False Advertising
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
August 16, 2026—Proper 15A
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28
I have an old friend from college, whose husband has dragged around a full workroom of tools for the last I don’t know how many moves they have made. Power tools, hand tools, workbenches, the whole gamut. And don’t get me wrong, he used to use all of them. Used to take on the kind of projects that required safety goggles and respirators, and sheets of plastic tacked up in doorways.
But over the years, that fell off. More and more, the hammers and the saws and the packs of dust masks … simply gathered dust. And still, every time they moved, all that stuff got packed up, and moved along with them.
Because those tools were an outward indicator, not just to others, but to him, of a kind of person he wanted to be. Needed to believe that he still was. He valued the idea of being someone who was handy, who did all the household projects himself. And keeping the tools was enough to shield him from the reality that he hadn’t been that guy for years now.
If we’re honest, most of us do this in some way or another. A shelf of great literature that we’re going to read one of these days. A kitchen full of fancy gadgets. That elliptical machine. We keep them, at least partly because we like the way they make us feel. As though we really are the kind of person who makes gourmet meals every night, all the while discussing the relative merits of Toni Morrison and Herman Melville.
And look, keeping those things around might actually inspire us to become or be that person again. But I would argue that’s more likely to happen if we let go of the fantasy that simply owning them means anything at all about who we really are.
Of course, it turns out that admitting to yourself that you’re not really the person who dry-walls the basement is just the practice round. It helps you build the spiritual muscle for taking inventory and action on the more important things. On the things about character. On the virtues we signal without worrying too much about whether we’re actually living them out. For instance, dropping $10 in the Salvation Army bucket when I pass by might make me feel and look like a generous person, but true generosity is something far deeper, about gratitude and joy and mutual responsibility. Having friends of different races is a good and wonderful thing, and it might well reduce prejudice in everybody involved. But actual anti-racism requires listening and educating yourself and doing the actual work to even begin to dismantle centuries of damage.
None of the outward signs are bad things, in and of themselves. The workbench and the Shakespeare; the donations and the friends; the organic food, the going to the church, and the flag pins: they’re fine. They might even be great. The danger only arises when we start to build them into an advertisement about ourselves that hides an emptier (or more sinister) self.
It’s the charge Jesus lays against the Pharisees, once again, in today’s gospel. Not that the hand-washing is a bad thing, not that ritual law can’t add to a faithful, obedient life. But that they have made these outward signs of piety into an advertisement of their own religiosity, their own righteousness. Which not only tempts them to condemn other people as unclean and unrighteous, but Jesus warns it might distract them from the things that are truly central.
Which has always been the job of the prophets: to remind the religious and political authorities of God’s priorities. To call them back from whatever flights of self-righteousness and self-aggrandizement they have been on, back to God’s call to care for the poor, the sick, and the strangers among them.
Calling them back. Not denouncing them. Not announcing the end of Torah or the eclipse of Judaism. “Has God rejected his people? By no means! … the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:1, 29). The unfolding plan of God’s salvation is always expanding, not replacing. We’ve been added in. Which means that we too, in our turn, will need regular reminders of what that really means and what really matters. The prophetic warnings to Temple and synagogue are now also warnings to the Church.
Because we forget. Because we start to believe that proclaiming “Jesus saves!” is more important than allowing God’s power to flow through us to heal and liberate and yes, save the world. We start to believe that the label is more important than the product inside.
We have to be reminded what it means to be a Christian (or for that matter, to be any of the identities we claim). What are the core values, and what does it take to live them out? Not just to claim an attractive label, but to allow yourself to be challenged, to do the hard work of actually living it out.
Even Jesus had to be reminded sometimes, challenged to live out the values he preaches. This Canaanite woman confronts him with his own mercy, his own generosity, his own mission of healing. In effect, she says, “THIS is what you claim to do. This is who you claim to be. Now BE it!!” And I love the fact that the gospel allows him to stammer a little, to make one last attempt to clutch at the label, before acknowledging the point. The mission is larger than he’d ever expected, so much more than his tired and very human feet had planned upon. But there was no way around it: she was right. This was indeed who he was, and there was nothing for it but to do whatever he could to ease this child’s torment.
Which leads us back, of course, to the question of who it is we claim to be. We, as the body of Christ, carrying on who he was and what he did in this world. We, as Americans, looking to our history, to our founding documents, to the words on the Statue of Liberty; hoping that none of them is just a label, and wondering how we can best live them out. And you. Who or what is it that you want to be? And what will it ask of you, for you to actually BE it?
My friends, may the same Jesus, who was called deeper into himself by a foreign woman and her suffering child, walk with us on the way. Amen.