Living Inside Out

Mark 7:1-23

A couple of months ago our three-year old grandson Noah was sitting at the dinner table with us at our home Sunday noon. He looked at me and said, “Grandpa, you’re funny.” He has a difficult time pronouncing F’s so it came out sounding more like “You’re hunny,” but I knew what he meant to say. I had not intentionally said or done anything I considered funny so I didn’t know why he was saying this until my wife pointed at my shirt. I had changed out of my Sunday dress clothes and come down to the dinner table so quickly that I had put my T shirt on inside out and backwards. This funny grandpa didn’t realize it until a three year old pointed it out. I read about a six-year old girl who after Sunday School said to her mom, "Mommy, I think Jesus lived his life inside out!" That is where I got the title for my message this morning. I am going to talk about living inside out. Our text for today is from Mark 7. In this scene Jesus is having one of his many verbal bouts with his nemeses the Pharisees. As I read this passage all Jesus’ criticisms of the Pharisees can be seen in terms of inside or outside. Jesus encourages his listeners to live from the inside out.

I. First Jesus encourages fault-confessing rather than fault-finding – not looking outside at other people’s faults, but inside at one’s own. Our gospel lesson starts off with these words: “Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him, having come from Jerusalem.² Now when they saw some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault.” The Pharisees were expert fault-finders. They were notorious for finding fault with everyone except themselves. They could spot a sin a mile away, but couldn’t see their own sin staring them in the face. That made Jesus furious. He said to them, “You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” He regularly called them hypocrites – a topic I will get to in a later point. But for now I want to concentrate on fault-finding.

Fault-finding is epidemic in American society. If something bad happens, we assume it has to be someone’s fault. Someone has to pay – financially, politically, legally, emotionally. Politics has become a big blame game. Congress is one big blamefest. In presidential election years it is in full gear. Democrats and Republicans finding fault with each other nonstop. The political ads are depressing. This is true of both liberals and conservatives. It is true of Christians and atheists. Even when we Christians try not to judge, it comes out wrong. A good example is the “Hate the sin, love the sinner” motto that has become popular in Christian circles. This is the attempt of Christians to affirm moral standards while not appearing judgmental toward those who fall short of those standards. We think we are being clever, but it fails miserably.

Mark Lowry is a Christian comedian and songwriter, best known for his moving Christmas song entitled “Mary, Did You Know?”  He said something about this attitude that deserves repeating. “Love the sinner, hate the sin? How about love the sinner, hate your own sin? I don’t have time to hate your sin. There are too many of you. Hating my sin is a full time job. How about you hate your sin, and I’ll hate my sin, and let’s just love each other.” Good advice! We should be confessing our own sins, not identifying the sins of others. James says, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” Jesus says, “ And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? ⁵ Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Let us be fault-confessors rather than fault-finders. It is fine if you want to spend your time looking for sin, but look on the inside rather than the outside.

II. Second, encourages us to be commandment-following rather than tradition-keeping.  Jesus says to the Pharisees in our passage Verses 8-9 “⁸ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men —the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”⁹ He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.” Our passage gives us specific examples of how the Pharisees did this. The Pharisees were obsessed with the fact that Jesus and his disciples did not wash their hands in the ritually prescribed manner. “³ For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders. ⁴ When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.⁵ Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?”

Jesus then mentioned another example of how the Pharisees ignored the care of their elderly parents by appealing to tradition. ⁹ He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. ¹⁰ For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’;^[d] and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’^[e] 11 But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), ¹² then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, ¹³ making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

I am not going to get into the specifics of these Jewish legal matters because they do not concern us today. What is more important is how we imitate the Pharisees by following human laws and tradition rather than God’s commandments. We might not follow religious law any longer, but we certainly are very conscious of secular laws. It seems to me tht Amerivans are obsessed with laws. We really think that every social and moral problem in our nation can be solved by passing a new law or enforcing already existing laws. And on top of the laws are the rules and regulations. We might scoff at the legalism of the Pharisees, but I think that Americans are more legalistic then they ever were. Law has become the substitute for ethics in our nation. Many people think that if something is legal than it is moral. As long as we are not breaking the law, then it is all right to do whatever we want. That is not true. That is legalism. We are a nation of legalists. And the Law is a very low standard of morality.

Jesus told his disciples to exceed the legalistic righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” The same is true for us. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it is permissible for a Christian to do – when it comes to business or financial dealings, or personal morality, or sexual ethics, or politics, or foreign policy. We are to be a God-honoring, God obeying people, not a just a law-abiding, tradition-keeping people. Traditions are fine. Laws are good. Just don’t let them get in the way of obeying God.

III. Third, Jesus encourages Heart Worship not Lip-service. Verses 6-7 “He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” Jesus is talking about the difference between inner worship and outer worship - worshiping from inside out or merely in an outer form. True religion has to do with the heart. Is our heart in right relationship to God? This is what it always boils down to. Where is your heart this morning? And more important where is your heart tomorrow morning? Where was it yesterday morning?

Many people these days distinguish between religion and spirituality. They say that religion is external and spirituality is internal, with suggestion that religion is bad and spirituality is good. My experience is that a lot of the spirituality people are less spiritual than the religious people. And my experience is that the spirituality people are more judgmental toward religious people than vice versa. There are a lot of people these days who want nothing to do with church as organized religion; they speak with disdain of the institutional church, and they say that it is what is in their hearts that is important. Yes, it is true that what is in the heart is important, but if it is in the heart - on the inside - it will be expressed on the outside.

I think the age of purely outward religious observance is mostly gone. I am sure there are vestiges of it in today’s society, but not so much up here in New England. You know that New England is one of the least churched areas of the country. A smaller percentage of people go to worship here in New England – especially Vermont and New Hampshire -  than anywhere else in the nation. But I perceive that the ones who do attend worship are doing so for good reasons. They genuinely want to connect with God. They are not doing it for cultural or social reasons. They don’t care what people think and are not doing it to look good to others. They are doing it for inner spiritual reasons. There may be some parts of the country where outward religion is still a strong part of the culture like in the South, but no longer here. Most people who are outwardly religious here in New England are inwardly spiritually-minded; they are genuinely seeking something real on the inside. They are not perfect by a long shot, but they are sincere people.

But our religious sincerity is not enough. There needs to be a real commitment to a transformation of the inner life. This is where I want to challenge us. That is what Jesus is speaking about in the last verses of our passage. He says, “15 There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. … Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, 19 because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?”20 And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

Jesus is very concerned with the inner cleansing of his followers – what theologians call sanctification. It is easy to make religion or spirituality about what doctrines you believe, what type of theology you accept, what type of spiritual experience you have had, what words you use to describe your relationship with God, or what set of ethical standards you hold. But Jesus does not talk about any of those here. He talks about inner defilement and inner purification. That is the work of God inside a person. God cleanses us from the inside out. This happens by the grace of God through faith in Christ.

IV. Lastly, Jesus encourages Mask Removal not Mask Wearing. Here we get back to the word hypocrite, which Jesus uses in our passage and often uses when addressing the Pharisees. The original Greek word used in the text is the word refers to a stage actor in ancient Greek plays. In ancient theatre one player could play many roles by wearing different masks, and they would speak through the masks. This is the word that Jesus uses in this passage. He is saying that the Pharisees were wearing masks what hid their true nature. The problem was that they came to identify with their roles and even believe that they really were the characters they portrayed with their masks. Jesus confronted them and tried to get them to remove their masks and reveal who they really were. To look in a mirror and see their real faces. Only with such radical honesty with oneself, God,  and others is true spirituality possible.

Let’s take Jesus’ medicine. Let’s apply this to ourselves. We create personae for ourselves. Ppersona is a Latin word that refers to these masks; it means “to sound through” and refers to the masks that were spoken through. We get the word person and personality from it. We develop elaborate personalities over our lifetimes and we attach our names to them and own them. We really believe that we are our personalities and invest a lot of emotional energy into maintaining these egos. Most of us have even convinced ourselves that these personages are our real selves. But they aren’t. They are elaborate socially and psychologically constructed fictions which we have created to cope with life and protect us from perceived harms. Mental illness occurs when these psychological constructions begin to fail and the masks begin to slip.

The truth is that we are not who we think we are, not who we pretend to be. We are not who we have convinced ourselves we are. Who we really are is not the social or psychological roles we play; it is who we are in relation to God. We do not know who we truly are until we stand psychologically open and naked before God. That is what the story of the Fall of Man in the early chapters of Genesis is all about. When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge they hid themselves from God in the bushes and hid themselves from each other with clothing. This story is not about sex and physical nakedness. It is about hiding from God, others and ourselves. It is about the masks we wear to hide from the truth of who we really are.

We are creatures created by God in the image of God made to represent God and be in fellowship with God and glorify God. It is not about the dramas of our lives. It is not about us. Most of what we think is important in our lives is really just fabrication. We do not even know who we are until we gaze unashamed upon God. When we know God then who we are doesn’t matter anymore. Because it is not about us; it is all about God and about others. That is what Jesus taught are the two greatest commandments which sum up all the commandments – Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and then our neighbors as ourselves. When the masks fall away, that is when life in Christ begins. Then we can begin to live from the inside out.