• Song of Solomon 2:8-13
• Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9
• Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
• Psalm 15
• James 1:17-27
• Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Year B, Proper 17 (22) Revised Common Lectionary

When Sare asked me to preach today I was very honoured. My own mission community meets only two Sundays a month and so I was happy to be able to help today! A little back story: Sare and I met and clicked in short order. Last year at the Diocesan Convention, one of the Episcopal priests ran into us in the parking lot and said, “You two are dangerous!” I think Sare is the more dangerous of the two of us, to be honest. But I’m glad she thinks I can stir up some Mischief on my own.

I said yes… and then I took a look at the readings for today. This passage from James is, for me, one of my favourites, if not my all-time favourite reading in the NT. I love the way the different translations play with the words. This passage says “cancerous evil” in one translation, or “sordidness and rank growth of wickedness,” in another. The King James bible, in all its stodginess, comes up with “filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness” here. I always wanted that on a tshirt.

Of course I wrote my sermon from my own translation… and the paraphase version used here is different. Forgive me a little back tracking…

In your worship guide and what you just heard read out loud, it says, “Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear!…”

But in the Translations I’m used to, it’s a bit more succinct: “be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”

I told Sare I was going to teach you three Greek words for this sermon. But the words don’t make much sense without my translation, so let me ask you to remember my own, even shorter version:

“Be doers. Not hearers. Of the Word.”

Remember that: it’s kinda the point of the whole sermon. If you fell asleep now, but remembered that, you’d get the point!

“Be doers. Not hearers. Of the Word.”

The first word I want to hit you with is not in our text at all. The Greek word is “Rhema” and it means “teaching” – like a saying or a teaching of Jesus. Or, you might think of it as “what’s the good word today?” It’s often translated, in the Bible, as “Word”. The Gospel of Luke has the Angel bringing the “Word of God”, the Rhema, to the prophets.

Again, this word isn’t used in our reading today but we need it to compare to the second bit of Greek –

Logos.

It IS used in our passage today, and it is also translated as “word”.

Logos means something more abstract and at the same time bigger than our English “word”. Logos is more like the idea behind the saying. You have a idea in your head – a logos – and you speak it out loud – rhema.

Logos is also very important because in some places it’s a Title for Jesus: Jesus is the Logos of God. It’s the thing that makes it “alive”. You can say our American idea of “Liberty” is a logos, that shows up in the writen rhema of the declaration of independence. A logos is abstract, but it is real. It is so hard to take out of Greek that most theologians stick with using “logos” itself.

Hold those two words in tension for a minute – a logos and a rhema. The Idea in the Mind and the thing we speak out loud on our lips.

If Jesus is the Logos… you might say the Church is the Rhema. The Church is supposed to be the living manifestation of Jesus’ logos.

So… a story…

About ten years ago, I was a member of an Episcopal parish that was deeply committed to making present Jesus’ teachings. Every Sunday we welcomed strangers through the door as if they were sent by God (they always are!) and on Friday nights we opened a food pantry to all of our city and we gave away thousands of dollars of food to anyone who came. We set the food around the altar to show: this wasn’t us, but rather God feeding the world through us. Last time I heard a report, on a Friday night the gave away nine tons of food!

I was a member for nearly five years and had many close friends. It was an amazing parish.

Except for one thing that was terribly important to me: they didn’t believe all the right things. In fact, they left the creed out of the service entirely! They didn’t know a lot of “normal” Christian teachings. They rejected some outright! Some people in the parish (even on the parish council) were not baptised! One Sunday I preached and a woman said to me “Well that’s ok if you believe in Jesus… but what about those of us who don’t?”

And I became very uncomfortable.

And for a long time I struggled. I wanted to be in a “real” church, you know… where we believed all the right things and rejected all the wrong things. These people were doing the right things: feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, but they didn’t say the right things at all.

So I left – in kind of a huff, if you must know the truth: royally angered some friends and even lost some. And I went and joined the One True Church. I know some of you here have been members of one of the One True Church groups before as well – I don’t need to tell you which one it was: they all function the same. These folks said all the right things and believed all the right things and knew when to stand up and bow and when to make the sign of the cross… you know. Like a real church.

And some of them even made fun of my former congregation (cuz they’re kind of famous for being odd). And I too joined in that making fun of people who were not right. I have to confess that if I was still a member of the One True Church I’d never be friends with Sare in the first place, and chances are all y’all would be on the list of people we made fun of.

But never once again – in the places I traveled – did I see the stranger welcomed like God had sent her.

And never once again – in the circles in which I moved – have I seen the hungry feed from God’s altar by God’s own hands in human form…

Jesus says in the Gospel reading today that “These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn’t in it.”

And I think I begin to get the idea. See: even in the One True Church there were places of Hospitality, places of welcoming and generosity. But once I got hung up on the whole “real church” thing, looking for all the “right” things, I lost my heart. Even today, in the One True Church (you’ve probably seen it yourself) there are people who get hung up on saying the right things and will even accuse other members of their own denominations of being “impure” and not “really” Christians. You’ve seen it in the Episcopal church as well -heard it from both the left and the right!

Back to the passage in James… and the very short version I wanted you to remember.

“Be doers. Not hearers. Of the Word.”

Let’s make it even shorter and easier to remember.

“Be doers. Of the Word.”

I told you that “Word” there is the greek word “Logos” and I told you that “Logos” is one of the titles in our tradition for Jesus. And if Jesus is the Logos, the living idea, … the Church is the Rhema: the concrete thing.

The “how” is right here in our passage.

“Be doers. Of the Word.”

It’s that word, “doers” and it’s our third greek word.

In Greek it’s a very important word: poetas. And even through in every translation I can find it says “Doers” I think you can guess the real meaning, just from the word. “Poetas”. It’s a poet, an artist, a craftsperson. It’s a creator.

Whatever this “Logos” is, this Jesus Concept… the writer is telling us to spin it out, to be artisans, to be creators ourselves to make it manifest. He even gives us some examples at the end there, “Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.”

Sare tells me she started with four people here. And this is how much y’all have grown in such a short time.

Last week when I came to visit… and well before you knew I was going to be here today, preaching… we passed the peace and a bunch of you came up to me, seeing a stranger, and introduced yourself. You knew how to reach out.

That’s why you’ve grown.

The Church I was in in – that I left so suddenly – they grow by 3 or 4 new members a month. They are the most lively Episcopal parish in the San Francisco area.

And no… no parish I visited in the One True Church was ever as large.

But this is not a numbers game…

It’s about being poets of the logos.

It’s about knowing that God is love and you’re supposed to dance that into some real meaning in your own life. Weave it into new clothes or knead it into new bread to give away. Write it into a new song that will have all your neighbours singing. Make it up as you go along.

You’re already doing it here: James is calling you to it again. Open your eyes to see Jesus – the logos – right here in your midst calling you to poetry.

One other thing you need to know: all the “you” words in this passage are, in the Greek, plural. Being from the south, I hear these words as “Y’all”. This is nothing you can do alone you have to do it here, together, in community. Be doers. Not hearers. Be poets of the Logos. Live the new life together.

Last week I heard Sare give you a thing to think about for the coming week. I don’t know if that’s a weekly practice here, but let me invite you to become dreamers: after all, you must dream before you write poetry! How will the poetry of the logos manifest in your shared life here?

You and Sare are doing a new thing here. God has put the new life in you – and feeds that new life at this altar ever week.

How will you… All ya’ll… make it happen?