Sermon for Pentecost 14: "Holy in Jesus"

 + 14^th Sunday after Pentecost – August 29, 2021 +

Series B: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Ephesians 6:10-20; Mark 7:14-23

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

 

Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him,  since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” … And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 

 

Whether he knew it or not, Oscar Wilde perfectly illustrates this in his famous book, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the story, it’s not hard to understand the picture Wilde is painting. In his story an artist named Basil Hallward meets a handsome young man named Dorian Gray. Hallward is impressed by Gray’s physical appearance and paints a portrait of him. In the course of the story Dorian Gray comes into contact with a friend of Hallward’s – Lord Henry Wotton - whose worldview revels in beauty and sensual desire. This, in turn, causes Dorian to realize the fleeting nature of his own beauty; he thinks that if only if only his portrait would age instead of him, he would sell his soul to do so. 

 

And that’s exactly what happens. In a magical twist, not only does his picture age, it also begins to take on the changes and appearance wrought by all the wicked acts Dorian starts to commit. Gray goes through life looking beautiful and perfect on the outside while his picture becomes hideous and disfigured, an embodiment of the evil within. Thinking he was pretty as a picture Dorian Gray was in fact ugly as sin. 

 

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a perfect picture of Jesus’ teaching here in Mark 7. “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,  thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

 

What starts out as a conversation about the kinds of foods Jews could or could not eat to remain ceremonially clean quickly turned into a much deeper teaching from Jesus. 

 

Last week Jesus’ teaching dealt with things external (the washing of hands and so forth). This week Jesus deals with things internal (our unclean hearts).

 

Last week Jesus dealt with washing hands, saucers, and couch cushions and how the Pharisees had made a religion out of cleanliness. This week, Jesus deals with the dietary laws and all the restrictions in view of the same religious types who believed that “you are what you eat” in the sense that if you ate something “unclean” (bacon wrapped scallops, for example) you would be unclean, unholy, and unfit to appear before God.

Once again, Jesus turns the tables on his hearers. “Not so,” says Jesus. In fact, it works the other way around. “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.” It’s not about what goes in but what comes out. 

Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, ¹⁹ since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled? 

 

Jesus is giving his disciples a little bit of a biology 101 lesson. Our bodies digest and filter out the good stuff from the food we eat while the rest is, to use Jesus’ polite word, expelled. It never touches the heart. And when Jesus is talking about the heart he’s referring to the seat of the will, where we determine what we will think, do, and say. Food doesn’t touch that. Jesus jumps from biology to theology.

 

Here’s what defiles us: what comes out of our heart. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,  thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 

 

If those words don’t make you uncomfortable, they should. Not a one of us is left standing after that. Oh sure, we can try and pass the blame on to someone or something else. We can try and avoid our sin. We’ll even try and deny it. Just like the picture of Dorian Gray revealed his great evil within, Jesus words reveal the ugly truth. Where does all the evil in the world come from? Not from foods, but from within. From our heart corrupted to the core by Sin. 

 

When there is no hiding place from our sin. When there’s nowhere to run away from sin. When all we are left with is empty hands. Where do we go? Not to our heart, but to the one who is greater than our heart. To Christ who gives us a new heart cleansed. Holy. Alive in him. Jesus is our hiding place. Jesus is our rest. Jesus takes all our sin – all our evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,  thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness – he takes it all into his hands on the cross. And into our empty hands he gives us himself. His body. His blood. His purity. His holiness. His very life for you.

 

Ordinary food can’t fix an unbelieving heart. 

 

But there is a food and drink that will. Our Lord’s body and blood that we receive. “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”  

 

Here is heavenly, food that is holy and makes you holy. Here is ordinary bread and wine filled with an extraordinary promise: Jesus’ body and blood given for you. Here is a food where you truly are what you eat – forgiven, cleansed, holy in Jesus.

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.