Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Mark 7-1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Uffda, that was something to read! This is probably one of those passages that causes people to give up on the Bible. It feels like listening to one of those arguments that you’re not sure what’s really going on. The problem underneath the reading is lost to history. Some think that the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians were fighting over how the Hebrew rituals around food were to be applied in this new, very strange mix of people and cultures. The words of Jesus here are no less than Mark himself rushing in to give a ruling. “There is nothing outside a person that by going in is going to defile,” which is like St. Paul’s ruling to the Corinthians in another food fight, “All foods are declared clean.”[1]

In the very long tradition of cherry picking from scripture just what you want, I’m taking that one. You can eat whatever you want. Because I’m going to the state fair tomorrow.

There’s so much talk about food at the state fair, but do you ever have the sense that all our talk is about more than the food? There’s a conversation about identity and culture; bodies and health swirl the surface. I heard one comedian of color comment on the fried ranch dressing, “That’s a white people thing. No way.” I know for my part, despite grabbing the verse that provides freedom, I’ll be in an internal battle with this body and its relationship to what goes into it. I suspect I’m not alone. On that list of sins, I counted six that could get engaged just by walking past someone who is carrying a bucket of Sweet Martha’s cookies.

At staff lunch this week, one person, unnamed, but who might work with children, reported on the new Swedish ‘Sota sliders at the Hamline Church Dining Hall. She said, “Even my friend who hates Swedish meatballs liked it,” at which point the passion ramped up. “Who doesn’t’ like Swedish meatballs? Someone, unnamed but likely well-traveled in Sweden, hand on chest, asked quite shocked. This led to another electric exchange about whether barbecue sauce could replace lingonberry sauce. Another thought the sauces should be left off all together, “too much mixing of sweet and savory.” At which point, another, clearly waiting her pastoral turn to enter the fray said, “It’s really a functional problem. A round meatball on a square bun just doesn’t work.” “Worked fine for me,” the first person said.

My take-away: avoid the sliders at all costs.  Because, if it comes out that I did, I will be required to give a ruling.

Perhaps this is the real struggle that is served up under both of our readings for today. Certain types of religion, usually the bad kind, require a ruling, or lots of rulings. And this is the real reason that most give up on the Bible or Christianity. The Bible becomes the source of red-hot phrases and out-of-context snippets, served up on a sharp stick, that give holy-sounding authority to our own personal, cultural, or political ruling system. Even Jesus bequeaths the phrase, “You hypocrites,” which can be just as satisfying to say if you’re a religious person talking about people who don’t like the same hymns or have the same theological system as you, as it is for the self-described spiritual-but-not-religious person who needs to remind you that everyone who is sitting in your church is a hypocrite.  Which is, of course, one hundred percent true.

We all lose that golden thread that ties our outward ways and beliefs and practices to the heart of it all. Maybe that’s what we hear from these ancient texts, the path forward isn’t about making sure we have the right rulings. It’s about finding the words and practices that reflect God’s heart. Not so that we can be right, but so that we can have peace and actually have a shot at loving one another. Jesus isn’t some new ruling come down from heaven. Jesus is the beating heart of God among us. He is trying to show that God is already at home among us, breathing with us, feeding us with love, mercy, compassion, and a grace that eliminates that need to be so judgy.

Mark was wrong on one thing. It’s not true that there isn’t anything outside of us that can defile us. There is. And we’ve all swallowed it. We swallow the judgments, usually thrown aa verbal punches by other wounded people, sometimes very literally thrown, and we learn patterns of defensiveness and blame. We discern, usually at very tender and vulnerable moments, that we might not be good enough or have what the people around us think we should. In a larger way, all of us have, to some extent, digest this culture’s greed; it’s folly; it’s hidden prejudices and hatreds.

On our worst days those wounds, or scars, make us fierce voices of judgment, assigning those deadly sins to ourselves and to others, usually the ones most like us. To hide our fear that we might actually be wrong, we wrap it up self-righteous moral language.

A lot of us are trying so hard to be right, or good, or not so alone, or just to make it through the weekend.

As Jesus enters the arguments about food and religious practices, what’s required and what’s not, he’s on his way to Jerusalem to scramble the whole framework. He will be crucified by humanity’s terrible and broken need to issue a ruling and to silence those who are not in line. Mark’s gospel will end with the women standing at the empty tomb, mouths hanging open, stunned because he’s not there. The story isn’t over. Those things that defile, that seem so powerful in our bodies and in the body politic, didn’t stop the vision he was holding in his body. The Spirit of God, the ground of love, cannot be stopped, only joined. It’s taking shape all around us. It’s as present here as in that moment when, in the surge of crowds at the fair, you feel so alone. It’s in bits of bread and wine. Since that first Easter, the people who are trying to keep up with Jesus have tried to digest and really let that loving presence be another kind of voice, another kind of pattern, that we practice when we get together and then try to build in the worlds we inhabit.

In the end, we are not defiled but defined. Defined by the love of God, which is in all things and in all people. As we had our passionate lunch table discussion about a slider, I glanced at the white board in the lunchroom.This was written on the board. None of us recognized the writing or knew who left the message.

“How cool is it, that the same God that created oceans, galaxies, and mountains looked at YOU and thought, “The world needed one of you, too.”

Maybe that is the final ruling. Because if I have God’s image, so do you. And if we do as a collective, as a body, as hypocritical as we are, we all belong.

[1] Tom Long, Thomas G. Long, “In the Lectionary: Moral words, evil deeds (Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23),” The Christian Century online, August 25, 2009. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2009-08/moral-words-evil-deeds?code=WpVTCQkvpOVF5i0aJAF1&utm_source=Christian+Century+Newsletter&utm_campaign=934ee9d783-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2024-08-26&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-31c915c0b7-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D.