Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23                    Susan J. Barnes

St. Matthew’s, Austin                        Aug. 31, 2003

In today’s gospel, Jesus delivers hard truth: it’s not what lies outside ourselves that defiles or corrupts us, he says. It’s within us. The human heart is the seat of evil and sin. This is a tough-love message.

It’s not our actions that condemn us, but our intentions, which we may or may not act out. Murder, adultery, theft—all horrible, destructive actions in themselves—are also symptoms of the fundamental sin. That sin is making an idol of our own selfish desires, turning our hearts toward those desires and away from the love of God.

Few of us are thieves or murderers, but every one of us will be guilty sometime of one thing or more on Jesus’ list. That’s because we are all sinners. Greed, envy, pride, slander, deceit are woefully common among us. As we become more spiritually mature, as we become more self-aware, we can admit our sins and bring them to God. In the Baptismal Covenant we promise—with God’s help—to repent and return to the Lord whenever we sin. When we do, when we open our hearts to God, God delivers. God will heal us. God will transform us. God is redeeming us.

That’s very Good News, indeed. There’s more: just as the human heart is the seat of sin, it is the seat of redemption. Just as it can harbor the intentions that lead to evil actions, so it can welcome and enthrone the divine love and grace that lead us to do God’s work in the world. The human heart is where we accept God’s claim on our lives. It’s where we receive God’s call.

As many of you know, the word Vocation comes from the Latin, vocare, which means to call. We use the word vocation to mean our profession, our occupation. It also means the work we are called to do in our families, in our communities, in our churches: our ministries.

Today, in celebration of Labor Day, we honor our vocations. We are going to do something special. In a couple of minutes I will invite you to bring forward a symbol of your work, to be blessed at the altar. If you have forgotten to bring something, don’t panic. It’s alright.

This was Merrill’s idea. I like it. And it made us think about how we define our work. We realized how much that gets tied up in how we identify ourselves. "What do you do?" people you’ve just met will ask—at least here in the States. In many parts of the world it is rude to ask people about their work. Now it’s a sensitive subject here, too, because so many people among us are unemployed or underemployed, maybe hurting because they’re in financial straits.

It’s sensitive, in part, because we can over-identify with our professions. We can over identify, too, with our roles in life, in the family. What we do becomes entangled with who we are. We don’t realize it until something happens that changes it: the children grow up, our spouse dies, we retire, we lose our job. Suddenly we no longer know who we are.

I know. It happened to me. For almost thirty years I was an art historian and art

museum professional. That’s all I ever wanted to be from the time I worked on my first big exhibition. I was 19, an undergraduate at Rice: sweeping the floors, putting labels on the walls, mostly watching my boss Dominique de Menil do her magical installation. No one who saw her exhibits will forget the effect. Each installation was a work of art itself. Each one was unique. Her genius was in presenting every object, every painting in such a way that you saw it as never before or afterward.

I worked for her for six years after graduation, then went on to do my Ph.D. in New York and Rome before resuming my museum career. Like any ambitious professional I climbed the ladder as I moved from Washington to Raleigh to Dallas: from Assistant Dean to Senior Curator to Deputy Director and Chief Curator. Organizing exhibitions, doing research, purchasing paintings, I traveled to New York, Washington, Europe as a matter of course. This was my glamour period, my Auntie Mame period.

In 1995, to my surprise, Dominique de Menil called me back to be Chief Operating Officer of her foundation, which oversees the celebrated museum, The Menil Collection. The assignment was tough. The museum was spending far more than the endowment generated. Her fortune was being drained to make up the difference. But I was used to tough jobs. So it should have been a dream: returning home to Houston, to live close to my parents and friends; working again with my beloved mentor. Those were good things.

But the rest was a nightmare. We don’t have time for details now. Suffice it to say but the environment was pure poison. Oh, I did the job. Working closely with Mrs. De Menil I found the problem—reckless spending by the entrenched self-indulgent management. We closed a huge hole--$2.5 million to be exact in a $9 million budget.

Then, I was forced out. Agents of change never stay very long. Realistically, my museum career was shattered. At 47, I didn’t know who I was, much less what on earth I would do. I battled depression and got help with medication. That was an important part of God’s provision: it silenced the self-critical voices so that I could hear God’s voice once I got onto my knees. When I did that, when I asked and listened, I heard God’s call. It happens that my call was to do ordained ministry. Most important of all, though, was hearing my call to be God’s beloved child.

And each of you is called to be God’s beloved child, too.

That is the only constant in our lives. All the rest will pass away. Every job we have, every role we have in our families or in society—every one will change. But we came into this world as God’s children, we dwell here as God’s children, and when we die we return to God’s loving arms. That, my friends, is the promise of the kingdom. And it is yours and yours and yours and mine.

Weekly we have a foretaste of that promise when we gather at this altar. That’s because we come to the Eucharist feast as equals, as brothers and sisters in Christ, as God’s children—every one.

Thinking about this Sunday, I have mused about what I would bring as a symbol of my work, as I know others have. Writing this sermon it hit me. At the ministry fair Holly Decherd had covered the Outreach Table with red and pink paper hearts. That’s what it’s about. So I brought a heart. It’s an artwork I bought years ago.

Now I invite you to come forward with whatever you want to lay here before the altar to be blessed. The spirit of the offering will remain through the service, but to make room for communion, we’ll ask you to retrieve the objects themselves at the Peace.

If you didn’t get the message about this, if you forgot, if you couldn’t figure out what to bring, it doesn’t matter. Whatever we bring is just a symbol of the commitment of our hearts. If you like, come and touch the altar. If you prefer, sit quietly and lift up your heart in prayer.