Living from the Heart

Confirmation Sunday

August 16^th 2026

Scripture: Romans 11:1-2a, 29-36 & Matthew 15:10-20

When we celebrate baptism or affirmations of baptism, we are invited to recall all of the miraculous ways God has used water in order to show God’s unconditional love and salvation. In the beginning, God’s Spirit moved over the waters and God’s Word spoke all things into being. Early on, a flood devastated the world and God promised never to destroy humanity again. When the Israelites fled from slavery in Egypt, God parted the Red Sea. After successfully fleeing Pharaoh, when they found themselves parched in the desert, God made water flow from a rock. When Naaman pleaded for healing from his leprosy, God cured him with waters from the Jordan River. John the Baptist used those same waters to baptize thousands, even Jesus himself. Jesus turned water into wine and walked on stormy seas.

Water is essential for life and one of the most common elements found on Earth. Water makes up 71% of the world and roughly 55% of our bodies. If water provides life, it makes sense that the God of Life would use it as an essential sign of God’s unconditional love and faithfulness in all God has created. However, as we hear in the gospel reading this morning, sometimes we take things too far. Just before the verses we read this morning in Matthew, the Pharisees come to Jesus and asked, “Why are your disciples breaking the elders’ rules handed down to us? They don’t ritually purify their hands by washing before they eat.” They are angry at Jesus because they have strict laws that say what you can and cannot eat and how you should prepare for things like eating and worship. One of their laws was hand washing before eating. Now, this is something we encourage still to this day and I’m sure they made it a law in ancient times because they too found that unclean hands can cause illness and even death. Their intentions may have been just, but their execution was unjust.

Jesus breaks bread with disciples, women, children, tax collectors, the sick and injured, the foreigners and the outcasts. Many of the people Jesus broke bread with didn’t know the rituals of purification, nor would they have had the same access to clean water and sanitation as those who worked in or near the Temple, like the Pharisees. Jesus, however, doesn’t let this stop him. He breaks bread with those who have ‘unclean hands,’ but he makes it known to the Pharisees and those who shame him, that while they may have unclean hands, they have clean, pure hearts. Jesus says, “It’s not what goes into the mouth that contaminates a person in God’s sight. It’s what comes out of the mouth that contaminates the person. Don’t you know that everything that goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? But what goes out of the mouth comes from the heart. And that’s what contaminates a person in God’s sight.”

Jesus is not denying the importance of water and its purifying capabilities, but he is calling out the hypocrisy of those in charge of the laws. They may have clean hands, but their hearts are far from pure when what comes out of their mouths stings like venom and separates people from God’s love rather than brings them into the fold. Jesus jokes that what goes into the body, with clean or unclean hands, will get expelled and end up in the sewer, but what comes from the heart and out through the mouth is what can be truly contaminated, dumping toxins not just into the sewers, but into the hearts and minds of others.

Words hold more weight than we like to believe. We like to say that ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.’ However, that is untrue. Words are so powerful that by God’s Word everything came into being. Words have the power to break someone down or build them up. Words create languages and laws and dictate emotions, feelings, and beliefs. Words create worlds.

The words with which God used to create the world, to create YOU, are gifts. God has given us all the gift of life and called us GOOD; not poor, wretched souls in need of saving, but good. God has bestowed upon all of the world’s gifts a calling that cannot be taken back. You are from God, for God, and made through God. Your life matters. You, creature of dirt and water, you are God’s GOOD creation. For YOU, God painted the rainbow in the sky, parted the sea, brought water through a rock, and blessed you in baptism. The water placed on our heads reminds us that we are one with God. That God claims us and names us as God’s own. That who we truly are in this life is God’s beloved.

As we grow older and we affirm our baptism and grow in our faith, we are also growing as humans. This always comes with the existential questions of identity and purpose. Who am I? How did I come to be? Why did I come to be? It is a gift to come back to the waters again and again throughout our lives, an element so basic and readily available in most places, and remember who we are and whose we are.

We are from God, through God, and for God. We are claimed, named, and sent. We are unconditionally loved and inseparable from God, whose very essence is baked into our DNA. When we live our lives remembering this basic truth, we will live more fully from a pure heart. And pure hearts create words that build up, create feelings of love and safety, and create worlds of peace and joy. There are a lot of laws and a lot of pharisee-like leaders who will try to lead you down alternative paths throughout your lives. They will create the perfect formulas for the perfect life. However, those who follow their heart will not be swayed. Those who tap into their God center will see through shallow attempts of control and power and they will choose instead to follow in the footsteps of Jesus; the ultimate creator of a world of kinship, belonging, peace, security, justice, love and salvation.

What we put into this world matters. May we always follow Jesus’ lead, building up the kin-dom on earth as it is in heaven. May we take each step from a pure heart, remembering always our heart is our God center, strong enough to build or destroy the world we are creating. May the water of life be a constant refresher of God’s claim on your life, reminding you who you are, where you’re going, and empowering you to get there. Amen.