The Heart of the Matter

Jesu Juva

St. Mark 7:14-23                                                                

August 29, 2021

Proper 17B                                 

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          It’s tough to find a religion that doesn’t have a use for food.  Food and religion go together, it seems.  Even the ancient pagans had their feasts and festivals.  There was the annual Passover meal in the Old Testament—along with numerous other sacrifices of grain and animals (which would usually end up being eaten by someone).  In the New Testament we have the Lord’s Supper—a sacramental meal at the very heart of our faith.  And, it’s also true, that we can’t overlook all the potlucks, Easter breakfasts, and Lenten suppers which are synonymous with church basements and fellowship halls everywhere.  Food and religion go together.

          In fact, a lot of people can get downright religious about their food.  Foodies and dieticians can be rabidly religious, blessing every delectable morsel as if it were manna from heaven.  Some people see a cosmic struggle between good and evil playing out on the plate in front of them three times a day.  There are good carbs and evil carbs.  Good fats and evil fats.  Gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, sugar-free.  It can become a kind of religion that says, if you put the right kinds of good food in your mouth, you will be pure, holy, and healthy.

          Today’s holy gospel plays out in the shadow of the Old Testament, which placed strict regulations on what you could not eat.  To put this in a way that you Wisconsinites can understand, OT dietary laws boiled down to this:  no Neuske bacon, no Usingers bratwurst.  Your Friday fish-fry was okay as long as the fish you were frying had fins and scales.  But Red Lobster would be off-limits, along with shrimp, scallops and crab.  The reason for these rules is debatable.  But this was part of what made Israel distinct and set apart as God’s holy people.  And the purpose of this distinct, holy people was to bring forth the Messiah.  And once that happened, all those dietary laws had served their purpose.  Israel’s fast was over; and the feast of salvation had begun in the person of Jesus Christ.

          And that brings us to this morning’s holy gospel.  Last week Jesus took on the misguided notion of the Pharisees that hand washing was the way to make your heart clean and to purify your soul.  This week Jesus takes on those who believed

that food could do that—that eating the right foods could make you clean and holy and pure; and that eating unclean food like shrimp and bacon made you unclean and unholy.

          But Jesus said, “Not so.”  There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.  In other words, it’s not about food, it’s not about what goes in, but what comes out.  This must have left everyone scratching their heads.  This wasn’t what they learned from their parents.  This wasn’t what the rabbis taught. Jesus was giving them a new and radical way of understanding how a person becomes clean or unclean—pure or defiled.

          Jesus then gave the disciples a bit of a biology lesson—a rather sophisticated biology lesson for first century ears.  What goes into a person from the outside can’t defile him because it never touches the heart.  Food doesn’t affect the will.  Food doesn’t shape our thoughts, words, and deeds.  The food we put in doesn’t affect that.

          It turns out, there’s something already inside of you that defiles you.  There’s something already inside of you that does corrupt and taint your thoughts, words, and deeds.  It’s not what goes in, it’s what comes out of your heart.  It’s what’s already there.  We call it original sin.  And it manifests itself in all kinds of actual sins. Jesus goes to the trouble to make a list, just to be sure we understand:  Evil thoughts.  Ever have one of those?  Sexual immorality.  Dare I ask?  Theft, murder, adultery, coveting.  Ever been an issue in your life?  But wait, there’s more: Wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.  It’s quite a list.  And can anyone dare say that this list doesn’t hit close to home in some way?  And if you did dare to distance yourself from that list, well, you would be a liar and the truth would not be in you.

          Where does all the evil in the world come from?  Not from foods, but from the human heart, corrupted to the core by sin.  Original sin is the total corruption of our human nature that we inherited from our first parents.  For me, original sin used to be just an abstract concept—just a theoretical, hypothetical doctrine.  I accepted original sin the way a person might accept the theory of relativity, E=MC2—sure, sounds good to me.  But then I became a parent.  Nothing pounds home the universal truth of original sin better than having children.  For you don’t have to teach your children how to lie.  You don’t have to teach them how to covet.  You don’t have to supply them with evil thoughts.  All that sinful stuff—it just comes naturally.  Children have to learn how to sit up and roll over and say “please” and “thank you.”  But no child needs a lesson in sinning.  Every child has a limitless supply of sin in their very own hearts—which they inherited from their parents.  That’s the sad reality of original sin.

          What we all need is a new heart.  And food has nothing to do with it.  Fast all you want.  Follow the strictest diet.  Food won’t touch the heart.  Food can’t fix an unbelieving heart.  Only God can fix it.  Only God can give you a new and clean heart—a heart that beats in sync with the Holy Spirit—a heart set free from sin and death—a heart turned not toward evil but toward God—a heart not centered on self, but on God and your neighbor.  That’s the heart that Jesus Christ died to give to you.  The purity our hearts don’t have, the holiness our hearts don’t have—that purity and holiness can only come from Jesus, God’s pure and holy Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.  He became defiled with your sin.  He became unclean with your unrighteousness.  He bears it all away so that you don’t have to bear it.

          When you were baptized God the Holy Trinity gave you a new heart, a clean heart, a contrite heart that confesses the mess of sin and receives the gift of Jesus’ blood-bought forgiveness.  This new heart draws strength from the Word and promises of God.  This new heart is sustained and strengthened by the body and blood of Jesus.

          But as you well know, the old heart is still there.  God hasn’t yet completed the transplant; instead, the old heart and new heart are right there together.  We are at the same time saints . . . and sinners—clean and unclean—holy and defiled—good and evil.  This means that we live in a terrible tension.  But we also live beneath the cross of Christ’s forgiveness.  This means there’s never a time when we don’t have sin that needs forgiving; it means there’s never a sin that our Savior cannot forgive.

          Food set the Israelites apart in the Old Testament.  But there is also a food that sets you apart today.  There is a food that goes into you and sustains the believing heart.  There is a food that makes you holy.  It’s the food that Jesus gives you.  The bread that is His body.  The wine that is His blood.  This meal actually makes you holy, in a way that all the OT rules and regulations never could.

          For those who believe, all foods are clean.  All foods are a gift from God—given to be enjoyed and to strengthen us for service in our daily vocations.  Go ahead and eat healthy (or not).  Count your calories and carbs (or not).  But do not forget that though faith in Jesus, you have a place at the feast of feasts—at the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom, which has no end. 

          

     In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.