Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23; James 1:17-27
The Reverend Paul DeLain Allick, St. George’s Episcopal Church, August 30, 2009

There is an oft heard critique of traditions of the Catholic and Apostolic faith, whether it be Anglican, Roman or Orthodox. The critique is: you all just practice empty ritual. Have you ever heard that? My response is always a question, “We do? How do you know? Can you see into our Souls?” If someone can see into my soul that would make them equal to God. And my Catechism teaches me that putting yourself in God’s place is the heart of sin. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 848)

For many people ritual is synonymous with empty, meaningless. But ritual is all around us. Each of us have morning rituals in getting ready for the day. And Christian communities which have rejected the ancient rituals of the Catholic faith still have rituals; they have worship rules which cannot be broken. Each time a Christian prays, no matter how we do it, it is a ritual. And, yes, it can become empty and meaningless. It isn’t the ritual itself that creates spiritual emptiness; the inward meaning comes from the human heart.

Thus, the more formal and ordered the ritual does not equate to the increase of emptiness. Over the past decades in both Roman and Anglican communities, we have stripped away ritual as to become more “relevant” and perhaps more appealing. I do not think that such efforts have increased the strength of our spiritual lives. The only thing that will increase the strength of our spiritual lives is the intention we have in our hearts and the knowledge we have in our heads.

Bishop Henry Whipple is quoted, “Danger is not in a lack of ceremonials, but in a lack of holiness. The Church will advance in the beauty of her services as her spiritual life deepens.”

This is the discussion we find Jesus in this morning. The religious authorities are monitoring Jesus and his disciples. They notice that they skip a ritual before eating. Jesus tells them that they are
hypocrites. He quotes the prophet Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me,

teaching human precepts as doctrines.” This critique stands for all religious people, not just those with elaborate ritual. Just because a community may have a simple ritual, a brief reading, a lot of singing and a long sermon, that doesn’t mean they aren’t also in danger of honoring God with their lips while turning their hearts from Him.

Jesus doesn’t care so much about the outside as He does about the inside. He reminds us that the most filthy, life destroying things come from within the heart: greed, using another person sexually, stealing, murdering, deceiving to get what we want, being jealous, and the most popular among we religious folks: judging and condemning others and reveling in gossip and slander.

This morning in our collect we prayed that God would increase in us true religion. True religion is what St. James is addressing in his Epistle, “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” He goes on, “Welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.”

The popular image of Christianity is that we are moral people; that we live clean and do good. I do not accept this image. The Gospels lead me deeper. True Christian religion is about reconciliation therefore it an evolving attitude; it is about how we treat each other. Being moral and “doing good” leads to all kinds of hypocrisy and makes us self-righteous. True religion leads us to lives of peace. Lives of peace will transform our attitudes and, indeed, will lead us to “doing good” But the doing good is not the thing-in-itself, it is the byproduct of the transformation of the heart.

To paraphrase Bishop Whipple, “The Church will advance in the beauty of her services, the quality and integrity of her outreach, and the ethical life as her spiritual life deepens.” Whenever we do our daily devotions, when we learn how to bridle our tongue, when we respond to others instead of react, when we make sure we and our children our here for liturgy and instruction in the faith, we deepen our spiritual lives.

So look at this way: maybe the more elaborate and beautiful the ritual the deeper the spiritual life.

In our tradition we live a sacramental life. A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Take for instance the sacrament of Holy Eucharist. The outward and visible signs are obvious “bread and wine, given and received according to Christ’s command.” The inward and spiritual graces are “the Body and Blood of Christ given to his people, and received by faith.” For this sacrament to be meaningful, the Catechism teaches us that “it is required that we should examine our lives, repent of our sins, and be in love and charity with all people.” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 860)

In another place when Jesus is criticized for not practicing proper ritual he replies, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.” (Luke 11:39)

When our insides match our outsides then we have found true religion. As the Church persists in her rancorous debates about right doctrine and appropriate ritual, her soul becomes more and more dimmed. As she forgets to live in a life of constant reconciliation and instead continues to judge and point the finger her spiritual life suffers. As she continues to ignore the importance of constant study and prayer her efforts to “do good” lose their meaning. As she continues to use liturgy simply for her own benefit and comfort her rituals to the glory of God become empty.