "If only
there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and
it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy
them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every
human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"2
The difference between Jesus and the Pharisees is the Pharisees refused
to touch anything they believed was unclean.
Jesus came into the world to touch the unclean and make them pure.
And while we ourselves are being made pure, lets follow Jesus advice. When
you are tempted to put someone straight--for their own good of course, remember
His words: "Leave them alone. God will look after it."
Preached August 17, 2008
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian
Church
Victoria, British Columbia
Resources Consulted
Dale Bruner, Matthew, A Commentary. The Church Book, Eerdman's
Lloyd John Ogilvie, Matthew, The Communicator's Commentary, Word Press.
Online Resources Consulted
http://www.preachingtoday.com/
Return to Main Sermon
Page
Email Harold McNabb