Our sermon text this morning continues a discussion between Jesus and a group of scribes and Pharisees who came from Jerusalem. The scribes and Pharisees were accusing Jesus and His disciples of breaking the “tradition of the elders” about being clean—His disciples weren’t eating with properly-washed hands. Jesus blasted the scribes and Pharisees for being hypocrites who are focused on externals but whose hearts are far, far from God.
Mark 7:14–23 14 And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 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.” 17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? 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?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father through our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Look at that list again (v. 21-22)—evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. Maybe you haven’t physically murdered anyone. And maybe you haven’t committed sexual immorality or adultery. Those other sins listed—evil thoughts, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander—maybe, you haven’t done those either, at least not too often. But you get the close of that list where you find—pride and foolishness—you find that Jesus puts you into the absolutely guilty, without-a-reasonable-doubt category.
Also, remember that Jesus said (Mt. 5:21-22), “If you are angry with your brother” you are guilty of murder. He says (Mt. 5:27-28), “If you look at a woman with a lustful intent, you have already committed adultery with her.”
The worst thing about all this is that all these sins and evil are not ‘out there’ somewhere. They don’t just come and stick to you. Worse, they originate from within, out of your heart. Evil doesn’t find you and defile you. Rather, you are defiled by what comes out of your heart, not by what you put into your stomach.
You have reached your full potential of being and doing good by yourself, and Jesus says that you have fallen short. Your heart is far, far from the holy God.
In a book titled The Hammer of God, which I will call a theological novel, the author Bo Giertz follows what happens in the Swedish Lutheran church over a period of about 100 years. At one point in the book, a member of a congregation tries to explain to his old pastor how he knows he is saved. He says, “I have given Jesus my heart.”
The old pastor responds,
“[I]f you think you are saved because you give Jesus your heart, you will not be saved…. It is one thing to choose Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior… it is a very different thing to believe on Him as a Redeemer of sinners, of whom one is chief. One does not choose a redeemer for oneself nor give one’s heart to him. The heart is a rusty old can on a junk heap. A fine birthday gift indeed! But a wonderful Lord passes by, and has mercy on the wretched tin can, sticks His walking cane through it, and rescues it from the junk pile and takes it home with Him. That’s how it is.”
Jesus, in our text, says it is not anything that you put into yourself that makes you unclean (lit. ‘common’). He makes a distinction between being sinful and being a sinner. Both are true of you, but there is a difference.
Jesus (and the rest of Scripture) describes you as being sinful with all those wretched, evil things coming out of you. When you only think of being sinful, you could come to the conclusion that if you could just get to the point where you do fewer sins—with God’s help, of course—you would make God’s job easier, and He could just remove all of the sin that is filling you. Maybe then what is left would be good and pure. That is wrong.
Your problem is not the sin that is “out there.” The problem is you.
You are a person who is sinful—full of sin—but you are also a sinner. Sin is part of who you are. You are a sinner. Every part of you is soiled with sin. Your thoughts, words, deeds, and emotions reveal that you are a sinner; it is who and what you are.
The scribes and Pharisees were concerned with foods that entered a person’s mouth that would make them defiled (lit. common), and they made their traditions so binding that they, in effect, worshiped their traditions rather than their Redeemer.
The foods and animals that God had declared unclean in the Old Testament didn’t have anything wrong with them or else Jesus could not have declared all foods clean.
Nothing that goes into you defiles you. As unhealthy as it is, not even smoking cigarettes makes you a sinner. Nothing you put into your body makes you evil. Your body will expel it into the toilet, the latrine, (Yes, Jesus actually uses ‘potty language’ here).
What goes through your stomach and into the toilet does not make you a sinner. Rather what comes out of your heart defiles you. The true excrement is from your heart.
The prodigal son revealed what was in his heart. He had a lust for money, murder, wicked desires, pride, and foolishness. As he wasted away his inheritance living high on the hog, he was headed down a road that lead him to a life in the pig sty. Yet, his father looked and waited for his return. The son had prepared to make things right with his father. He had a plan. But the father doesn’t want to be repaid—the son won’t be able to repay him anyway. The father fully forgives and completely restores his son.
The father doesn’t have a long talk with his formerly lost son about how what he did was wrong, and “it better not happen again.” The father gives a feast.
It was not the long walk home that changed the prodigal son’s heart; it was the welcome he received when he got there.
The same is true for you. God isn’t concerned with your resolve to “do better next time.” God doesn’t want you to rely on what you do because everything you do comes from your heart and will be filled with pride and foolishness.
See Satan wants you to focus on your repentance, to focus on the new life you make for yourself, to focus on your efforts to do better next time for God. When that is your focus, you will get frustrated. Satan knows that the more frustrated you are with your sin and your relationship with God, the less you will talk to others about, and maybe, just maybe, you will abandon God altogether.
Don’t focus on your repentance or your commitment to God. You don’t have anything to offer Him. You have a defiled heart filled with evil.
But God does have something to offer you in Christ. Your Creator is a merciful and gracious God. He sent Jesus to redeem you. He sustains you with His Word and sacraments to continually give you His grace.
Scripture gets it right, go figure. From our Psalm today Ps 119:132 132 Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is Your way.
Or as David prayed, Ps 51:10 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. He doesn’t pray, “Make my heart do what you want it to do so that I don’t have to come back here and confess again.” No He calls upon God to create something where there is nothing.
In Php. 3:9 Paul prays that He would be found in Christ 9 not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but [a righteousness] that comes through faith in Christ.
God is never happy with sin, but the good news is that He never grows tired of pouring out His forgiveness through His Word.
Remember that God works through His Word. When Jesus would speak to deaf ears and command them to hear, they would obey. The effort and resolve of the individual didn’t matter because they couldn’t hear Jesus anyway. Luther said it well, “God’s works are His words; He speaks and it is done: because the speaking and the doing of God are the same.”
When you hear God in our Old Testament text (Dt. 4:1-2; 6-9) saying, “Keep [my commandments] and do them,” remember: His Word accomplishes what it commands.
Jesus says again today, “Hear Me, and understand. This is My body broken for you; this is My blood shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.”
He welcomes you again to His altar today to give you a feast and to give you a fresh start. Amen.
May the peace of Jesus Christ strengthen and preserve you until eternity. Amen.
Pastorsamwise 