Drastic Measures

Mark 9:43-48

      Some people will use drastic measures to achieve their goals. Weight loss comes to mind. If you think about all the diet fads that have run their course over the last 50 years you would get dizzy thinking about it. You can pick just about any random combination of foods and there was a diet that fit those ingredients.

      Let’s not talk about all the surgeries to shrink the stomach in order to lose weight. Or liposuction to remove the fat. Or the tucks. How about exercise to the point of obsession and addiction. People will go to almost any lengths or achieve their weight goals.

      Look at the drive to chase the goal of being ‘rich’, and how far it has taken people. The scandals and corruption are almost unbelievable, if they weren’t true. People willing to risk everything just to own another boat or condo or mansion. They compromise all sense of decency trying to chase a dream.

      Jesus speaks about some drastic measures to take in your quest for heaven. He speaks of cutting off hands and feet, and gouging out your eye if those things get in the way of your quest for heaven. These are pretty drastic, even though hundreds of millions of people around the world feel they are perfectly acceptable punishments for crimes committed.

      There is nothing worth keeping if you lose heaven. The stakes are so high, that even losing one of these body parts, does not compare to the loss of eternal life. Jesus is not expecting us to cut off our hands, but to make the appropriate changes to our life so as not to jeopardize eternity with Him.

      The alternative, hell, is no picnic. Whatever might be said about the gentle, teacher, hell was among His topics. He pictures it as the alternative to heaven. If heaven is real, then hell must be real also, or Jesus’ statements are nonsense. And the picture isn’t pretty. Fire and flesh eating worms that last forever is the picture.

      I’m not a fan of fire on the skin. I try to avoid it, don’t you! I can’t imagine enjoying flesh eating anything, can you? And this is the picture Jesus gives of hell. No wonder He uses such striking images of the lengths we should go in order to avoid it and gain heaven.

      No cost is too great, nothing is worth keeping, no stone should be left unturned in our pursuit of the LORD. Jesus has provided everything we need. He gives us grace to meet all of life’s challenges. We need to recognize this and not allow anything to get in the way of that grace working in our lives.

Foodie

Mark 7:17-19

      I read an opinion editorial in the LA Times today. The writer stated what I have often felt as I hear about the new diet trends hitting the airwaves. He made the argument that all food trends are more marketing than science, and that in the end they pass away. You have to admit that we do get sucked into some strange eating beliefs sometimes.

      Now I am for healthy eating, don’t get me wrong. And I do understand that eating nuclear waste is not an acceptable option. But the actual difference in health outcomes between the various dietary trends is almost negligible. Unfortunately, that is the reality. I wish I could eat to a perfectly healthy life, as long as it included some bacon occasionally and a lobster or two.

      To combat the error in the religious community of Jesus’ day, Jesus points out the biological cycle of food. You put it in your mouth, chew, and swallow. It gets digested and then it comes out the other end in a day or two. So no food affects your spiritual nature. That is determined by something other than food.

      Now, I am not saying that food can’t affect our spiritual health. It can. But the source of our spiritual strength does not originate with food. Our spiritual health comes from the grace of God that we find in Jesus Christ, not from the food we eat or don’t eat.

      My concern for some in the Body of Christ is that energy that should be or could be devoted to the central mission of the Gospel ends up getting expended on food issues. We hop from trend to trend getting fired up about this or that. I wish we could get fired up about the Gospel and stay fired up.

      Our diet has some importance in our lives. If we are too overweight, then we won’t be as healthy, which then impedes our ability to be active in sharing the love of Christ for all humanity. The LORD wants us to be healthy, but that is NOT His goal. We live in a fallen world and we will all die of something. Jesus is more concerned about our hearts, the inner core of our being. He wants His presence to fill and influence that area of our lives. This can be done regardless of the diet we keep or don’t keep.

      In some places, many places in fact, diet is not really a consideration, other than finding enough to eat so starvation is held off for another day. If it is edible, when you are starving, you will eat it. And in the process, if you are a Jesus-follower, you will give thanks where thanks are due.

      Take a look at your energy expended on food. Is it taking the right proportion of energy from your life, or are you out of balance?

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.

To Vegan or Not To Vegan

Mark 7:1-23

      Rules and regulations around food are not a new condition. They did not start with the protections that the Food and Drug Administration imposes. They did not start with regulations about food safety and the work of multinational corporations. There have always been rules around eating.

      My mom always insisted that we “wash our hands before eating.” We put the fork on the left side of the plate and knife and spoon on the right, sharp edge of the knife facing your own plate. The drinking glass was to the right side of the plate. We were Bostonians, after all. We had culture, even though my parents came from hard working stock. There were other rules about the order of eating. You couldn’t eat your dessert first! Prayer started it off.

      I can bet you had some rules around eating as well, when you were growing up. Perhaps they weren’t the same rules as mine, but think about it. Everyone has them, even though they are often unspoken, unwritten rules. Traditions grow up slowly over time and involve many small impositions of rules.

      The religious culture of Jesus’ day had many rules and rituals, just like cultures today. We get a glimpse into one of those rules in our passage. The rule was simple. If you have been out among non-Jews, wash your hands to symbolize that you are better, holier than they are. They had many rituals that symbolized this same distain for people not like them. And those who wouldn’t observe these rituals were put into that “other” group. They were excluded. If you are having trouble wrapping your mind around this, think yacht or country club with a religious twist.

      But Jesus will have nothing to do with this exclusionary practice. No secret handshakes, no membership cards, no outstanding annual dues. Jesus sees right to the heart of the matter: their hearts. It wasn’t the ritual itself that caused the greatest trouble for Jesus, it was their heart attitude that ruined the value of the ritual.

      You see, somewhere along the spiritual journey of God’s chosen people, the Jews, they had  gotten the message that the purpose of their choosing was that they would be chosen, that they would get an unlimited lifetime pass to God’s amusement park. But of course that wasn’t the LORD’s intent from the beginning. His purpose was to pass His love through a people to the whole world. They were meant to pass it along, not become the exclusive holders of God’s grace.

      Are there rules you have in life that close people off from the hope we have in Christ? Do you have rituals that indicate you feel better than other people, certain people? Do you not go certain places because you are not like them?