Sermon for the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time

There is one powerful word that seems to get thrown around far too easily in today’s Gospel reading. Five times Jesus and the Pharisees have a debate over what really defiles. But what is “defilement?” The English word, “defile” comes from the Latin word for “trample.” That makes sense. Based on an internet search, the ways in which we use this word, “defile” make it almost offensive to use in church, or at least the activities described as defiling. To defile a person or thing is to trample on it so much as to deprive it of any value, or shame.

On the one hand, that makes today's Gospel hard to understand. Why so much fuss over hand washing? On the other hand, all this attention to such a trivial act makes it easy to explain away today’s debate between Jesus and the Pharisees. They make petty comments about washing one’s hands before eating; Jesus calls them up for their pettiness, wins yet another verbal smack-down with the Pharisees, and we go home satisfied with a story that really has nothing to do with us today. After all, we’re not so petty. Are we? And we’re all here in church on Sunday when we could have slept in a after a night of partying. We certainly haven’t “defiled” anything or anyone, right? If that’s our approach to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then in truth, we do defile the Gospel, by stripping it of its power to change our hearts and our lives for the better.

So, the Pharisees see Jesus’s disciples not washing their hands before they eat, and demand to know why they aren’t following tradition, but are eating with “defiled” hands. Several weeks ago, I had to explain what it meant to be “unclean” in the religious sense that the Jewish people meant. That’s what needs to be done in the case of the word, “defile.” Literally, it means “to make common,” to make something ordinary. Anyone who has seen "Raiders of the Lost Ark" knows that God and the things touched by God were extremely powerful, and never to be mixed with the ordinary things of life. But to their credit the Pharisees wanted to infuse the ordinary with God’s presence. So, they developed various rituals and ceremonies to make the ordinary events of life extraordinary, holy, set apart for worship and thanksgiving.

In truth, the Jews of Jesus’s time weren’t trying to do anything different than what we do. They, and we, look for God in the ordinary places of our life. Then, having found that presence, they and we set apart those times and places because they are holy, infused with God’s presence. It’s why we come here on Sunday morning. It’s why we say prayers in our homes, and why we ask God’s blessings before we eat. Those who have been on Cursillo weekends know how powerfully present God was during that time, and so we develop a rule of life, which we hope to do enough so that it becomes ordinary, yet also holy, so that when we follow that rule, we remember and reconnect with that presence. We periodically reunite with our Cursillo friends to renew our sense of that divine presence.

But any rule or ritual risks becoming ordinary in the way that Jesus and the Pharisees meant by "defile." The liturgies of our life may be comforting. But no man-made ritual or rule can contain the presence of Almighty God. As Rich Mullins sang, our God is an awesome God, and he cannot be contained by any human invention. And if we try, then we have made that thing ordinary. And in that “defilement,” the God we tried to contain slips through our fingers like the air.

But the answer isn’t, therefore, to simply throw out the old rituals. That’s not Jesus’s answer. Look carefully at Jesus’s words. He does not tell the Pharisees they’re wrong to try and make the renewal of life and fellowship at an ordinary dinner something holy. He doesn’t tell them they shouldn’t wash their hands. He does warn them about making human traditions equal to God’s commandment. Then he teaches the crowd what it is that makes things “ordinary.” And it isn’t out there. It isn’t food, or pots or pans. It isn’t the world that is ordinary or defiled. How could anything that God made be ordinary?

It is here, inside us, where the spirit of the ordinary lurks. Look again at Jesus’s laundry list of evil. Some of what he mentions are actions: theft, murder, adultery. But it is, as Jesus says, from within, from the human heart, that sin and evil spread out to the world and hurt those around us. Look at the News on TV and you see what the Evil One would have us think is ordinary: cynicism, anger and rage, good guys and bad guys in a never ending struggle in which neither can ever claim victory.

But we are not ordinary. We are holy, set apart, but we are not to bask in our holiness. If our worship only makes us feel better, then we have made our rituals ordinary. Giving the good news that God is not an angry judge, but the one who loves us no matter what; that’s the evangelism part of our mission statement. Building each other up in knowledge and wisdom about our faith; that’s discipleship. Creating opportunities for us to be a parish family not just on Sunday; that’s fellowship. Serving and helping the poor however they have come to our doors; that’s ministry. And when all that becomes ordinary, then we and this world around us will no longer be defiled, but holy: and the holy will be ordinary and the ordinary holy.

Soon, we will be fed once again with Jesus Christ himself. So nourished and renewed with this holy bread and holy wine, let us confront the forces of defilement – the fearful and cynical, the arrogant and condemning. We are holy, set apart. We are extraordinary.