“The Ins and Outs of the Heart of Faith” Mount Olive Lutheran Church Season of Pentecost Sunday Sermon September 1, 2024 – Mark 7:14–23

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday September 1st 2024: Season of Pentecost / Mark 7:14–23 “The Ins and Outs of the Heart of Faith”

And [Jesus] called the people to Him again and said to them, “Hear Me, all of you, and understand: 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.” And when He had entered the house and left the people, His disciples asked Him about the parable. 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, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.) And He said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends “you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”[1] For years and years governments have been regulating lead, working hard to keep lead out of things like paint, pipes, or children’s toys because eating lead or ingesting lead in any sort of way can be poisonous. Companies like Tylenol had to develop child-proof lids to keep kids from swallowing pills that would do them harm. People have been more and more careful with allergens like peanuts or gluten or dairy, which for some people can cause moderate to severe reactions. Years ago people might put on Coppertone or Hawaiian Tropic suntan lotions or Baby Oil in an effort to soak in the rays of the sun and promote a nice dark sun tan; nowadays most people use sun-block or sunscreen to keep the ultra violet rays of the sun from damaging their skin or worse, to prevent skin cancer. Recently people have started to talk about the dangers of ingesting plastic microfibers shed all over the place, floating around in plastic water bottles and processed food items that use plastic packaging, all of these things are often invisible to the naked eye or so ubiquitous and widespread and common at the height of their use, like smoking used to be, that people can hardly see them for looking, until they are pointed out.

While at school studying photography there were people in the faculty and staff who had, in their younger days, printed photos in the darkroom splashing their bare hands in the photo chemicals with no gloves or respirators or masks or fume hoods for so long in their youth that they’d developed a sensitivity to the chemicals, so much so that if they were to step into the dark room where those chemicals were poured out in trays, that just being near those chemicals as they off gassed would make their hands break out into a bloody sort of eczema. Dear ones those folks plagued by such a condition cannot think their way out of it with their mind, except to think to avoid the situation that brings it on and then to steadfastly avoid it with all their might, but is that the point? 

Here’s another one: we all have a sort of rational understanding that if you were to eat certain meat products contaminated with fecal matter during the butchering processes you could end up with e coli which can result in nausea and vomiting, headache and fevers, severe stomach cramps and likely even watery or bloody diarrhea. These are all horrible symptoms and in certain cases potentially even life threatening. Our rational minds are quick to understand that we need to protect ourselves from outward dangers that threaten our body and our health.  King David in Psalm 17 even prays to God that the Lord would, “keep [him] as the apple of [God’s] eye,”[2] which is to say that David desires that the Lord would stop dangerous external things from doing him harm in the same sort of way that a man keeps dangerous and sharp or gritty or corrosive things out of his own eyes. David’s wise son King Solomon says to his sons that that they should “keep [his] commandments and live; [that they should] keep [his] teaching as the apple of [their] eye;”[3] which is to say that the Law of God handed down from generation to generation should not be forgotten, or lost, but protected and held dear, as dearly as a man would protect his own eye in the face of danger. This is where we again start expanding from just the physical to the mind, the soul; yes to the heart and soul of a man: the same heart, soul and might that are commanded to devoutly love God and His Law.  

In our Gospel reading Jesus is teaching the people to do just this, to remember what has been handed down to them from generation to generation in God’s word and not be distracted by the kind of teaching that misses the point.

The people at that time had become so concerned with things that worked in an equivalent sort of way to the modern child proof safety caps found on a bottle of pills that they had sidestepped the question of why a kid would want to swallow handfuls of pills in the first place. Protecting people is one thing, teaching the heart and the soul to understand why is another. They are not unconnected from each other but at the same time they are not connected in the way that they had been taught to them at that time. This is why Jesus called the people to Him again and said to them, “Hear Me, all of you, and understand: 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.” The defiling that Jesus is talking about here is not lead poisoning, or an illness brought on by e coli, or UV rays from the sun, or plastic micro-fibers or chemicals, no here Jesus is talking about defilement of the soul, defilement of the heart.

I remember talking with a man who had stopped watching violent movies and TV shows and had stopped playing violent video games because he struggled with temptations towards violence, he knew his heart was full of anger and he didn’t want to aggravate it towards sin. The way of thinking that had taken root at the time Jesus was teaching would have said to such a man ‘it is enough that you no longer partake of those things, that will keep you clean and undefiled,” Jesus on the other hand would say, “it is not the movies or the TV shows or the video games that enter the eye that causes you to be defiled, what causes your defilement is what wells up out of your heart.” So while it’s certainly wise to know yourself and avoid what will harm you, knowing yourself means that you need to know your heart and understand that the things around you are not the problem, you are: you’re the problem.

For men the anger in their heart come out of the man in mean words and if left unchecked anger grown into hatred and then can come out of a man through the clenched fist and the hard knuckles swinging with rage, such evil comes out on the back of the hand across the face of another. Such men spoil for a fight. For the woman anger and hatred come out in mean words also, in cutting and harsh words, but sometimes when the desire to murder comes out of a woman such desires comes out of the heart through in hands poised to poison the one they hate. Of course no one plans to hurt or harm or murder another person without first letting their heart run red with anger and murderous thoughts. And so we see the truth of what Jesus says, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

And so Saint James, the brother of our Lord would later write about this very connection between the heart and sinful action in his Epistle when he cautions us saying “the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell ... It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?”[4]

In our Old Testament reading for today Moses, in the context of giving the Law of God to the people, including the Ten Commandments, both encourages and warns them saying “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children.”[5] Jesus then in our Gospel Reading from Saint Mark’s Gospel says that “taking care,” that, “keeping your soul diligently,” is not simply about avoiding certain things, Jesus is teaching the people that they ought not avoid honestly delving into the very dark depths of their heart and thereby see and understand the source of their sin.

When king David was caught in adultery, when we was caught having orchestrated the murder of his friend Uriah after sleeping with that friends wife Bathsheba, when David was called to repentance by the Prophet Nathan for his coveting, his sexual lusts and his scheming what did David do? Did he blame others; did he blame it on the World or his society? Did he look to get off the hook by making it someone else’s fault, some outside things fault for his heart being defiled?[6] No, he recognized the condition of his heart and what had come out of it, what had resulted from his failure to bridle it, his failure to rein it in; his failure to stay within the curbs provided by God’s Law.[7] And so David, in repentance, wrote the words[8] we heard in the introit this morning, the words that that inspire the cherished words of the offertory that we use here at Mount Olive the most through the year, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit.”[9] Who cleans up the heart? Does David clean up his own heart? Who cleans up the salt pool of your heart? When you take to heart the words of Jesus and recognize your need for forgiveness, your need to have your heart washed clean, your need to have a new heart created in you where do you turn? How is it accomplished, what can be done? While you and I and men like King David cannot do this for ourselves, we are called to turn to the one who can, and does do this for us. 

Where the people of the day that Jesus was speaking to in our Gospel Reading had been taught that it was simply good enough to avoid unclean things Jesus knew what was actually needed to truly make them and you and I and men like King David and his wise son Solomon and Moses clean. And not just outwardly clean in the eyes of the World and in the eyes of sinful men but truly clean where it counts the most in your heart where the World cannot see and only God the Father, Christ Jesus and The Holy Spirit sees. Jesus in the Gospel of Saint John says, “The will of My Father [is] that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on The Last Day.”[10] And what is it that you and I who are called to look to Christ Jesus are to believe about Him? Saint Paul teaches us that “for our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in [Christ Jesus] we might become the righteousness of God.”[11] This was accomplished and done at the Good Friday Cross of Jesus’ crucifixion. Where He hung innocently but all of our sin was put upon Him. Through His whole life and in His cross and passion Jesus never sinned, not once: He felt the back of the hand, He was spit upon, He was looked poorly upon, He was one who had evil things said to Him and he never once sinned in return.  His heart was pure and holy and the fountainhead and stream of all that is true, good and beautiful. When we seek a clean heart, when we ask with men like King David for God to create a clean heart in us, the heart we are asking for is the heart of Christ.[12] We ask that Christ would dwell in our heart that and that all wickedness of thought, word or deed would be washed away in His blood and that we’d be made new in Him, that we would walk in the newness of life, in Him. Dear ones this in not our work, this is His work. If we turn blind eyes towards our hearts and the sinful condition of them apart from Christ Jesus and we think that we have done enough by our own works, our own avoidances of certain things deemed unclean, our holding our tongues from certain unkind words, we miss the point of what Jesus teaches us here today.

Dear ones “confession of sins has two parts. First, that we confess our sins, and second, that we receive absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that by it our sins are forgiven before God in heaven.”[13] And why do we believe teach and confess this to be true? Because in His resurrection Jesus sent His faithful disciples to do just that, the risen Lord Jesus sends them saying, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I Am sending you.” And when He had said this, [Saint John tells us, Jesus “breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”[14] And what is it that you receive for yourself when you are forgiven in this way? The pledge that this very same Jesus Christ has redeemed you, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won both you and me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death and that now, by the grace of God, we are now His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.[15]  

These are the true ‘ins and outs’ of the heart of faith. It is not what goes into the man that makes him unclean but what comes out of the heart, out of the mind, out of the mouth; so we hear and follow the call to turn to the One Man who had a pure and sinless heart, to Christ Jesus our Lord, whose thoughts, words and deeds were without sin, seeking from Him forgiveness for our sins and a new heart; daily trusting that our heavenly Father would give us this new heart, this new spirit, for the sake of His Son, and that the Lord would put this new heart within us as He promises.[16] Don’t fight against it, embrace it; seek after it. We seek all of this so that we now can set aside any “good enough” life based on our outward works, and instead live lives of gratitude in the fear the LORD, walking in all His ways, as His redeemed children who are made free in the Blood of Christ to serve the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul, seeking daily to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD[17] with all our might. And why are we called to do this? We are called to do this for His glory and the good of our neighbour in need. Therefore let us “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might;” as we heard in our Epistle today and let us likewise “put on the whole armor of God” that we may stand against the devil,[18] the World and all that seeks to tempt evil out of our heart. Let us serve the Lord, thanks be to God. Amen.    

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Deuteronomy 6:5
[2] Psalm 17:8a
[3] Proverbs 7:2
[4] James 3:6, 8b-11
[5] Deuteronomy 4:9
[6] 2 Samuel 12:1-15
[7] 2 Samuel 12:16-23
[8] Psalm 51:10-12
[9] Offertory, Divine Service Setting III, Lutheran Service Book, Concordia Publishing House 2006, Page 192.
[10] John 6:40
[11] 2 Corinthians 5:21
[12] Ephesians 3:17; 2 Corinthians 13:5; Romans 8:10; Galatians 2:20
[13] Confession, Luther’s Small Catechism, Concordia Publishing House 2017, Page 25.
[14] John 20:21–23
[15] Creed: Explanation, 2nd Article, Luther’s Small Catechism, Concordia Publishing House 2017, Page 17.
[16] Ezekiel 36:26
[17] Deuteronomy 10:12–13
[18] Ephesians 6:10–11

Photo Credit: Main Photo of heart from freepik.