Articles

Matthew 15:10-28

10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, ‘Listen and understand: ¹¹it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’ ¹²Then the disciples approached and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees took offence when they heard what you said?’ ¹³He answered, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. ¹⁴Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.’ ¹⁵But Peter said to him, ‘Explain this parable to us.’ ¹⁶Then he said, ‘Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? ¹⁸But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. ¹⁹For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.’ 21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. ²²Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ ²³But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ ²⁴He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ ²⁵But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ ²⁶He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ ²⁷She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ ²⁸Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.

It is what comes out of our mouths that defiles for if it comes out with malice behind it then it will destroy our souls and hurt those to whom it is directed. How true are these words of Christ?

How often have you, like me, wished that you had not said the things you said but had kept a hold of your tongue? We all have times when we do this without thinking, times when our anger, fear or hurt cause us to lash out with our tongues and it is perhaps understandable why we do it. The problem arises when we use our words to destroy and hurt intentionally with as they say ‘malice aforethought’. 

Jesus tells us that we are not to live lives driven by malice. To be a Christian is to try and live a life with good intention and without malice. What I mean by this is that we are called by Christ to live lives that seek to do good to and within God’s creation. We are called to be co-creators not destroyers. Matthew says, it is not eating with unwashed hands that defile us it is our own impure and imperfect thoughts and actions that do that.  None of us are perfect and we all struggle to live harmonious lives and that it is in that struggle that we can be assured that God will be with us loving us as we try to live good lives. It is when we choose to live lives of malice that we run into trouble and face God’s wrath, for it is then that we are failing to love our neighbours as ourselves. Malice defiles everyone and everything it touches.

Today’s Gospel reading is a warning to us to be careful; careful in what we do and say. If we do anything with an evil intent, then we will be defiled and thus become unacceptable to God, until we repent of our ways and follow his paths once again. But remember the words of Paul and Isaiah, we are unconditionally loved and God will always forgive us when we truly repent for the things that we do that defile his image within us. God says you choose how you live your lives but not all choices will bring you into my loving embrace.

O God of creation, who has blessed artists of many kinds with gifts to make our world a more joyful and beautiful place. Through their inspiration and labours they call forth wonder and awe in our own living. In their hope and vision they remind us that all of life is holy. Bless all who create in your image and attune our senses to the truth, goodness and beauty around us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Eternal Lord God, you alone have spread out the heavens and rule the raging of the sea; bless and keep all who go down to the sea in ships; preserve them in all dangers and bring them in safety to the haven where they would be, with a thankful remembrance of your mercies, to praise and glorify your holy name; through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

God of change and invention, be with those whose life is spent at sea. In storm, in calm, in harbour, be with them. Be with them in danger, boredom or temptation; for you are God, you are our hope and strength. Amen.

Mark 4:35-41

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’

Creator God, you have made the sea beautiful and fearful; be with all sea farers who sail on it for work or pleasure and give them safe passage with Christ the voyager, who calmed the storm and strengthened his disciples’ faith. Amen.

Lord God, we depend on you for life itself, and on seafarers to meet so many of our daily needs. Watch over all who go down to the sea in ships – on business, for leisure, or to rescue those in peril or difficulty. Keep them from danger, befriend them in loneliness, and bring them safely home to those they love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A PRAYER FOR MISSION TO SEAFARERS:

Lord God, you show your love in providing for our needs through the service of seafarers. Bless the work of The Mission to Seafarers and kindred societies, who minister to seafarers and their families throughout the world. Raise up supporters and workers that this ministry may grow according to your will, and that seafarers be blessed through loving care and service, in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
…
      Robert Frost                

How often have you faced a similar dilemma in your life? 

Whatever choice one makes will have consequences and will change your life and perhaps the lives of others as well. Choosing between what our conscience tells us is right or wrong is easy but choosing which path to follow when either path is equally good is incredibly difficult. One can often be overwhelmed by indecision by the fear of making a poor choice. 

When the choice is between two sides of the same right the choice is almost impossible. Sometimes you will need to ask for an objective view by a detached observer to help you in your choice. Solomon obviously realised this:

“O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in..... Give your servant, therefore, an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil..”               1Kings 3:7-9

Solomon, sensibly knew to ask God to grant him wisdom in his decision making. Wisdom is perhaps the greatest gift from God, far more valuable than riches or power:

“It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right.... In deed I give you a wise and discerning mind..”     1Kings 3:10-13

Solomon’s request of God to grant him:

“ an understanding mind, able to discern between good and evil.”

was a good ask. All of us need to pray for discretion and discernment and that those gifts will be poured upon us by God today and always. We all need to be able to think clearly and logically about our faith, our lives and the choices we need to make. We all need to be blessed by the Spirit with wisdom for it is wisdom that will enable us to ponder the decisions we need to make rationally, logically and to make good choices. Choices that will enable us to move forward and build our society and our lives in ways that will ensure each individual's dignity and worth.

How do we achieve this?

We pray to God for the wisdom to discern his will for us in these coming days, months and years that we will always be able to tread the right path and to know which path to take when either seems to be a good choice. 

‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.’

There’s a famous but possibly apocryphal story about the Chinese Communist leader Zhou En Lai being asked in 1968 about the impact of the French Revolution which had begun 179 esrlier and replying: “It’s too early to tell.”           A perceptive answer and also a clue to what informed the thinking of the landowner in Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds. His slaves asked whether they should go into the field and uproot the weeds and he told them not to because it was too early to tell for sure what was a weed and what was wheat. If they intervened now they would uproot some of the wheat along with the weeds. 

I’ve done a little agricultural research on the internet and discovered that what the enemy in Jesus’ story sowed was a plant called darnel whose Latin name is Lolium Temulentum. In the early stages of its growth, it looks very like wheat. It is only as it approaches maturity that it becomes obvious that it isn’t. A wheat plant produces a crop of edible grain and, as the grain swells and ripens, its weight causes the wheat stalk to bend over. Lolium Temulentum produces small, bitter-tasting seeds. They are so light that the plant continues to remain upright, so that just before harvest time the weeds stick out from among the wheat and are easily identified. The seeds are mildly poisonous – and if you eat them you end up with symptoms very like a hangover. Hence the Latin name for this plant, because Temulentum means “drunk”. 

So the farmer in the parable understands the need to wait until it becomes clear which plants are wheat and which plants are weeds. This is a story which reminds us that if we make premature judgements about who or what is good or bad, we are likely to get it wrong and to injure and destroy the good as well as the bad. Ultimate judgement should be based on results, based on the fruits of each person’s life and the long-term consequences of their actions – and that this is a judgement which has to be left to God because it is beyond the moral and intellectual scope of human beings to make it and because, for us, it will always be too early to tell. And that applies to judgements about our own lives as well as judgements about the lives of others.

The parable is also reminding us that the pursuit of human justice (which is so often mixed up with the human desire for revenge) can have dangerous side effects, with the innocent suffering as well as the guilty. The French Revolution, on whose long-term impact Zhou En Lai refused to comment, offers an example of what happens when people think that they have a secure knowledge of who is virtuous and who is evil and believe that they can ensure the triumph of virtue by eradicating those whom they deem to be evil. The innocent suffering caused by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia or by extreme right-wing regimes in Germany, Italy and Spain also shows that this kind of Utopianism leads to appalling cruelty.  We still live with the consequences of those upheavals. 

As Christians we should be very wary of this kind of judgmental certainty precisely because we understand that we ourselves are a mixture of the good and the bad, the wheat and the weeds.  We understand also that God loves us and seeks to bring us to fruition. If that’s true of us, it is also true of the politician whose policies and actions we most deplore. If we’re tempted to think that the world would be a better place without…and I’ll leave you to choose your personal bête noire…we need to remember that our belief that God’s love for us is unconditional and that God’s grace can transform us applies also and equally to them and to the whole of humanity. At a time when our elected representatives experience frequent abuse and death threats and a few days after the tragic and violent death of Ann Widdecombe that is a perspective which we need to cultivate and to share.

When the landowner in Jesus’ parable tells his slaves: “Let both of them grow together” the Greek word that is translated as “let” can also mean forgive. It is as though the landowner is telling his slaves to reprieve the weeds. We are all in need of forgiveness. The thrust of this sermon was pithily expressed by the theologian Miroslav Volf when he wrote these words:

“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans and myself from the community of sinners.”