The Rt. Rev. Greg Brewer: There have been several articles recently about the astonishing rise in people getting cosmetic surgery. So much so that in many circles, it's considered just a normal part of what you do. Particularly, if you're a celebrity or in the entertainment industry. And that for you to decide that you are not going to get cosmetic cosmetic surgery to fix this or this or this or other things, it's considered subversive. And they're called out when everyone says, you know what?
I just wanna get old. It's okay. I don't have to be eternally youthful. You never really look youthful anyway, even after you've had it done. And reading these stories and this wave of interest, it caused me to see the gospel reading this morning differently.
When we walk into the gospel reading, we find Jesus challenging the legitimacy of what the Pharisees were teaching. The Pharisees had been given their responsibility to interpret God's law. That to the people of Israel, that was their job. But they had taken that authority and added their own laws to God's laws in a way that God never intended. Hence, all of the controversy of eating with unwashed hands.
And it is in this setting that Jesus turns to the crowd that is gathered to watch the debate. It was entertainment in a way, you know. And he says to them, listen and understand. It is a solemn declaration. Jesus is turning the attention of the crowd away from the debate, away from giving the Pharisees anymore of what we would describe as airtime to declare what they taught as if it had divine authority.
Jesus as the word made flesh is causing and calling people to pay attention to him. Follow him and listen to what he declares is true. Jesus is saying in essence, stop listening to them. Listen to me. This is a new era.
The law given on Mount Sinai as interpreted by these Pharisees is not an expression of god's will But Jesus is saying something very, very new. Defilement, did you hear that word in the gospel reading? Is no longer a matter of what one eats or whether one eats with unwashed hands. Instead, defilement is the result of sin within our own hearts. To put it another way, what preeminently matters to God is not our diet.
Your physician might say something different, but we're talking about God here. It is not even a matter of outward appearance, even if your tailor or where you go get your clothes would say differently. No, what matters most to god is the condition of our hearts but the idea of preeminent importance around what we eat and our outward appearances, in fact, alive and well. The other day, I heard father Griesbeck quote Dion Sanders, football coach of the Colorado Buffaloes, whose nickname is Neon Dion and really that's all you need to know. The quote is, look good, feel good, feel good, play good, play good, pay good.
Now to be fair, father Grisbeck was not commending the quote. There was a bit of sarcasm in his voice, and we all chuckled when we heard it. But we chuckled because that sentiment in some form or another is everywhere. Do you remember the O line? You don't have to feel fabulous, darling.
You just have to look fabulous. Our world says that what one wears, the zip code where you live, your personal connections, the relentless pursuit of the youthful body, and the fear of looking too old is what drives more than a few of us. That is in fact in 2026, the law that we pursue. But Jesus is in is challenging that entire system when he declares seemingly without exception that what truly matters to God even in 2026 is not the condition of our appearance or whether we're getting ahead. What matters to God is the condition of our hearts.
God seems to in fact barely notice our outward appearance As the scripture says, humans, man looks on outward appearance. God looks on the heart. This comes from the book of Samuel where god is chiding Samuel because he's to help anoint the next king of Israel and he has a bunch of men in front of them. He automatically assumes that the strongest and the most handsome is the person who ought to be the next king. In other words, what God is saying to Samuel is, you got it all wrong.
I've got a different criteria. And later, it says of David in contrast who became the next king that he was a man after God's own heart. So it challenges you and me. At least it should. Beloved, to what do you aspire?
How do you spend your resources? Is it in pursuing a good look, making that good impression, putting your best foot forward? When these are of little account in the eyes of God, Is it possible for us to desire something more than any of these if we are going to find a way to follow Jesus? What about a heart that is kind? To be someone who is quick to notice the needs of others, which is hard to see when you're competing with everyone.
What does it mean to be someone who is noted as being full of mercy? And given to prayer. If those are not things that are particularly important, then what does it mean for us to pray as we just did in the collect of the day asking that god would help us quote to follow in the blessed steps of his most holy life? Or have our hearts become so hardened that praying such a prayer with little or no intention of doing anything about it doesn't really matter to us. It's just what we do.
Could we not instead pray with the psalmist, create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me? Wash out of me all of the influences that would guide me to what the scripture describes as lesser things. Though the world considers them so preeminently important. What do you think Jesus asks of you? What do you think matters to God in terms of your life?
Even the point of the story of the Canaanite woman approaching Jesus in the gospel reading communicates quite clearly that what matters to God is the woman's faith, her heart, her trust in God, far more than her race or whether or not she is obedient to any sort of law or custom. In Jesus, we are in fact invited into a new and different era. It is called the kingdom of God, whereby virtue of Christ claiming us as his own, we take our residence even though putting us in the city of Dallas, Texas, trying to live out the kingdom of God causes us, does it not, to occasionally feel like what Ephesians describes as aliens, strangers. You're not meant to fit in. Believe it or not, such an invitation is an invitation to freedom.
It is here in the presence of Jesus that Jesus breaks the power of that law that is so In this era of faith, we can come to Jesus just as we are. We don't have to put on anything else because he sees all of who we are. And just like the Canaanite woman, regardless of our standing, we can ask Jesus even when we are at our worst to cleanse our hearts and he will never turn us away. Jesus sees our hearts even those as he says this morning are full of quote evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, false witness, and slander, unquote. Isn't that all of us?
At some level or another? No one needs stands to stand outside his mercy and it is to these very weak and sinful people that God directs his love. That Jesus welcomes into his presence these with forgiveness and the promise of eternal life. Only his powerful love frees us from the need to impress because we can just be in his presence without impressing, which is in fact what he's what he wants. And I have to tell you, as you begin to spend time in the presence of God who only gives, who only pours out mercy, who asks of us to follow him, who wants a heart that loves him even in the way that he loves us.
It does, in fact, change your heart. You begin to see things differently. You begin to look at behaviors in a different kind of way. Not in some moralistic do and do, do or don't, but rather as Paul writes, we make it our effort to please him wherever we are because he is the lord over the whole earth. And we have nothing else to give him.
As the old hymn goes, nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to the cross I cling because everything else is dross and meaningless in the eyes of God. Contrary to what Dion Sanders or anyone else says, following that law, that need to impress will kill your heart and leave you empty. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Or did you assume that the grace of God would look the other way when you did the things that you did to get to where you are?
God doesn't play games with us like that. He invites us into his presence on his terms and only his. As we say yes to him, we are flooded with things that we would never deserve. It's beyond anything that we could ever ask or imagine. He who is holy and mighty and powerful chooses to pour out the most incredible love on the worst of us and the most unassuming.
You may want to hold on the pride of your accomplishments, but what you're doing when you hold on to that kind of pride is that you miss the possibility of receiving that which you do not deserve, but which will set you free. It is the kindness of God that sets us free and nothing else. Nothing else. Create in me a clean heart, o God, that I might know your mercy. Be at peace in your presence and learn to love others in the way that you love me.
Forgive me Lord for being so enamored with what things that others consider important, but you said are not, that I might be free and learn to live in this place called the kingdom of God. Amen.