An Honest Heart

Transcribed from the sermon preached August 26, 2012

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Ps.24, Ephesians 6:10-20, Matt 15: 10-20

 

If our salvation depended on our being perfectly honest, then we would be inclined to hide our dishonest, even from ourselves. The good news is that our salvation comes by the grace of God through Christ. This truth gives us the liberty to take an honest look at ourselves ad cultural values and prejudice, which we begin internalizing at birth, to honestly confess our ignorance and sin, and be the power of the Holy Spirit to grow beyond them.

I have to admit that this passage in Matthew is troubling. For after the discovery of germ theory in the late 19^th century, we know that what goes into our mouth does in fact defile us. So for all of his amazing words and actions which seem to lift Jesus out of the limitations of historical knowledge and culture, this one seems to show limits to his knowledge. Even if the purity laws of the Hebrews served a cultural and class definition of who was in and who was out, who were God’s people and who was not, rather than their understanding of the transmission of disease, the washing rituals no doubt also contributed to a decrease in transmission of disease.

With my discomfort revealed, we can cut Jesus some slack because his main point holds true: Spiritual cleanliness is determined by what comes out of our heart and mind. Cleanliness is often a luxury of the leisured classes who don’t have to work with dirt or filth and can afford soaps and baths and changes of clothes, and people to do their work. Gandhi, defying the idea that there were certain jobs that made certain castes of people untouchable, revolted against the cast system by cleaning latrines. Jesus washed feet and told us to do the same. A caste system, which deemed some people worthy of privilege and others as untouchable, needed cleaning out of society and out of our minds.

There are many sources to our cultural bias and prejudice against those of us who perform dirty labor, but, like all prejudice, it is not something easily cleaned out of our mind, regardless of where we fit in the story. Prejudices of all kinds, racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, tend to be interwoven in our minds. They are part of the cultural ocean we swim, eat and breath in, indeed, like our prayer of confession implies, it is sin of the world we are born into. “We are brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Prejudice is a part of how we see ourselves and the world. Our prejudices are much larger than certain individuals and groups who most overtly display them, and don’t simply disappear from within us because we want them to, or because we don’t want to admit that they work within us too. It would be convenient if the source of our troubles could be located in certain individuals or groups, whether the KKK or dirty people, people on welfare or the 1%, fundamentalist Jews, Muslims or Christians. It would be convenient because we wouldn’t have to take a look at our own dishonesty, how we continue to contain our cultures’ prejudices within us, how we are dirty, how we have benefited from handouts, how we have indulged and sought our own interest, how we fear others. Paul says our struggle is not just against flesh and blood…but cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Jesus asks us to take the log out of our own eye before we take the speck out of our neighbor’s.

“Reinhold Neibuhr points out the dishonesty of the privileged classes. “The moral attitudes of dominant and privileged groups are characterized by universal self-deception and hypocrisy… Since inequalities of privilege are greater than could possibly be defended rationally, the intelligence of privileged groups is usually applied to the task of inventing specious proofs for the theory that universal values spring from, and that general interests are served by, the special privileges which they hold.”

Culture tends to base privilege on the claim of moral superiority. The poor and marginalized, so our thinking goes, are lazy and break the law, they lack intelligence and manners, they are unclean. We see a dark skinned man with a cloth or sweatshirt covering his head and think radical Muslim or criminal. We encounter a man with AIDs and think he is gay. Privileged or Dominant individuals and groups, when they encounter another group or individual from a minority or marginalized group, and notice one of these traits which hold negative value, will attribute all the other negative values to them almost automatically and unconsciously. When the tendency to think negatively is stuck inside of us, it spills out and we project the negative values onto others. Our cultural cup may appear clean of prejudice from outward appearance, but the inside remains unclean.

One of the things we have to do to fight the cosmic power of the present darkness is to check our judgments with an internal affirmative action, or to put it Jesus way, take the log our of your own eye before we take the speck out of our neighbor. When we find ourselves speared from within by a negative reaction or judgment of another, we check our feelings with the Spirit, reason, truth, righteousness, peace, faith and the Word of God. We put on the Spiritual armor to be protected from both internal and external attack.

For instance, the first few times a gay man tried to pick me up, my first reaction was to be offended. This is not an uncommon reaction in straight men, or men who want to think of themselves as straight. We have to think about it, and as Jesus suggests, be less concerned with what we put in our body and more concerned with what comes out. We ask ourselves, why was I offended by his interest in me or in another male? Well, it was strange, and it is a natural human tendency to be shocked by something radically different than what we are used to. But strange doesn’t necessarily mean bad or immoral, so we have to check our reaction on that count. Perhaps we are offended that he dares not see me as too masculine to be approachable. How dare he even consider the possibility that I am gay? But here again we have to catch ourselves: self confidence in one’s sexuality, especially our culture’s definition of self confident masculinity, should enable one to not be easily swayed by the opinions or actions of others; therefore maybe our offense reveals our own doubt in our own masculinity. Thus in confident masculinity, we should not allow a man’s attraction or lack of attraction to offend us.

Perhaps some of the common negative reaction of men being approached by a gay man stems from a fear of violation. Indeed, there may be a gut level counter-reaction of aggression or even violence, a sense that a man has to hold his ground, reject any affront and block any signs there may be penetrable weakness to our masculine armor. It is still strange for a male to be pursued rather than lured or enticed, to be chased rather than to chase. Now here we have a check on gender values: there does seem to be a biological component to the fact that men are attracted to the sexuality of a woman like Winnie the Pooh to honey, but are bears therefore better than honey because the bear goes after it? Is being the aggressor morally or existentially superior to being the one pursued? And are men then morally obligated to claim the superior aggression and women inferior for being pursued, and obligated to stay in their place and not pursue? If we are for the equality of women then roles of pursuer and pursued cannot hold unequal moral value. If there is something offensive about being pursued, then are we not relegating most women to an inferior role? If there is not a moral difference between male and female, nor between the pursuer and the pursued, then we men ought to be able, not just to not be offended, but to appreciate and accept the joy and blessing of pursuing and enticing, giving and receiving from whichever sex. This doesn’t mean we have to be militant in equality in execution of roles, just that playing one role doesn’t make you morally inferior or superior. We seek to cleanse the caste system from our hearts and minds.

In addition, in our negative reaction to the encounter with the gay man’s pass, If we are honest enough with ourselves to acknowledge that part of our negative reaction may stem from the fear of violation, we may also gain a greater understanding of the fear that women feel on a regular basis, and therefore be more understanding of the moral obligation in sexual pursuit to be venturesome without being impudent or brazen. On the other hand, approaching someone takes a tremendous amount of courage because you risk being rejected. If we are hurt when a woman responds to our pass with offense, fear, or rejection, shouldn’t this make us all the more sympathetic to this man who risks not only rejection in a personal encounter but social rejection as well?

As Christians, in our effort to be honest we are not excused to be mean.

Last week we heard from Proverbs 12:

[16] The vexation of a fool is known at once,
but the prudent man ignores an insult.
[17] He who speaks the truth gives honest evidence,
but a false witness utters deceit.
[18] There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts,
but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

This little exercise in affirmative action in my head soon enabled me to treat a man who came onto me as I would like to be treated, at minimum, with a kind and polite - no thanks.

And just because I am able to give a polite no thanks, doesn’t mean I have completely eradicated the cultural prejudice and fear I have within me. And since it takes some time to truly think and pray out our inner thoughts and feelings, as Christians, if we are going to err, let us err on the side of grace and kindness. In an awkward situation with those we are culturally inclined to trust, they are innocent until proven guilty. With those for whom our culture or subculture is inclined to mistrust, we will be inclined to act as if they are guilty until proven innocent. Being honest and fair is not as easy as wanting to be honest and fair. Wanting to be honest is surely an essential good start. If we rely too much on our desire to be honest and fair, then we will be inclined to hide our prejudice from ourselves. But God knows better.

The Good News is that in our trial before God, though God is justified in thy sentence, for we were brought forth in iniquity, through Christ, we know mercy, and our transgressions are blotted out. This assurance of grace enables us to remain open to the truth, to not deny prejudice and inequality, but to honestly look at it, to confess it, and to ask to be washed clean. It is by God’s grace that we receive truth and honesty in our inward being, and wisdom in our secret heart. It is by God’s grace that we know love and peace.

We then have to examine our internal motivation and prejudice, make adjustments, and by the grace of God, choose to the best of our ability and knowledge, the most loving and just way to be.

So continuing with our theme of honesty, we remind ourselves of the need to take the log out of our own eye first, before we take the speck out of our neighbors, to be more concerned with the honesty and origin of our own thoughts and actions than with whether others are aligned with our cultural purity codes.

Another important point on the subject of honesty, or personal honesty, is that we should also beware of outward focus on others and society alone, and neglecting our need for internal honesty. This goes for all parties, Democrat and Republican, black, white, brown or pink. I was recently sent a link from an old hippie to an essay that claimed to have the answer to world peace, and it seemed as easy as thinking about it deeply. The problem is that this person is having all sorts of trouble with people in her own family. Surely if we want to get to world peace, a big part of the process is peace in our families. I know a lady who runs around working on every cause related to the environment, and accuses big corporations of not cleaning up their messes, but her house is so dirty and messy it should be declared an environmental hazard. I know a guy who accuses the system of unfair treatment, but has lost multiple jobs because he gets high all the time, shows up late and looks for ways to not work hard until he gets fired and has to go back on welfare or borrow more money from mom. And the mom wants her son to grow up and be responsible, but she keeps treating him like a kid. I know a guy who thinks government should be cut down to just the military, but cusses every time he hits a pot hole and relies on the government to help his disabled sister and his out of state mom. Maybe the member of our family with the dirty hands, the one with the visible issue, is only part of the problem? How might our labeling, lecturing or dismissing be a part of the problem? How can we begin to take more responsibility for our own issues, take an honest look at the log in our own eye?

Taking an honest look at ourselves, and how we contribute to the problems in our relationships and our culture is the most difficult task we have in life.

“The educational advantages which privilege buys, and the opportunities for the exercise of authority which come with privileged social position, develop capacities which are easily attributed to innate endowment. The presence of able men among the privileged is allowed to obscure the number of instances in which hereditary privilege is associated with knavery and incompetence. On the other hand it has always been the habit of privileged groups to deny the oppressed classes every opportunity for the cultivation of innate capacities and then to accuse them of lacking what they have been denied the right to acquire.”

So far in our discussion of honesty we have focused primarily on the importance of honesty in society and between people. But one of the great tasks within our spiritual journey is to become honest with ourselves. It didn’t take psychology to tell us that what goes on inside our heart and mind is complex and hard to discern.

“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

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