St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
September 1, 2024
Year B, Proper 17: The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Holy Alignment
In my sermon last week, I talked about my recent – and very unpleasant – bout with vertigo.
And thank you to everybody who expressed concern, both in person and electronically. I really appreciate it.
As you’d guess, over the past month, I’ve learned a lot about vertigo, including that it’s surprisingly common and that it can have many different causes.
In my case, it turns out that the crystals in my inner ears somehow got out of alignment.
When the doctor first told me that this was the cause of my trouble, I laughed because it didn’t sound like a real thing – I had never heard of these inner ear crystals – and it all sounded so “new age-y” –
“My crystals were out of alignment.”
But it’s all too real. These inner ear crystals help our brains know where we are – and when they get out of alignment, well, as I learned, everything goes haywire.
I don’t want to go on and on about my vertigo – I’d like to forget all about it, to be honest – but when I reflected on today’s gospel lesson, I was reminded of the importance of alignment.
What’s true for our inner ears, is also true for our Christian lives.
When we fall out of alignment, everything goes haywire.
So, in today’s gospel lesson, we hear a controversy story – a conflict – between Jesus and the Pharisees.
Back in the first century, just like today, Judaism was quite diverse – with lots of different groups who had various ideas about how to be a faithful Jew.
And the Pharisees were one of those groups.
In the gospels, the Pharisees are almost always presented in a negative light. They’re almost always opposed to Jesus.
But we know from other sources that the Pharisees had a reputation for holiness, and they were respected by most people.
The thing that I find most interesting about the Pharisees is that it seems that they wanted to make everyday life holy – and they did that by encouraging people to take temple practices – like, for example, how the priests ritually washed their hands before sacrificing animals – into their homes and into daily lives.
Now, I’m all for making everyday life holy and I think Jesus is, too.
The problem for Jesus is when our spiritual practices are not in alignment with how we live our lives.
The problem for Jesus is when our spiritual practices are not in alignment with what’s in our heart.
And so, it’s great that the Pharisees encouraged people to live holy everyday lives.
But it’s not so great that the Pharisees gave Jesus a hard time about his disciples not ritually washing their hands before meals.
(And just for the record, we’re talking about ritual washing. Yes, we should wash our hands before preparing or eating food!)
And really, what we see happening here is that the Pharisees seem to be a bit out of alignment, practicing their sacred rituals, yes, but also minding other people’s business, apparently quick to judge.
The problem is when our spiritual practices are not in alignment with how we live our lives.
The problem is when our spiritual practices are not in alignment with what’s in our heart.
And we know that these aren’t just Pharisee problems.
All of us Christians are susceptible to these problems, always in danger of getting out of alignment and going haywire.
This is one reason why I love baptism so much.
This morning I’ll have the joy and privilege of baptizing little Charlie, soon to be our newest Christian.
And at this baptism just like all our baptisms, we will renew our Baptismal Covenant.
(Actually, we’ll all renew our Baptismal Covenant next week at Renewal Sunday, too.)
And, really, renewing the big promises of the Baptismal Covenant – to love our neighbors as ourselves, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to respect the dignity of every human being – all with God’s help, of course – renewing those big promises helps to keep us in alignment, reminding us that how we live out there in the world should align with the beautiful words we say in here.
And another way that we can maintain holy alignment is through our outreach work, by really being a servant church, by being “doers of the word,” sharing our blessings with the hungry world all around us.
You may have noticed that the “St. Thomas’ Magazine” has returned this Sunday.
I love it.
And, if you take the time to read our little magazine, which I hope you will, you’ll see that we have a ton of good stuff coming up, and you’ll see that much of it outreach-related.
So many of you have already contributed to our drive to buy gift cards for the teachers over at Owings Mills Elementary School and some have made an even bigger commitment to tutor OMES students in the “Owls First” afterschool enrichment program.
And we continue to deepen our relationships with the Community Crisis Center and Paul’s Place and our Afghan friends, and now with other communities of faith in our area.
Outreach reminds us that how we live out there in the world should align with the beautiful words we say in here.
So, for the moment, my inner ear crystals are back in alignment.
But the doctors told me that, unfortunately, it could happen again and there’s not much I can do to prevent it.
Fortunately, we have more control over our holy alignment.
Our holy alignment may get out of whack and things may go haywire, but we know that the way back to alignment is Jesus – welcoming Jesus into our unruly hearts and following Jesus by loving and serving others.
May we all be given the gift, the peace, of holy alignment.
Amen.
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