Mark 7:15-16 “Nothing outside a
man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him.
Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’”
The One
Year Bible that we’re reading from in our Daily Walk program is not laid out
with any particular agenda. It simply
starts at the beginning of the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms, and
Proverbs and follows each through every day to the end. So it is always a happy God-incidence when
difficult things in the Old Testament section are met with explanations from
Jesus in the New Testament section.
The Old
Testament passages we’ve been reading are from Leviticus and lately have all
been focused on the notion of “clean” and “unclean.” We read the roots of Kosher
laws and what foods were considered unclean.
We read also about certain skin diseases and discharges that put a
person into the ranks of “unclean,” along with how to rejoin the “clean” once
the condition was cleared up. Reading all that in Leviticus sounds pretty harsh to our ears.
It does,
however, give us a better understanding of where the Pharisees in Jesus’ day
are coming from. Their job was to make
sure that the laws of the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy) were upheld in
But notice
that Jesus does not eliminate the category of “unclean,” he simply redefines
it. To be unclean was to be out of the
will of God--to be separated from God’s people and in need of atonement before
fully participating again in the worship of God and in the life of the
community. Jesus dismisses the idea that
such a state can come from eating the wrong foods, touching a dead body, or
having certain physical conditions. But
instead of dismissing the category, he redirects it toward the attitudes of the
heart that are manifest in “evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.”
(Mark 7:21-23) Jesus is saying that
those are the things that pull us out of the will of God and that place us
outside of the worshiping community.
Those are the things for which we need to seek atonement.
And so we
are not off the hook. There is still
meaning for the concepts of “clean” and “unclean.” To be a follower of Jesus means to keep a
close watch on our hearts and our tongues, lest they lead to the folly of sin
and the separation from God and community.
The hope in Leviticus is that God is willing to make atonement for those
who are “unclean,” who will recognize their state, and who will seek to be “clean”
once again. That is still true. The offer still holds, held in the pierced
hands of the sacrificial Lamb of God.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have
mercy upon us. Make us clean. Amen.
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