Community Church Sermons

Year B

September 2, 2012

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

What Comes Out…

Mark 7:1-23

Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

Senior Pastor

LISTEN IN!

I haven’t talked with him about it, but I’m sure my primary care physician would object to today’s Gospel lesson. So would the Weight Watchers organization, and Jenny Craig, and the American Heart Association, and even my late sainted mother. My mom would NEVER let her children eat without washing their hands, and all those others would never agree that what goes into your belly doesn’t really matter. But thanks be to God, when we get to the 19^th verse of our reading from Mark 7, we see a parenthetical remark that states, “In saying these things, Jesus declared all foods clean.”

Thank you, Jesus!

One of our favorite family traditions is the annual Lobster and Clam Boil we enjoy every summer at our camp in New Hampshire. In August, lobster prices come down so we dash over to the Market Basket store in Claremont to pick up a bunch of those tasty crustaceans, a bushel or two of fresh Maine steamers, corn on the cob, sausages, new potatoes, and about 50 lbs of butter to melt and dip the other stuff into. Mmmm-hmmmm!

But…when the meal is all cooked and ready, and I crack that first lobster, I can’t help but feel guilty. I think back to the law in Leviticus 11:10 that declares eating shellfish to be an abomination to the Lord! An abomination! And as I dip the abominable lobster into that cup of drawn butter and then lift it toward my waiting, drooling mouth, I can’t help but think of my doctor and all the others who say it’s not healthy for me to eat all these fatty foods that can lead to a heart attack. And I am consumed by religious fear and medical guilt. What am I to do?

But thanks be to God, Jesus comes along in this passage from Mark 7 and says, “It’s not what goes into a Marty that defiles a Marty…” And verse 19 proclaims, “In saying this, Jesus declared it’s perfectly fine for Marty to eat lobster with drawn butter and all those other high fat, high cholesterol foods that Marty loves.” (Marty Singley Translation)

Thank you, Jesus!

The only trouble is that after I fill up my belly with all that fine food, I realize – or “admit” may be the more accurate term – that this story in the Gospel of Mark is not really about Jesus saying it’s okay to eat lobster, red meat, and as many Krispy Kreme donuts as you want.

In fact, Jesus isn’t really talking about food at all.

He’s talking about what messes up peoples’ lives, hurts us and the people around us, and makes the world less than what God intends it to be and knows it CAN be. Jesus is talking about evil.

Let me ask you a question: “Where do you think evil comes from?”

That’s a question that permeates our world, and all too often, we dodge the question by offering simplistic answers. Some try to answer it by creating a grand cosmic scheme in which Satan – the Evil One – falls like a star to earth and goes about causing evil to happen. “The devil made me do it,” is how Flip Wilson as the sultry Miss Geraldine Jones used to put it. Others answer it by casting a wary eye at other nations, institutions, populations, different religious groups and other individual people – blaming THEM for the evil we experience in life.

But Jesus goes deeper than that.

Jesus teaches us that evil comes from peoples’ HEARTS. “For from within,” Jesus says, “out of peoples’ hearts, come evil thoughts” …and actions.

And the word “peoples” – in the original – does not mean “some people”, or “those people”, but “all people.” And that includes you and me.

Where does evil come from? It comes from the depths of our hearts.

I’m not a believer in the doctrine of original sin that teaches that a stain of sin is passed down through sexual intercourse from parents to children and from generation to generation. That’s a very bad doctrine that disaffirms the beauty and dignity of the sexuality with which God created us, as well as the beauty and dignity of human beings who are made in the image of God.

And yet, we cannot deny the evil within us. We all sin. We all are capable of great good – and great evil.

I don’t have an answer about HOW evil comes to us, but I DO know that evil comes OUT of us. I know that personally, because evil comes out of ME.

Here’s what Jesus says: “For from within, out of peoples’ hearts, come evil thoughts – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.”

I’m sure these twelve expressions of evil are not an exhaustive list, and you may find that you are guilty of some and not others, but to be honest with you, I can claim for myself quite a few of these twelve. Some of us may try to stake a claim of self-righteousness here by noting we have not murdered anyone. And that’s good. But few of us can escape the sin of greed - which is wanting and accumulating more than we need, or malice - which is thinking bad thoughts toward others, or deceit - which shaves the truth in order to gain an advantage over another, or slander - which is bad-mouthing others behind their backs (ever attend a cocktail party around here?), or arrogance - which is thinking you are so much better than the guy holding the “Will Work for Food” sign down at the highway.

“It is what comes OUT of people that makes them unclean,” Jesus said.

The word “unclean” is an interesting term. It simply means “unacceptable to God – not God’s way – not God’s will.” To do unclean things is to disconnect yourself from God and God’s will, and you lose out on the beauty of God’s promises for you and others, and you interrupt God’s ongoing work of healing the world.

If you think of others as less than yourself, or yourself as better than them, do you think that’s going to build a better world? If you shave the truth, or make promises and then don’t keep them, do you think you’ll build good relationships of trust with others and strengthen the life of your family or community? If you center your life on greed and make sure you take care of number one, will you ever be as generous to others as if you practiced loving your neighbor AS yourself, and will the world be made more whole?

Your life and the lives of those around you will be torn down if what comes out of your heart is sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, folly, and everything else that to God, is unclean. They are unclean because these are all evils that destroy people and make life sad.

So what can we do to build better lives – lives that make us happier, and contribute to making the world as beautiful as God intends it to be?

The simple answer is to get your heart right with God.

Jesus describes the problem with religious people like us by quoting a passage from Isaiah: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

That means – for us – that it’s time to stop TALKING about being Christian, and start LIVING like Christians.

Maybe the first step in that direction would be to ask God to help us identify the evil in our own lives – in the thoughts we think, and the words we say, and the things we do – or don’t do. Mark Lowry – who many of you know from both his comedy and music with the Gaither Homecoming events – challenges us to not get sucked into focusing our lives on the sins of others, but rather to take a close look into our own lives. He talks about that old line, “Love the sinner, but hate the sin.” Remember that one?

Well, Mark says, “Love the sinner and hate the sin? How about love the sinner, and hate your own sin? I don’t have time to hate your sin. There are too many of you! Hating my sin is a full-time job. How about you hate your sin, I’ll hate my sin, and let’s just love each other?”

True Christianity begins with self-confession – true self-examination – taking a fearless moral inventory of our own lives - and a willingness to confront our own weaknesses and faults. Jesus told us that judging other people is not our job. That’s up to God. Judging ourselves IS our job.

And the best way to do that is by holding up the standard of Jesus against which to measure your own life. Do I have a relationship with God like Jesus had, committed to doing God’s will and not my own – even when it costs me? Like Jesus, do I find forgiveness in my heart for those who sin against me, and seek ways to reconcile with those who have hurt me? Like Jesus, do I see the best in people and work to build them up and bring it out? Do I bring Good News into peoples’ lives like Jesus, or do I spread doom and gloom?

The reason our church places Jesus at the center of our life instead of doctrines and traditions and denominations is because Jesus had a heart full of God’s grace, and he – more than they - can help us get our hearts right with God. Did you ever notice that the Gospel of Mark is a gospel of TOUCHING? Jesus TOUCHES people, and their lives are transformed! Jesus touches the unclean leper and he is made clean. Jesus is touched by the unclean women and she is made clean. Jesus touches the demon-possessed and the unclean-spirits flee away. Jesus touches Jairus’ dead-daughter and she rises from the dead. Jesus eats with Levi, the tax-collector and He becomes clean.

That’s why we gather together every week in worship. The church is like an ecosystem where the Spirit of Jesus is at work, permeating the community and all we do, touching peoples’ hearts!

And when your heart is touched by Jesus, you discover something important. Along with self-examination and the discovery of what’s wrong in your life, you come to appreciate what’s RIGHT about your life! Jesus shows us we are the beloved children of God, made in God’s own image, and God chooses to forgive what we are not, and to help us become what we can be!

At the very core of you is God’s Spirit and that Spirit is POWERFUL! It is the same Spirit that brought the world into being. It is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. It is the same Spirit that transformed an evil-doing Saul into a life-giving St. Paul, and it is the power behind history’s greatest moments of good overcoming evil.

This power for good within you - whose potential is greater than anything you can imagine – is a very simple thing.

Jesus tells us it is LOVE.

And the kind of love Jesus is talking about is not some syrupy nice feeling about others. It is concrete daily behavior that overcomes the power of evil. To love is to practice high moral standards, to love is to give to others and not take away from them, to love is to bring life to dead things, to love is to be faithful in your relationships, to love is to be generous, to love is to think good things of others, to love is to keep promises, to love is to fill others with good things, to love is to admire others and be glad for their successes, to love is to speak well and never bad about others, to love is to be humble and consider others as better than yourself, and to love is to live for things that really matter, and not for things that don’t.

In fact, take that list of the twelve evils that come out of peoples’ hearts and turn them around.

Take what is unloving about you, and ask God to help you turn it into love.

In today’s world, we know there ARE some things that go into us that hurt us – like too much lobster with drawn butter. But it is nonetheless true that what comes OUT of us is what makes life worse or better.

May Jesus touch your heart today. And may you find new ways to love!