Honor Holiness: 29 August, 2021

In this time of floods, drought, wildfires, lost crops, melting glaciers, and all that accompanies climate change, preachers have an opportunity on this day to notice the words of Deuteronomy about how to inhabit and maintain the land –– how to honor the holiness of creation because it is God’s.

What a change we would see in a world that stopped using the word “resources” for soil, plants, water, air! What a change we would find in our hearts were we to look upon the soil, plants, animals of all kinds, the water and air as gifts for us to behold and care for rather than to “use” for ourselves. We might come to find that turning to Jesus (because, as Peter says, there is nowhere else to turn) means turning also to creation with a new heart and new vision, keeping the commands and, thus, nurturing our relationship with God. –– Melinda Quivik

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Pharisees and scribes gather to Jesus. Some have come from Jerusalem; yet their preoccupation is not the teaching or presence of Jesus, but criticism of his disciples failing to wash their hands before they eat. “Hmmm. I couldn’t enjoy the play because the usher’s shoe was untied.”

This brings a substantial rebuke and charge of hypocrisy from Jesus: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (v 6, quoting Isaiah). They sweat the small stuff, focusing on their own preoccupations in order to skirt the commandments and relationship with God. Apparently, Jesus sees it as a willing attempt to avoid the obligations that a covenant relationship with God requires. In this context, it means avoiding Jesus’ presence. –– John E. Smith

James 1:17-27

Good endowments and perfect gifts come from God; evil and temptation do not. It is through “the word of truth” that the faithful have been brought out to be a “first fruits of his creatures.” Hearing is better than speaking, and anger is suppressed in favor of the righteousness of God, whom we know has had to suppress his own anger toward us in order to be this righteous God. We see that receiving the word means change, turning from and putting away what is evil and soiled in order to receive in meekness the word that is “implanted” (v 21) in us.

Hearing the word means the receiving of the word by doing it. There is passion and devotion here. . . . “Pure and undefiled” religion visits orphans and widows and keeps away from the world’s temptations. –– John E. Smith

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9

Taking possession of the land and the covenant with God goes hand in hand. It is God who delivers Israel and provides the land. Deuteronomy’s chapters 1–3 recall God’s leading Israel to it. The covenant relationship and the authority to ask fidelity of his people in keeping the commandments are thus established. Because of their relationship with God, and because of the righteousness of God and the commandments he teaches them, his people will be different from others who have previously and unsuccessfully inhabited the land. . . .

Their defiling the land and God’s purpose by straying from the covenant through idolatrous behavior means that the people would be no different than previous occupiers of the land, and are therefore eligible to be vomited up from the land by the land itself. The land itself can condemn them.

This living with God successfully in a land he has given, keeping high-quality statutes he has given, reveals who God is to the nations. It is a witness to the nearness and goodness of God that others can see in his people living in his land: “For what other great nation has a God so near to it as the LORD our God is to us...And... has statutes and ordinances as just” (vv 7–8). –– John E. Smith

Melinda Quivik, an ordained ELCA pastor (who served churches in Montana, Michigan, and Minnesota) and former professor of worship and preaching, is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Liturgy, a writer, and a preaching mentor with Backstory Preaching at backstory-preaching.mn.co

John E. Smith has served as a Methodist pastor for many years.

Homily Service 42, no. 3 (2009): 146-156.

David Turnbloom