Moses Receiving the Tablets of the Law -- Marc Chagall |
- Song of Solomon 2:8-13 and Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9 •
- Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9 and Psalm 15 •
- James 1:17-27 •
- Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
It is relatively
rarely in the Lectionary that the connection between the Epistle and the Gospel
is quite so clear as it is on this Sunday. The subject of both is the concept
of ‘defilement’, what it is and why it matters. ‘Defilement’ is not a term we
use easily nowadays. Partly this is a result of the fact that we live in a much
less religious world than previous generations did. Yet something like this
concept is hard to dispense with. How are we to capture the particularly
loathsome nature of child pornography, the vandalizing of graves, or the willful corruption of the innocent, except with
language that goes beyond customary moral concepts of 'good' and 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong'? If we are to express adequately the profound revulsion and rejection that talk of ‘defilement’ aims to reflect, we need deeper concepts -- 'sacred' and 'profane' -- that are rooted in God's absolute commandments, such as the passage from Deuteronomy invokes.
The Pure Spirit -- Jacques Herold |
In the Epistle,
James extends the thought to make us more circumspect in this regard. Moral outrage is simply
anger; it ‘does not produce God’s righteousness’. Religion ‘pure and undefiled’
requires ‘meekness’ -- which is to say humility
in our judgment of others, a close watch on our own sincerity, and more circumspection in what we declare to be divine law.