Mark 7:14-16; 20-23
Jesus called the crowd together again and said, "Pay attention and try to understand what I mean. The food that you put into your mouth doesn't make you unclean and unfit to worship God. The bad words that come out of your mouth are what make you unclean."
Then Jesus said: What comes from your heart is what makes you unclean. Out of your heart come evil thoughts, vulgar deeds, stealing, murder, unfaithfulness in marriage, greed, meanness, deceit, indecency, envy, insults, pride, and foolishness. All of these come from your heart, and they are what make you unfit to worship God.
Scripture taken from the Contemporary English Version © 1991,1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.
Some of you know that I have food allergies… and my primary culprit is corn. If you go to the grocery store and start reading labels, you will find that corn is in thousands of things we eat every day. It has fancy names, such as microcrystalline cellulose, propylene glycol, citric acid, and modified food starch. All of these ingredients… and dozens more… may be derived from corn.
A “natural” ingredient that is readily grown throughout the world can cause all sorts of unpleasant things to happen to people who are allergic… hives, swelling, nausea and stomach pain, headaches and stuffy head, and in some cases – death. The corn itself is not harmful to most people… but how it reacts in my body and the bodies of others with this allergy causes all sorts of potentially bad things to happen. The problem is what my body does with the corn products.
Jesus is telling us in this passage that what we say or do may seem harmless on the surface, but it’s what our heart does with this that matters. So it may seem like you are not hurting anyone else by drinking a little or popping a few pills… but when you get behind the wheel and drive – or your activities get out of hand and you start behaving irrationally or irresponsibly – there is trouble. Telling a couple of “white lies” to supposedly protect the feelings and/or reputation of someone else may not seem like a big deal. But over time, it gets easier and easier to lie and distort things… and before long, the lines between reality and your fabrications are more than a little blurry.
As I’ve mentioned before, we all “fly off the handle” once in awhile, and we may even apologize quickly and say, “I didn’t mean it!” But our words and actions, if not kept in check, can get away from us in a hurry. Soon we are known as someone who “has a short fuse” or is “radical and unreasonable”… someone others don’t want to be around for very long, and certainly not a good witness for Jesus Christ.
The point is… we have to look at the big picture. On the surface, a ritual may seem important to our faith… a behavior or comment may seem inconsequential. But when internalized in our body – when these things penetrate our heart – what we send back out into the world may not be pleasing to anyone, especially God. We need to examine every facet of our lives closely. We need to “read the labels” and make sure that we are not ingesting anything harmful. We must be certain that the things we say and do – the behaviors and choices we internalize – will enable us to model Christian behavior to others that honors God and pleases Him. The old adage… “Garbage in – garbage out”… applies totally in this situation. It’s time to kick our garbage to the curb – and leave it there. Have you taken out the trash lately?
©2011 Debbie Robus
No comments:
Post a Comment