Some religious traditions include rules about certain foods: what can be eaten, what can’t be eaten, how it is to be prepared, and which foods to use for religious festivals. These rules sometimes developed due to practical reasons. For example, we now know that if you don’t cook pork properly you can get sick and perhaps even die. To protect people in a time when science was not as well known or universally understood, it makes sense to simply prohibit eating pork. Making it against one’s religion and an afront to God is a significant deterrent for many people.
Religious rules can serve important purposes. Reframing ideals that protect people and support community as religious imperatives increases the likelihood that people will follow these rules for the betterment of everyone. Religious communities themselves are stronger when there is a reasonable level of agreement about behaviours, attitudes, and perspectives. This enables the community to focus its energy in other ways – like how to best proclaim the good news.
Religious rules can serve important purposes. The question becomes: what to do when people break these rules. Metaphorically and literally: how should people who eat pork be treated when it is prohibited by the religious community? At what point does breaking the rules become abhorrent and sinful?
Then (Jesus) called the crowd to him and said to them, ‘Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’
In today’s Gospel, Jesus reminds the community, and us, that religious rules should not be used to separate people. The rules in and of themselves are not necessarily determinants of sin and grace. There is more to it than that.
Sin is what separates us intentionally or unintentionally from God, the community, and creation. Thus, breaking a religious rule may not, in and of itself, be sinful, however, there may be consequences surrounding rules that result in separating us from God, the community, and/or creation. This is evident in Jesus’ interaction with the Canaanite woman. According to religious rules, Jews and Canaanites were not to interact. They were to be separate. Jesus initially embodied this religious rule. When the woman revealed a depth of faith and trust that Jesus could do what she asked, what she prayed for, Jesus ignored the social, religious expectations of his time and offered healing.
This is how Anglicans understand the sacrament of reconciliation. For us, this practice makes visible that challenge to reflect on the choices we make, intentionally and unintentionally, and recognise the extent to which these leave us distant from God and the community in ways that may need healing. Absolution of these acts is reserved for priests and bishops who serve as a stand in for Christ, making visible God’s grace, forgiveness, and love.
For us, Confession and Absolution is a corporate, pastoral act. There is a rite for the reconciliation of a penitent in the BAS starting on page 167. The ideal of this rite is to provide space to name those sins troubling the conscience providing an opportunity for conversation and healing. This leads to an expression of absolution by the priest or bishop with the goal of creating space for healing and transformation.
The corporate confession and absolution used in worship seeks to serve the same purpose. The pause immediately before the prayer of confession is meant to create space for personal reflection and acknowledgement of when we have fallen short. Then, together, we acknowledge what we have done and what we have left undone that separates us from God, community, and creation. Forgiveness is pronounced and we are challenged that, knowing better, we continually seek to do better.
We are all sinners. We all make choices that draw us away from God, community, and creation. It is not as simple as breaking rules. We are continually challenged to reflect on the consequences of our choices so that we might know better and do better. The sacrament of reconciliation provides outward and visible signs through which we can know the inward and invisible presence of God’s grace, forgiveness, and love.
Trusting the invitation to transformation in this rite, let us give thanks for God’s gentle presence helping us to know better and do better as we sing: 612 Healer of Our Every Ill
