Inside Out

Mark 7:14-23

      Have you ever put a shirt on with the tag on the outside? If you have ever gotten dressed in the dark and in a hurry, you probably have. Kids do it all the time. Or they put the shirt on backwards with the tag under the chin. Now there are all those screen printings on T-shirts that help us keep things straight more often. Some of us who wear glasses appreciate not having to try and see the placement of the tag, or the printing where the tags used to be. It is easy to find the great big words and pictures!

      Some people live their lives like they wear their T-shirts. They don’t have the ability to control their emotions and they wear them for the whole world to see. You know they type. You bump into them in the store and they are ranting and raving at the cashier, or at customer service, or at their kids. They give you a ‘look’ when you happen to be in their way.

      Or their emotions get poured out when they meet you at a social function. Their pain gushes out. And then you pull out the mental list of all the problems that seem to have hit them in the past. They are a magnet for pain. Or at least they haven’t learned that always telling others about your pain is not socially acceptable.

      Some people live their lives driven from these inside emotions. They never take the time to consider making choices out of reason or commitment or principle. If they feel it, they must act on it. The list of social ills that is propagated and encouraged based on this belief is innumerable. All the self-indulgent behavior, from eating to elicit drug use, stems from following the emotions no matter the consequence.

      The religious leaders of Jesus’ day lived outside in lives. They had a set of rules that guided their behavior. If they wanted to do something, they always checked the rulebook to be sure they could do it. But their rulebook had become so complicated that their rules often contradicted God’s Law. What started out as a Helpful Guide to Being a Jew ended up being the very thing that prevented them from really being a Jew.

      One area of concern for these religious leaders was ritual purity. If they came in contact with a non-Jew, they were required to wash off that contamination. Each time they performed the ritual in reinforced their belief that they were better than the non-Jews because they kept their rulebook at hand and referred to it often. They spent a lot of time worrying about their food, where it came from and how it was prepared.

      Jesus brings clarity when clarity is needed. He tells us that food doesn’t matter. No food can separate you from God. No food can bring you closer to God. Menu options are limitless in His Kingdom. We can eat what we want without worrying about whether or not it pleases God. He is not concerned with our cholesterol numbers.

      Whole denominations would go out of existence if they understood these verses. Food doesn’t bring us closer to or push us further away from God. Our hearts do that.