GUTTER MOUTH

A Sermon by Bill McDonald from Matthew 15:1-20

August 17, 2008

 

Matthew 15

1Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.” 3He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ 5But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father. 6So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:

8    ‘This people honors me with their lips,

       but their hearts are far from me;

9    in vain do they worship me,

       teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”

10Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: 11it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” 12Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” 13He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” 15But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” 16Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

 

 

You know the routine.  It’s time for supper.  You tell your child to wash her hands.  You hear the water run for two-tenths of a second and then cut off.  You look at her dry, still filthy hands.  Did you get your hands wet at all?  “You didn’t tell me to get them wet!”  You don’t even ask her how a person could wash her hands without getting them wet.  Try again.  She comes back, mud dripping across your floor and onto your table.  Did you use soap?  “You didn’t tell me to use soap!”  Try again.  This time she arrives with flat surfaces clean but mud caked into the wrinkles and folds of her hands.  Finally you have to take her by the arm (certainly not by the hand!) and lead her to the bathroom, where you discover the mud-streaked, once-beautiful hand towel and you realize that you didn’t tell her to rinse.  Finally at the table, as she is reaching for the stack of rolls, you remind her that you have to give thanks to Jesus before you can eat.  In exasperation she blurts out, “Jesus and germs, germs and Jesus, that’s all I ever hear around here, and I’ve never seen either one of them!”  Our scripture today is not about whether you have to wash your hands before meals.  The issue is that there are larger concerns with which we aren’t dealing.  The Roman army occupied all of Israel at this time.  Taxation oppressed the poor; violence and cruelty from Roman soldiers was an every day occurrence.  The upper classes, the Pharisees and scribes, were in cahoots with the Roman government and got their cut of the taxes levied upon the poor.  Corruption and coercion were rampant.  And what do the Pharisees want to talk to Jesus about?  His disciples don’t wash their hands every time before they eat.  The Pharisees only wanted to talk about the germs; Jesus wanted to talk about the gospel.  “It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”  You have to watch what comes out of your mouth.

 

When I first announced this sermon title “Gutter Mouth” to the ministerial staff, Mike McColl responded, “George Carlin!”  The famous foul-mouthed, brilliant comic who died recently came under fire years ago because a radio station played a risqué routine from one of his albums called, Seven Filthy Words You Can’t Say on TV.  Someone called in and complained that you shouldn’t have to be exposed to that on public radio—and I agree.  But I confess that my first thought on hearing the news report wasn’t whether the routine should have been aired.  My first thought was, “What were the words?”  We live in a polite society and some words are just simply off limits for public use.  We can’t talk even biologically about the body’s reproductive system or its elimination system.  All the words seem profane or embarrassing.  I was reading a Fancy Nancy book to my granddaughter Dory Friday night and it advised that when you take your dog for a walk, you have to take something to “scoop the poop.”  Four-year-old Dory interrupted to tell me that I had to use the term “Number Two,” since “poop” is not a nice word.  Several people have come up to me to ask how I am doing after my prostate cancer surgery.  I told them I was doing fine, but, out of sincerity, they pressed me, “Be honest, Bill; is everything really going all right?”  And so I told them what was going and what wasn’t!  Obviously I got a little too graphic because a couple of them put their hands over their ears and began repeating, “Too much information, too much information!”

 

There are words you can’t say in our society; we are polite people.  And yet we can speak slander, debasement, misdirection, libel, and hatred without even a second thought.  We can even broadcast it into our homes during prime time or blast it on our car radios in the middle of the day.  Our newspapers drip with malicious innuendo; our public speeches overflow with vile filth.  But it doesn’t alarm us or even make us blush.  Does this make sense?  Are we not Pharisees, complaining to Jesus about some minor malfeasance, when God’s laws of love are being shattered all around us?

 

This was the problem Jesus was having with the Pharisees.  “Whatever goes into the mouth, enters into the stomach and goes out into the sewer…but what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.”  The potty, WC, outhouse, toilet, thundermug is not what defiles our hearts and our society; it is what comes out of our hearts that defiles.  “For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.”  So, how do we temper what comes out of our hearts through our mouths?

 

Think first.  That’s a good idea.  Your mother told you that hundreds of times when you were growing up.  Think before you speak.  “Do these words represent the best of me?  Or am I lying, hoping to deceive enough gullible people to get my way or to get my candidate elected?”  Evil intentions.  Think before you speak.  God doesn’t go on vacations during political campaigns or during days of seduction (Sure, honey, I’ll love you forever) or when we are faced with uncomfortable truths about ourselves and look to defer the blame to others.  We are expected to be truthful all the time…and God is listening.  Think before you speak.  That’s a helpful idea.

 

A better idea is to purify your heart.  If what’s coming out of your mouth is getting you crossways with the truth and is opposed to the ways of the cross, then work on cleaning up the source.  Purify your heart.

 

I once attended a meeting of the Louisiana Council of Churches, a worship service, basically because I had promised someone I would.  I was dreading it and it exceeded all my dread expectations.  The choir numbers were pompous and boring; the litanies poorly written.  But most of my disdain was saved for the preacher who was basically unintelligible, speaking academic language in convoluted sentences, which he had to be reading since no one actually talks that way.  After the service I met with my Regional Minister, Bill Boswell, and I let loose with my disgust at the service and especially the preacher.  “Wow,” Bill said, “you must really dislike this guy.  Why?  What did he ever do to you?”  I don’t even know him, I replied.  “Well, you must have disagreed deeply with what he was saying.  What part offended you?”  I didn’t really listen much to what he was saying.  “Well, you must have thought that he was trying to slip something by us.”  No, he probably was doing the best he could; he seemed sincere; his bio said he has devoted his whole life to ministry.  “Well, then,” my minister said, “the problem must be in you.”  And it was.  My spiritual intake valve had been closed.  My heart needed a good cleaning.  Purify your heart and you won’t have to worry what comes out of your mouth.

 

I have a storm sewer cover right smack dab in the middle of my front yard.  It wasn’t there when we chose the lot but by the time the house was built, that ugly, rusting thing poked up to ruin the graceful slope and green hue of my yard.  I have griped about that storm sewer cover for 13 years to anybody who would listen—venom spewing forth at utility companies and city government.  Friday my 4 year old granddaughter Dory and I went to the front yard to toss around a new ball.  Guess where she insisted on standing?  To me the storm sewer cover is an eyesore.  To her it is the top of a castle turret; it is the stage of a rock concert; it is the pinnacle of a mountain.  We have a swing on the front porch that you would think would thrill her.  We have a beautiful flower bed to explore.  But she is drawn like a magnet to the sewer cover.  She views it from a heart full of wonder and magic.  I have been viewing it from a heart full of negativity and spite.  My heart needs a little sweeping out.  Seeing her perched on that sewer cover, beaming as if surrounded by a crowd of paparazzi, I realized that I will never see that rusty, metal circle in the same light again.  Purify your heart; then what comes out of your mouth will honor you and God.

 

Back in May a politico on cable news suggested that “somebody ought to knock off Osama,” but she said Obama instead.  When the anchor pointed out her mistake, she responded, “Osama, Obama…well, both of them if we could!”  And they laughed and laughed.  God didn’t.  “For out of the mouth comes…murder…and slander.”  No doubt those same TV talkers have complained about some minor moral morass in our midst.  If they complained about it to Jesus, he would tell them instead to watch their own mouths.  For it is what comes out of our hearts through our mouths that defiles us in the sight of God.

 

When I was a child, my mother was always threatening to wash my mouth out with soap.  Not a bad idea now that I think about it in light of this scripture.  It’s a lot more important than washing our hands.