Sermon - 8-16-20

<p>Last Monday morning, my friend, Bill Uetricht, and I were discussing today’s readings. He suggested that Richard Rohr’s daily meditations over the past few days connect to these readings.  Lately, Rohr has been discussing the fact that we grow in thinking, maturity, understanding, and in our faith by “passing beyond some perceived perfect <em>Order</em>, through an often painful and seemingly unnecessary <em>Disorder</em>, to an enlightened <em>Reorder</em> or resurrection. This is the universal pattern that connects and solidifies our relationships with everything around us…. To grow toward love, union, salvation, or enlightenment, we must be moved from Order to Disorder and then ultimately to Reorder.”</p> <p>As I continued to study these lessons, I believe Bill hit the nail on the head. So often, religious communities attempt to create and place themselves in these containers or boxes, placing perimeters around themselves. Such efforts help to create a highly defined sense of order but, they also establish communities intently focused on tradition and exclusivity with troubling exclusionary practices. In today’s reading from Isaiah, the people have returned to Jerusalem from Babylonian exile, and they are attempting to reorganize, both as a religion and as a society.  So, they create a narrowly defined sense of order by excluding foreigners and outsiders and establishing strict boundaries. The prophet disrupts this by proclaiming God’s vision of community which <strong>includes</strong> outsiders! He says those previously excluded from the covenant may now belong because all may fit under God’s umbrella!  Isaiah’s words lead the people to reorder their understanding of divine mercy and God’s welcome for <strong>all</strong> people.</p> <p>Then, in today’s gospel reading, Jesus is speaking to the religious community about the rigid order created by an intent focus on tradition and conventional religious practices. He is speaking to <strong>all</strong> who hold tradition and ritual in high esteem and conside