Purity Matters
Leviticus 10:3; Matthew 18:1-14
A Sermon Delivered by Thomas J. Boone, Ph.D
Central Presbyterian Church, Mobile, AL, February 24, 2008

The Hubble Telescope, to which we are thankful for spectacular images of God's grandeur in the heavens, is a $2 billion collection of wires, metal, and technology that was rendered useless because of a problem with its mirror. Imagine that the greatest of all telescopes ever produced was brought to its proverbial knees on account of a simple mirror. Actually, the mirror isn't all that simple, but you get the point I hope. The heart of a telescope, even one as fancy as Hubble, is a mirror, and without its heart in good shape it couldn't function. That's an illustration for what God's Word is saying to us this morning. One of our members put it this way. We all are responsible to be light-bearers. Now there's only One who has created the light, and that's Jesus. Our role is to reflect the light of Jesus, and without a pure heart we won't be able to reflect His light very well. God has always been jealous for our purity. Purity has always mattered to God.

It’s easy to reduce purity matters to moral behavior. But if this were the case then it would be difficult to explain why Jesus had the most critical things to say against the religious guardians of purity. Christian teachers in the generations after the original disciples taught that impurity arises when the soul yearns after little “g” gods rather than Almighty God. I once heard a youth pastor talk to a group of high schoolers about abstinence and purity, and what impressed me wasn’t his focus on how the youth were supposed to behave, but on how to keep their focus on God. “We know what’s false by knowing what’s true very well,” is how he put it.

Purity makes for good Lenten meditation because it’s primarily a spiritual condition that affects the way we live. Purity isn’t just a physical matter; rather, it begins with our spiritual faithfulness to a holy Lord. It’s a deeper condition than anyone can judge properly from the surface. I’ve seen surface purity that reeks of judgmentalism and arrogance once I peer into the heart. I’ve seen silk-suited Christians in church make decisions in the business world based on questionable ethics at best. The kind of purity I’m talking about grows out of an acute acceptance that we are loved.

I know someone in construction who you’d never guess from the surface is a man of pure heart. He smokes, and to hear him talk with sub-contractors, roofers, plumbers, and electricians you’d think he was just one of the boys. He works in a rough world and every now and then you’ll see him smile. He doesn’t drink, but that’s only because he’s a recovering alcoholic so he’s been down the path of addiction. His face is worn, his hands are hammered thick, and he’s completely no-nonsense. He’s seen it all, and you’re not going to fool this guy. But even if he’s not the handsomest creature on the planet he loves the Lord and he has a heart of gold. He’ll give you about anything, builds without cutting corners, lives simply, works with non-Christians so he can bring them to Christ, and even though you’d never spot him on a church committee he’ll bend over backwards to serve. That’s purity.

But have you ever wondered why purity matters so much, especially when we live in times that have radically redefined things that the Bible finds unacceptable? Does God just like to see us behave certain ways? Does Christianity amount to a system that controls behavior, which sounds an awful lot like a tyrant/subject relationship?

In his book, Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning tells the story of a woman who lived in the 17^th century and had a vision of Christ telling her the following words. “More pleasing to me than all your prayers, works, and penances is that you would believe that I love you” (RG, 117). Purity matters because it’s a natural outgrowth of a thankful heart. It’s our once depraved and condemned souls saying, “Thank you, Lord, and for all you have done I give you myself.”

Purity begins when pride collapses because only an honest person can be pure. And if we’re honest about things, we know we’re all cracked pots that have been reclaimed by a Holy God.

What did purity matter for a bunch of tax collectors, prostitutes, and rough fishermen? It didn’t mean all of a sudden becoming righteous on the outside for everyone to see. It meant being honest about their need for the Lord, surrendering themselves to transformation by His word, and thanking Him for having reached down from on high and rescuing them despite their depravity. The religious elite thought they were pure, but they were the ones who put Jesus to death. Outer purity means nothing to God if it’s not a reflection of a heart broken by grace.

When my daughter found out that I was talking about purity today she told me I should talk about this story of the mop, but I had no idea what she was talking about. So, like any 18 year old is proud to do for the "old man" she decided to remind me. Imagine that someone has given you a mop and takes you to a room where there's water running out of a faucet. But it's not just a trickle of water it's a flood of water that has over-filled the sink and has begun to collect on the floor. Now imagine that the person tells you to mop up the mess, and not stop until the mess is cleaned up. How are you going to do it? One approach would be to mop the water up, but this would be an endless task because the water would still be flowing from the sink to the floor. The better approach would be to turn off the faucet and then mop up the water. The reason my daughter thought about this analogy with purity is because if we focus on the outer behavior without first addressing the sinful heart we're doing nothing but mopping up endlessly beneath a running faucet. God wants us to turn off the faucet first and that's what His Word is getting at with today's readings.

If you’ve been following along in the Old Testament readings this week I can’t blame you if your eyes have glazed over for all the laws. In the middle of the readings though, there was a startling text from Leviticus 10. Aaron was Moses’ chief assistant, who became the leader of the priesthood. Aaron’s sons decided that rather than use the pure incense required by the law they would use a standard incense. What’s the difference, right? How will the Lord know, right? Well here’s what happened. “Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord ... and Aaron was silent.” Moses quickly reminded Aaron of a point his sons had missed. God is holy and before all people He will be glorified. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Jesus knew this, too, which is why in Matthew 18 we have a series of teachings by Jesus, which at first glance seem random, but in reality they focus on purity. Jesus begins in verses 1-5 with some words about how we must change and become like children in order to be in God’s kingdom. The heart of the matter for Christ is a heart of humility, for in God’s kingdom this is only one Lord and it isn’t us. Thus, we view children not as offensive, in the way, or even as little adults. Rather, Jesus encourages us to look at them as models with respect to their humility.

Jesus goes on to talk about the little ones whom we can influence either toward holiness or toward sin. By little ones, Jesus might mean a child but likely this includes a person young to the faith. If those of us who are older in the faith cause the little ones to stumble in their faith then according to Jesus it would be better if we were drowned in the sea with a cement block fastened to us. We only have to look back a couple of months at what happened on the Dauphin Island Bridge to consider how serious this is.

After this grave statement Jesus continues to talk about sin, and how we should respond to it. We shouldn’t placate it, excuse it, or defy it. We should flee from it because that sin we nurse in ourselves can not only do harm to us, but can be a stumbling block to others. Jesus isn’t advocating actually cutting our hands off for the sake of sin, or gouging out our eyes. He’s telling us that at all costs we must be rid of the sin that causes us and others to stumble.

And then in verses 10-14 Jesus says one more thing about the little ones. No matter what, Jesus says, the Christian community must guard against losing to the world a person young in faith. I think if we were to truly grasp that command few of us would fail to be humbled greatly by it. If there’s any accommodation to the world on our part, and we allow it to influence our children and new or struggling believers, then we have violated the direct will of God.

Now, we won’t experience the same consequence as Aaron’s sons did for doing such things, but the point remains. Purity matters, and if we lose sight of it in the core of our being then we’ll wander down the path of death, either spiritually, emotionally, or sometimes physically. What unites these various words from Jesus is a word appropriate for any season in the church, but maybe more poignant during Lent. Purity matters and it begins with a humble heart broken by grace. Purity isn’t foremost about how well we show off our faith before others, it’s about our heart condition. If you’re struggling during Lent to defeat your stumbling block of sin that you confessed on Ash Wednesday, then first look to the purity of your heart. A pure heart before God is a humble heart, willing to say that a Holy God has redeemed an unholy person, and for this we are thankful beyond measure. A pure heart isn’t perfect, it’s simply broken, humbled, and willing to let the Holy Spirit change it one sin at a time out of gratitude for God’s love and forgiveness.

I love how Brennan Manning puts this in prayer form, and I’ll close with it. “Lord Jesus, we are silly sheep who have dared to stand before You and try to bribe You with our preposterous portfolios. Suddenly we have come to our senses. We are sorry and ask You to forgive us. Give us the grace to admit we are ragamuffins, to embrace our brokenness, to celebrate Your mercy when we are at our weakest, to rely on Your mercy no matter what we may do. Dear Jesus, give us the gift to stop grandstanding and trying to get attention, to do the truth quietly without display, to let the dishonesties in our lives fade away, to accept our limitations, to cling to the gospel of grace, and to delight in Your love. Amen” (RG, 139).