Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

James 1.17-27; Mark 7.1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Today we are out of St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians and into the letter of James; and out of St. John's gospel and back into St. Mark's. And they are interesting readings today hanging around that one pivotal sentence in James - 'Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.

It reminds me of the story I heard about the vicar who stood in the pulpit one Sunday and preached his sermon. The next week he came to his sermon and he preached the same sermon over again. The people thought he'd just got confused because he was getting on a bit. The next week he preached the same sermon again and people began to get a bit concerned, wondering what was going on. After six weeks of the same sermon the churchwardens, having fielded lots of complaints from people finally came to the vicar, quite anxious, and asked him, 'vicar, do you realise you've preached the same sermon six times in a row?' The vicar said, 'Yes, of course.' So the churchwardens asked him 'When are you going to preach something different then, because the congregation are tired of hearing it and are complaining about hearing the same one over and over again?' The vicar replied, 'I'll preach a different sermon when there's evidence that you've taken notice of this one.' I can tell you from my own experience that it can be quite dispiriting, to say the least, when you stand in the pulpit week by week, month by month, and year by year and little, for some people at least, seems to change. But then I look at myself and challenge myself in the same way. So today's readings, as always, speak to me just as much if not more, to me as they do to you.

'Be doers of the word and not merely hearers who decieve themselves.' These are strong and challenging words. Jesus in St. Mark's gospel is saying to the Pharisees and to everyone else, when they call into question his disciples' behaviour, that what we hear has to go into the heart and make a difference there, and change us, within. And religious practice is useless and utterly pointless if it doesn't. Because true religion isn't about how many times you turn up at church in the course of a year, or about what we do in church in the worship; it's about how much you love others and especially those less fortunate than yourself, which can indeed be the person sitting next to you or in front or behind you. And here lies one of the greatest challenges. And doubtless we all fall down righthere. And that's why God invented forgiveness, streaming from Him, through the cross of Christ, to us first of all, before we even have the chance to offer it to our neighbour, because without knowing His forgiveness we can't offer it to anyone else, at least with any integrity. 'Forgiveness makes life worthwhile.' I read that just this last week and it hit home with me, I felt it to be true. Forgiveness, true forgiveness is from the heart. And that's where Jesus was pointing when he rhymed off the catalogue of what are commonly called sins at the end of the reading from St. Mark's gospel today. We all hang around most of these things, at least up in our heads from time to time, it's all a matter of degree. And most of us, for most of these might say 'There but for the grace of God go I.' That's why you can see people baying for the blood of paedophiles and child killers very often, even when they don't know them. I've often wondered why they do that and I think it's that psychological 'trick' of projection. It's because they know that they themselves may at some time have harboured, even subconsciously, the same sorts of thoughts, and they hate that in themselves, hate even the thought that they could think such things. And the hate is vented on those who openly manifest those sins. And Jesus is saying that we should remember that it's what's in the heart that's important and our religion has to work on our heart so that out of it comes love, in its different forms, notably in service to our neighbour, whoever our neighbour might be.

And we fall down in this regard from time to time, every one of us. Like a pendulum we rock backwards and forwards between outright sinfulness and grace, often without realising it. And it's so easy to do that, if we will admit it, to fall into that way of living where we are neither really one thing nor the other but keep swinging back and forth like the pendulum between sin and grace. And so as St. James says we are like those who look in a mirror and when we go away from it, forget what we've seen.

There's a story of a Zen Buddhist novice monk who goes to his teacher and ask 'What must I do to learn the truth?' and the teacher gives the novice a mirror. If we could only look in that mirror a bit longer and then seeing how we really are, first forgive ourselves, love ourselves then we are beginning to 'do' the work of God, we are beginning to turn our heart to God in love, not merely hearing that commandment of Jesus to love your neighbour as yourself. Remembering that to love your neighbout at all, you have to first love yourself. Which reminds me of that other story of the child who was given a puzzle of the world with thousands of pieces, to put together, by his father. The father was amazed that his son put the puzzle together very quickly indeed so he asked his son 'how did you complete the puzzle so quickly?' And the child said, 'well, dad, I noticed that on the back of the puzzle was the figure of a man, so I put the man together and then turned the puzzle over.' And of course the lesson there is that if you want to put the world right, even your own personal world, you have to put yourself right first.

You can't put your world right, from a religious point of view, from a Christian point of view, unless you put yourself right first, or at least begin to do so. And make no mistake this is very, very difficult. In fact it's the hardest of work in the world. That's why we all fall down from time to time, each and every one of us. That's why it's so much easier to listen to a sermon then forget it than actually do what you've been challenged with. But in God's great and amazing graciousness he forgives us, and that should drive us to our knees in thanksgiving if nothing else does.

The morning prayer readings for this morning contanin that wonderful section from Revelation chapter 3 were God says 'Listen, I am standing at the door knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.' That reading is pictured in that wonderful pre-Raphaelite painting by Holman Hunt of the Light of the World and which is pictured in the mosaic here in church at the entrance to the chapel; Jesus, the Light of the World, standing at the door of the heart and knocking. Answering that knock and then letting Christ into our heart is the first step to a new awareness of ourself, the first step to a new forgiveness of ourself and the first step to a new loving of ourself. And it's from that first step that all else flows. I first heard and responded to those words when I was 12 years old, and I've been opening and shutting the door ever since, if you see what I mean. Because it's so hard, day by day, week by week, year by year to let Christ be in your heart right at the heart of everything you are and do.

So these readings today, whilst so very challenging, offer us at the same time, a way to come closer in love to God, to come closer in love to one another, and most of all to come closer, in love, to ourself. And in that we see that to be doers of the word and not merely hearers is the best gift we could give both ourselves and everyone we live with.