Mark’s Gospel Mark 7:1-23

Mark 6:56 And wherever Jesus went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed. Mark 7:1-23 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.

(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”

He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! …. Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them, “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)

And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. And you do many things like this.”

Unusual to see so much commentary by Mark! Points to the struggle in the early church with Gentile Christians. Did they have to keep Jewish laws? Increasingly, the answer was no. Mark 2:27, ‘the Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.’ Acts 10:14-15 Peter and ‘profane food.’ Acts 15, Jerusalem council and circumcision. (see also Matthew 15 for same story in Mark 7)

By the time Mark writes, the church has progressed so far that some of his readers need an explanation of what the laws involved! Far from being required to keep the laws themselves, they don’t even get the reference. Surely some of you can relate.

The point is not the device. The point is the music! Best of all, live, in person.

The point is not the device. Not the ritual washing of hands before a meal. Not cleansing the bronze kettles or even making sure the food is ‘pure’. The point is God. Live and in person.

The point is not the device. Even our favorite device for approaching God. The music we prefer, the devotional we buy, the Bible version we are accustomed to, the prayers we recite, the group we meet with. (I am so fond of my current device that I even have an APP for that!)

And I follow this device on Twitter! (see March newsletter)

No matter how ancient or modern, how familiar or cutting edge, how widely used or unique to us… The point is not the device. The point is God!

The purpose of all spiritual disciplines is to engage with God in such a way that we are healed and transformed. We grow out of “obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness”, (Mark 7:21, MSG) And into “the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

What do you do that increases your ability to experience and express these fruits of the spirit? What do you do that makes it harder? How can you challenge and change those patterns?

Our world is tired of people who spend their energy being right, looking right, sounding right, even doing right if all of that ‘rightness’ is coming from an empty soul. Our world is desperate for people who love God, who are being transformed by God into the likeness of Christ, and who are willing to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world. Wear your SS sweats, and go be brave!