mimetic theory<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s great. But how does it preach?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nReverend Tom Truby shows that mimetic theory is a powerful tool that enables pastors to preach the Gospel in a way that is meaningful and refreshing to the modern world. Each week, Teaching Nonviolent Atonement will highlight his sermons as an example of preaching the Gospel through mimetic theory.<\/em><\/p>\nWhat is truth? Everyone says we live in a post-truth world, but how can we truthfully say that if we are post-truth? Mimetic theory helps us answer this question by claiming that truth is found when we look to victims of human culture. Rev. Tom Truby explores this concept in his latest sermon.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Year A, Proper 15
\nAugust 20th<\/sup>, 2017
\nMatthew 15:10-28\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nWords that Model<\/strong><\/p>\nPart I\u00a0\u00a0 What is the Truth?<\/h3>\n
\u201cJesus called the crowd near and said to them, \u2018Listen and understand.\u2019\u201d The crowd leans in and forms a tighter circle.\u00a0 It\u2019s like those ads where everyone comes closer listening for a stock market tip.\u00a0 Every ear is cocked in his direction. What is he about to say?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not what goes into the mouth that contaminates a person in God\u2019s sight.\u00a0 It\u2019s what comes out of the mouth that contaminates the person.\u201d Eating caviar in a palace or lentil soup in a hut makes no difference to God. Enjoying steak barbequed on a grill or chopped up in a taco makes no difference to God.\u00a0 Eating pork or refusing to eat pork makes no difference either, but what comes out of our mouth does.<\/p>\n
What comes out of our mouth reveals the commitments of our heart. Our words show the world where we are coming from.\u00a0 We\u2019ve always known this.\u00a0 Have you ever been accused of \u201crunning off at the mouth?\u201d I suppose that\u2019s about irresponsible talk.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeaking with a forked tongue\u201d made quite an impression on me as a child.\u00a0 I could picture words heading off in two directions after leaving such a tongue. These were words meant to deceive that had no commitment to truth. Their sender did not care about the recipient.\u00a0 In fact, the actual agenda of the sender was to manipulate and control the recipient, harnessing the recipient to the senders will.\u00a0 No respect for the other here; no core belief that the other is a valued child of God and a brother or sister. American Indians said the white men spoke with forked tongue.\u00a0 Were they speaking truth to power?<\/p>\n
What is the truth? No one agrees on it these days.\u00a0 Most claim their own view as the truth and their neighbor\u2019s view as false.\u00a0 Every group has its own truth we say.\u00a0 And someone outside that group says, well, you say that because you are a woman, or a white male, Hispanic or Muslim.\u00a0 It\u2019s popular now to say truth is subjective and determined by our gender and skin color.\u00a0 I am probably getting too philosophical here but I do have a point I am heading toward.<\/p>\n
What if truth were the victim at the bottom of the pile of rocks we humans have thrown? In my view that\u2019s where truth starts and it was revealed at the crucifixion where everyone threw stones at Jesus so to speak.\u00a0 In doing that we did what we always do and built community through the exclusion and execution of one of our own. Joseph sold into slavery is an example. That\u2019s the truth about humans, the thing hidden since the foundation of the world, Matthew quotes Jesus as saying in Matthew. Recognition of this is where truth begins and why the crucifixion and resurrection lie at the center of history. This event shows us the truth.<\/p>\n
This suggests criteria for assessing what comes out of a persons\u2019 mouth.\u00a0 How do you tell what is contaminated and what isn\u2019t? Do the words that come out a person\u2019s mouth act like stones adding to the pile that covers the victim or do the words remove stones already there, bringing us closer to the truth beneath them? Let me try to illustrate with some history.<\/p>\n
When I was a child and read the history of the United States very little mention was made of slavery.\u00a0 The text did not reveal how offensive it is for one human being to own another and to treat them as possessions subject to being used or sold at the master\u2019s whim. Nor did the text reveal that the economic prosperity of the United States was, in part, based on forced labor. Those with slaves didn\u2019t have to pay salaries and provide anything but the most minimal benefits. Nor did the text mention that with the repeal of slavery a new form of subjugation was introduced to our country.\u00a0 We passed laws, called Jim Crow laws that gave legal sanction to one race over another.\u00a0 None of this was in our official record of our history and yet it was true.\u00a0 We ignored the corpse at the bottom of the pile of stones we ourselves threw.<\/p>\n
This smoldering discussion about us continues and has burst into flame since the events at Charlottesville. As a general principle the words that come from our mouth contaminate the world if they add to the layer of lies hiding the truth.\u00a0 This is what Jesus meant when he said, \u201cIt\u2019s not what goes into the mouth that contaminates a person in God\u2019s sight.\u00a0 It\u2019s what comes out of the mouth that contaminates the person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part II\u00a0 \u00a0Sometimes truth offends!<\/h3>\n
\u201cThen the disciples came and said to him, \u2018Do you know that the Pharisees were offended by what you just said?\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps the Pharisees have an unacknowledged desire to hide the truth.\u00a0 They are like the textbooks that don\u2019t take slavery seriously and barely mention it.\u00a0 Perhaps they are like contemporary culture that often fails to take the power of guns, germs and steel into account in their recitation of history and wind up with the self-serving myth that white people of European extraction are innately superior.<\/p>\n
To tell the truth is to offend those whose identity and sense of superiority is built on a lie.\u00a0 Do you think Jesus was surprised that the Pharisees had taken offense?<\/p>\n
Jesus responds to the disciples with another parable.\u00a0 \u201cEvery plant that my heavenly Father didn\u2019t plant will be pulled.\u201d Kingdoms based on falsehood won\u2019t last.\u00a0 They are destined to fail because the truth will eventually be exposed. But Jesus adds; don\u2019t you get involved in pulling those plants, thinking that this story tells you to do that.\u00a0 \u201cLeave the Pharisees alone. They are blind people who are guides to blind people.\u201d<\/p>\n
When leaders don\u2019t have a place to begin in determining truth they are blind guides and often lead their followers toward an abyss that neither leader nor follower can see.\u00a0 This is why Jesus \u201ccalled the crowd near and said to them, \u2018Listen and understand.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 There is urgency to his message.<\/p>\n
All of this goes over Peter\u2019s head and so Peter asks Jesus to explain.\u00a0 Jesus replies, \u201cDon\u2019t you understand yet? Don\u2019t you know that everything that goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer?\u201d\u00a0 Jesus is both very explicit and delicately circumspect. Were they looking for some lofty spiritual answer\u2014something a little closer to heaven and not so tied to the earth?\u00a0 Jesus ties the spiritual and the earthy so closely that even we moderns are a little uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
We are now ready to hear Jesus\u2019 next words.\u00a0 \u201cBut what goes out of the mouth comes from the heart.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what contaminates a person in God\u2019s sight.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Jesus here is as earthy as a Marine drill sergeant yet a little more subtle.\u00a0 In my fallen mind and vivid imagination I can\u2019t help but imagine what had formerly been going down the sewer as now coming out of a person\u2019s mouth.\u00a0 We have common cultural ways of saying this. Words are revelatory.\u00a0 They reveal the heart and sometimes our prejudices.<\/p>\n
Jesus goes on, \u201cOut of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and insults.\u00a0 These contaminate a person in God\u2019s sight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part III\u00a0 \u00a0A model for us to follow.<\/h3>\n
\u201cFrom there, Jesus went to the regions of Tyre and Sidon.\u201d\u00a0 These are cities outside Jewish jurisdiction; territories filled with unclean people. \u201cA Canaanite woman from those territories came out and shouted, \u2018Show me mercy, Son of David. My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
This woman has at least four strikes against her.\u00a0 She is Canaanite, the ancient enemy of the Jews; she is a woman, that counts against her; she is an assertive woman, can\u2019t have that, and her daughter suffers from mental illness.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t deserve mercy; she doesn\u2019t even deserve to be noticed.\u00a0 She is one of those we can safely ignore and Jesus does.\u00a0 The text says, \u201cBut he didn\u2019t respond to her at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Never think that followers don\u2019t pick up on their leader\u2019s example.\u00a0 Pretty soon, \u201chis disciples came and urged him, \u2018Send her away; she keeps shouting out after us.\u2019\u201d Jesus seems to respond with agreement. \u201cI\u2019ve been sent only to the lost sheep, the people of Israel,\u2019\u201d he says. With this the persistent woman \u201cknelt before him and said, \u2018Lord help me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe replied, \u2018It is not good to take the children\u2019s bread and toss it to dogs.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
If her heart were anything but pure she would have taken offense at Jesus and evil words would have sprung from her heart.\u00a0 But she didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Instead humble words, sincere words stripped of all venom, emerged.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said, \u2018Yes, Lord. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall off their masters\u2019 table.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 This unclean woman, even when provoked, delivers words that reveal a clean heart. She becomes our model. This is how you do it even when you are insulted. \u201cIt\u2019s not what goes into the mouth that contaminates a person in God\u2019s sight.\u00a0 It\u2019s what comes out of the mouth that contaminates the person.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus answered, \u2018Woman, you have great faith.\u00a0 It will be just as you wish.\u2019 And right then her daughter was healed.\u201d Amen.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n