“WHAT DEFILES US”
“This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
– Mark 7:6a-8, 14-15, 21-23
It is so easy to blame others. My mother used to point fingers at those darn Democrats. She never considered there was any wretchedness amongst the Republicans and when it comes to politics the problem isn’t really the independents or the libertarians making a mess of things… some people think it’s the apathetic party… the uncaring, disaffiliated non-voters having little interest in others choosing not to participate causing all the ire.
That goes for sports, too! What self-respecting Houston Astros fan would ever consider that anything good could come out of Dallas? Make your own list. The opponents will have one, too!
So, what is it that causes all our problems? An old professor of mine was known to say often… “our world’s problem is not disregarding the 10 Commandments… the world’s problem is humanity’s inhumanity to ourselves…” I think he’s right. Do most Americans walk around wondering what the Russians and the Chinese are thinking about us? Do we believe most N. Koreans are writing nasty things about Texans as they graffiti up the buildings there or are they mostly worried about making it alive where they are just one more day?
Jesus quotes the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, in this text from Mark’s gospel… saying the people honor God with their lips… but their hearts and their actions are far from God and fall short every time. We think we are smarter than God and do whatever we can to prove to others that we are… and that is at the core as to what contributes to humanity’s inhumanity to itself… as Jesus goes on saying that it isn’t all that stuff out there which defiles our lives… it’s what come from within that causes our collective downfall. Or as Christian psychologist M. Scott Peck once wrote in his book, “People of the Lie,” an essay on radical evil in the human culture… “I have the capacity for great evil.”
Ok?
And while you or I may be quick to deny that… just go ahead and place your own first name in that quote and then stop for a few moments to think about it… and then think about what the problems of the world encompass… yep… the ones Jesus pointed out… “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
This is why many churches begin the worship service with a time for confession and announcement of forgiveness or some quiet time for personal reflection to check the barometer on how things are going with God and our neighbors … admitting the common denominator of those relationships is our own self.
And before anyone begins to point a finger at me… suggesting … it’s all my fault… or yours… and not theirs… remember we all belong to God… the ones Jesus called ‘friends’… and if Jesus calls us a friend… then we must be friends together… and yes… it will take some work… because there is much joy within us, too. Faith matters. It does.
The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Gigee is a long-time resident of Pearland, having pastored four churches over the last four decades in Texas and Louisiana. Read more following Brian’s blog ‘murmurings’ at https://briangigee.wordpress.com/. Send comments and/or questions to godworks247365@gmail.com.
