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Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 3, 2006 Sermon by The Rev. Bill Van Oss, Rector
Readings       

About 3 years ago, Sue, Luisa and I attended a lovely dinner party at the home of a prominent Northfield family.

Along with the other guests, we were invited to socialize before dinner in a large living room near the front of the house. Featured prominently in this beautiful room was a large piano. It was shiny and black. It’s lid was propped open so one could see the strings and hammers and soundboard inside. The keys were the whitest white and the blackest black. The bench was cushioned and pulled back slightly. A piece of classical music stood up perfectly in the music holder.

Our hostess noticed me admiring the piano, and I told her I thought it was beautiful. She proceeded to tell me how valuable to instrument was, how it had been meticulously restored, and how it was now in perfect condition.

“Do you play?,” I asked her.

“Oh, no,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“Does your husband?”

“No.”

“Your kids?”

“Oh, no, never” she said.

“We don’t play it. It’s only for display.”

And for the rest of the evening, I kept looking at that piano and feeling sorry for it. I imagined that it longed to make beautiful music, to have an accomplished player bring forth sounds that would lift the spirit and make the heart sing and dance.

I imagined family and friends gathered around it—belting out old favorites—church songs and tavern music while Uncle Henry plodded along at the keys.

I imagined a little child sitting with a seasoned instructor on that bench, learning to play the notes, yes, but also learning to make music, and even beyond that, learning to love music.

I imagined that beautiful piano, longing to serve the purpose for which it was created. And I felt sorry that its life was reduced to being dusted, polished, and bragged about.

That piano was like the scribes and the Pharisees in today’s Gospel—the scribes and the Pharisees were concerned about being clean and polished. The externals, appearances, were the most important things to them. They thoroughly took care of the externals—they dutifully washed and said their prayers and observed all of the rest of the details of the law– they were like shiny pianos sitting in the living room.

But Jesus challenges them. Jesus tells them that the purpose for which they were created was not to be clean and shiny on the outside, it was to follow the greatest commandment to love God and neighbor and to have a pure heart on the inside.

The scribes and Pharisees were like beautiful pianos that never made music, and Jesus calls them, and us, to remember why God created us in the first place: to love and serve—and love comes from within, from the heart, just like the virtues of compassion, mercy, forgiveness, generosity and selflessness come from within.

What matters is who we are on the inside. Are we living as the people God created us to be? As loving people, or are we just clean and shiny on the outside and not so on the inside?

Pianos are created to make music, to lift the heart and inspire the mind and move the soul. A piano that’s not played just takes up time and space.

We are created to love, to enter into relationships with God and each other that make us more fully human, more fully the people God created us to be.

Love has much, much, more to do with how we are on the inside, then whether we are clean and shiny on the outside.
           
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