Today’s Scripture

Psalm 121       Genesis 8:20-32          Mark 7:1-23

 

            In this week’s readings from Mark’s Gospel we have encountered:

• Lack of faith and unbelief of people in Jesus’ home town
• The death of John the Baptist
• The miracles of feeding five thousand and four thousand
• Jesus walks on water
• Our internal sinfulness, what makes clean and unclean
• The faith of a Gentile woman
• Another miracle, healing a blind man
• Peter’s confession of Christ.

 

            In today’s reading we see evidence of the judging that went on from the Pharisees in Jesus’ time.  We see the Pharisees in action and in their high self-esteem, counting on certain rituals and ways of doing things to justify and compare themselves to others as they look down on how others are sinners and do not live up to their standards.  Pharisee is a name meaning “those who are set apart.”  During Jesus’ time they followed a way of life which they regarded as most perfect.  They esteemed their way as superior to others.  Works and self-righteousness appeared high if not the top of their priorities. 

 

            What was going on at that time still goes on today.  We establish some external rules or actions to measure a person’s goodness.  Many of these standards and actions are well intended and many are good for a person and society.  But what a person wears or how a person walks into a place do not tell what is really on the inside.  The Pharisees had over the decades and centuries developed detailed laws and interpretations.  These were called the “oral law” from the elders.  Later they were written down in what we know today as the Talmud.   Included were ceremonial washings of items and hands to remove any impurity from being in contact with an “unclean” person or item.  Did you ever play the imaginary game, “You’ve got cooties!” as you tried to escape the touch of someone who “had them?”  You would cringe when touched and could not wait to pass them off to another.

 

            Jesus replies to the verbal attack from the Pharisees with a quote from Isaiah.  As Jesus responded to Satan in the wilderness with God’s word, he does the same with the adversarial Pharisees.  Here Jesus speaks to our sinful nature.  Jesus speaks to the fact that something from the outside does not make one unclean before God and man.  It is not just the external things that look good and right.  The evil thoughts, the lusts, the envies and hates all come from inside a person.  Think of the movie, “The Godfather.”   As a young Corleone is in the church at a baptism, his henchmen are methodically eliminating (by murder) those he despises and those he has revenge for.  It is obvious that in the man’s heart are not the gifts God gives in faith and in baptism even though he is reciting the right words for the service.  The outside looked all good and proper.  The inside was a torrent of the murder and fear and power that was going on behind this outwardly holy and innocent scene.

 

            Look around you.  This is not a room full of vengeful murderers.  This is not a room full of armed bank robbers.  On the outside we all look pretty good.  Now change the scene.  Each year I ask the confirmands what it would be like if each of us had a TV screen attached and everyone could look inside you to see all of the thoughts and feelings and internal motives that go on inside you?  God does a good job protecting each one of us covering those things with our bodies and external appearances.

 

            To that issue God tells us through Paul in Romans 8:6-7, “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.”  In our sinful state we are what we are, lousy and lost sinners.  That middle phrase, “the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”  That is what makes the difference between saint and sinner.  We cannot do it on our own, but it is a gift, “Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God,” [2 Corinthians 3:5].

 

            Baptism is an outward application that addresses our inner situation.  Those waters do wash away one’s sin, all of one’s sin.  Those waters renew a person into the state that God made you to be, in his image, as the Holy Spirit makes you holy, receiving the forgiveness of sins you accept in faith.  God’s word works on your inside, as faith comes from hearing the word of Jesus Christ [Romans 10:7].  That word works within you.  God’s law convicts you of your sin and the Gospel of Jesus brings you relief knowing how God has saved you.  You receive the body and blood of Christ as he enters you, giving himself to you and in you to strengthen you in that faith.  He makes you one with him again from the cross.

 

            That is why it is so important for all at Immanuel and throughout Christiandom to be “Together in the Word.”  During this week we saw Abraham in his sinfulness and God continuing in his faithfulness in his word to Abraham and to all of his descendants including you today.  As we continue through Genesis we will continue to see good old sinful people whom God calls to be his people, forgives and restores, forgives and restores, and more than restores but gives blessings beyond one’s imagination.  He gives us Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as our fathers in faith today.  Just as God interacted in his promise with each one then, he interacts with you through his word of promise today.  You are the Abraham’s and Isaac’s and Jacob’s today, called by his word and marked as his dear children.  Your sins too are forgiven and eternal life is yours in Jesus, the mystery and promise revealed to all.

 

            Yes, out of our hearts comes all of that nasty sin.  But into our hearts is  given the love of God in Jesus Christ that makes us aliens and pilgrims in this world striving in that faith toward the goal of eternal life in Jesus Christ.            In Jesus’ undying love.           Amen.