Friday night football resumed this weekend. I know, I know some of you have been in withdrawal and needed the fix while others of you welcome the season with all of the enthusiasm of a trip to the dentist.

             Schools recognize that not everyone greets fall football with equal admiration. Inspiration, alas, does not come naturally.

Paula said this past week that her school was having a Pep Rally.  Students were urged to wear “black out attire.”  That was new. So I asked, “What’s “black out attire?”

“The kids wear all black.”

Duh!

Coaches of course welcome Pep Rallies.  To play well, one must play with enthusiasm. Talent alone doesn’t win games. If your team doesn’t “show up,” if it just goes through the motions, anything can happen—think Appalachian—Michigan State.

Football teams aren’t the only ones “rallied.” The word originally applied to troops who were mustered for battle.  When troops were rallied they were called to order and or roused from depression, weakness, defeat.  Troops were rallied in order to fight.  Warfare it seems comes no more naturally than high speed collisions by large men in plastic hats.  Games and battles alike must be inspired.

Listen to Jesus, who quoting Isaiah, suggests something similar about faith: “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.”

That accusation fell at the feet of those who were supposed to know better; namely, scribes and Pharisees who had come from Jerusalem to investigate Jesus.  Investigate may be too strong, but at the very least the doctors of law traveled north to check Jesus out.  When they did, they observed that his disciples ate without washing their hands, which was not a point of hygiene, but of faithfulness.  The kind of hand washing we’re talking about here is not the kind your mother taught, but rather was a ritual observed to express one’s faith and religious identity.

At the beginning of our worship services, we have a Ritual of Friendship.  You write your names in a little black book. At the end of the service, you’re asked to greet fellow pew-mates, taking special notice of those who may be visitors.  We call it a ritual because it’s something we do every week.  Welcome is an important act of Christian hospitality. And lest we forget we make welcoming and hospitality a ritual, a habit, a routine.  I see you greeting each other after worship. I assume you’re greeting each other—it’s loud anyway. You appear enthusiastic, but then again you may just be glad church is over.

I suppose you could be going through the motions, “Yes, yes, my name is George Sinclair. Glad to meet you. Come back again. Good to see yah.”

I doubt you’re doing that any more than the hail and hearty:  “Good Morning, Praise Jesus, we’re glad you’re here. What’s your name? How many children do you have?  Where are you from? We’re having a Sunday school party tonight. I’ll be by at 6 to pick you up.  Where again did you say you live?”

Insincerity, regardless of kind, never works.  We’re drawn by geniality, authenticity, sincerity. When the bell is thumped, we want it to ring true.

“This people honors me with their lips . . .”

Jesus thumped the bell and it didn’t ring true.  The bell rang with sour hypocrisy:  “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

Hypocrite is a wonderful word. Has a wonderful sound—hypocrite.  It’s a terrible thing, but the word is dead on.  Hypocrites pretend to be something they are not.  Hypocrites play a role.  Hypocrites assume a character. In short, hypocrites, “go through the motions.”  They appear to be religious. They appear to be righteous.  They appear to “love the Lord” but their hearts—hypocrites have a heart problem.

Three times Jesus accuses the Pharisees of hypocrisy.  Three times he accuses them of violating God’s command in favor of human tradition, of putting their way above God’s way, their words over God’s word.  Three times he accuses them of majoring in minors. “You have,” he said, “a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!”  To be absolutely clear, Jesus gives an example, a glaring one of the hypocrisy he’s talking about.

The commandments taught that one should honor one’s father and mother, right?  That’s a good thing. “Take care of your father and mother, especially in their old age.”  What did the hypocrites do?  They declared property Corban, which meant it was “dedicated to God.”  Call it a set aside, a tithe.  “I can’t use my tithe to pay nursing home fees?”  Fact was, the tithe wasn’t going to the Temple. It stayed in the hypocrite’s pocket, all in the name of religion.  “You do many things like this,” Jesus said.  “You honor God with your lips, but your hearts are far from following him.”

 

According to Jesus we have a problem, a heart problem.  Our hypocrisy comes from within. It is internal: “Nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” Hypocrisy is an internal problem: “It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”

What about the devil? Doesn’t the devil make you do things?  What about peer pressure, isn’t that real? And group think?  Do you mean to say that we’re unaffected by outside influences, that nurture and environment play no role in human behavior?  And what about nature? I didn’t ask for my genes.  Can I help it if I have a short fuse? Can I help it if I’m predisposed to envy? Do you really mean to say that environment and nurture play no role?  Is it my fault that I don’t stand up for myself, that I’m afraid of my shadow—my father was mean, how can I help it? Everybody in my family was a racist.  Everybody I knew growing up thought poor people deserved to be poor. They were lazy, good-for-nothings. Do you mean to tell me that I’m responsible for my attitudes and actions?

“It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”

We’ve got a problem, a heart problem.  When our hearts aren’t right, we pay lip service to the Lord. When our hearts aren’t right, we “go through the motions.”  On the outside we may look the part, but our insides are another story. “It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”  We’ve got a heart problem. Indeed, as Jeremiah says, “the heart is devious above all else.”

 

Do you remember Valentine’s Day?  We took shoe boxes and covered them in paper. Do children still do that?  You know, you go to the drug store and buy a bunch of valentines, sign everybody’s name.  Everybody in the class has a shoebox, their mailbox. And on the assigned day cards are “mailed,” they’re put in the covered shoeboxes.  And then everybody in the class “opens” their mail. Do kids still do that?

We see a heart and immediately think love, love as a feeling.  Western culture is big on love. Romance. Love as a feeling.

When we got home from Scotland I watched Braveheart.  When I was in Edinburgh I saw William Wallace. Sure looked like him—the long hair, blue war paint. He was doing his thing on High Street, just down from Edinburgh Castle.  Very cool. Braveheart.  I love that movie. I like the bagpipes, the music, and of course the heroic, romantic fight for freedom.  Against all odds, Braveheart rallies the clans for Robert the Bruce and slays the wicked until his death on the gallows, where he is drawn and quartered. Great stuff, Braveheart.  What’s not to like about Romanticism?

Is that the cure for our heart problem—more gusto, more feeling, greater intensity?  Is that what Jesus is after—our feelings?  If I’m to overcome my hypocrisy, must I be really, really sincere; very, very earnest—truly sorry for my sins and truly happy for God’s grace?  Is that what conversion means? For my religion to be real, in order for it to be genuine, authentic, must it be deeply felt; indeed, must it not be my deepest, my most heartfelt emotion?  Is Jesus after our feelings? Is that what he wants?  Is that why we are rallying this Sunday and is not that my task as your preacher—to inspire you, to whip you up with enthusiasm, to cheer you on, so that your hearts are right with the Lord?  The short answer is No.

Yes, God wants our hearts, including our emotions, but for the Bible heart is not primarily an emotion. For the Bible, heart represents our whole self, not just our emotions, but our thinking, our will, our spirit. God wants our essential self, but it is precisely this essential self, “from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”  So we have a problem.  How do we get our hearts right?

It’s not like we have some pure place within us, a better self, which if we could only find then we could offer that self to God. Nor is the answer more gusto with the heart we have.  God is not pleased because we try “really, really hard.”  You know, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”  Faith is not intense wishful thinking. That’s no different than hand-washing.

Faith is not about effort.  When faith is about effort it is a work. And works do not save us. Faith is the opposite of effort. Faith, in fact, frees us from effort because faith dislocates us from the center of the Universe. That’s why the Pharisees reduced faith to hand-washing. They wanted to stay in control.  When faith is about effort, it is manageable. That’s why the Pharisees substituted human traditions for the command of God. They wanted to keep faith manageable.  But not God’s command, commands to love neighbors and enemies, commands to do just and love mercy and walk humbly are not manageable. For that we need something else, something we don’t already have.

Faith calls for a new heart, and a new heart comes from above, a new heart comes from God. It is a gift. Consider the Psalm written by David, king and adulterer: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”  When do you think David wrote that?  Six hours after his adultery, six days, six months, six years? When?  “Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.”  When did David stop praying that prayer?  Indeed, when do we ever reach the point where we stop praying that prayer?

The source of our salvation is not sincerity or authenticity or depth of feeling.  The source of our salvation is God’s Spirit who makes all things new, new with each day, with each hour, each year.  God makes all things new, even devious, deceitful, hypocritical human hearts.  Amen.