Vomit, Poo, Sin, and other Excrements ...

Perhaps only a parent can know how for love, we can overcome our distaste of bodily fluids and horrific smells and clean the baby that needs cleaning.  People outside of the nursing profession, who otherwise have no medical training or discipline, can bring themselves to clean that soiled diaper, or wipe away that puke from your shoulder and baby’s mouth.  Strong men who melt at the sight of these scenes in others, somehow find themselves able to face them, when it is their child in need, their child who is crying.  It is the love of a parent that brings a person who before could never imagine it, to face these dilemmas and meet the needs of the child, no matter how distasteful.  No parent wants to do these things, no parent finds the cleaning enjoyable, but we do recognize the need for it.  After all, a baby simply cannot do it for themselves.  A helpless person, needs help from someone.  Ultimately it is love, that will cause us to do what we would normally like to avoid.  Our child cannot pay us for it, they have no money we did not give them already.  Our child cannot earn it, our love is free of charge and deep within us.  And for a long time, our child will repeat the need, unable to prevent the dirt, soil, poo, and vomit from re-occurring time after time.

It is perhaps this most distasteful work, that is such an excellent example of what our God does for us in the mission to see us redeemed, re-created, and restored to His side.  We are the dirty baby.  We are the child who has soiled themselves, thrown up, dove into the dirt, and now appears in front of our Parent, with a need to be made clean, and a complete inability to make it so.  And with tender care, beyond the capacity of a human parent to even begin to know, our Heavenly Father reaches down to us, and begins to clean away from us, the most distasteful substances He can imagine … namely our sins.  The analogy is perhaps only flawed, in that our sin is more horrific than our poo, more dangerous to us and those we love, and more difficult to be rid of.  The baby makes himself dirty because he is unable to avoid it.  We sin from similar reasoning, but we could choose to submit to Christ, and find potty-training in the realm of sin, is actually possible through Jesus.

Humanity has a nature to focus on the externals.  We focus on cleaning the vomit up, because of the smell and discomfort it causes us to see it on our child.  Having a “clean” baby is much more tolerable and enjoyable.  But what if instead of focusing on the dirt on the outside, we were able to affect a change on the inside that made throwing-up a thing of the past.  It is not as much the pool of mud our child dives into that makes him really dirty.  It is the desire to jump in, that is the real culprit.  It is likewise not so much the individual sin we commit that makes us so dirty.  It is the desire to do it again and again that accomplishes that feat.  Sin, is never a one-and-done phenomenon.  The devil may present it that way.  He may lie to us, and tell us that we need only commit this sin, just this one time, and only under just these circumstances.  He may tell us, no one will know.  He may rightly tell us, we will not get caught for it.  And that may even be the truth.   But the devil is not trying to sell us a single incident, he is actually trying to sell us a habit disguised as a one-time-only event.  Once we drop our guard, and lower our resistance to any particular sin, we find ourselves so much more inclined to repeat it.  Once virginity is lost for example, how often is the logic cited that “it is no big deal now” to repeat our error.  And so habits are formed, addictions fostered, and before you know it, you are way beyond the ability to be clean again.  You must be made clean to see that ever happen.

To keep us from finding cleanliness once again, the devil simply focuses our attention on the externals.  Look at the dirt.  Look at the poo.  Look at the nasty train wreck you have made of your life.  Look at all the pain you have caused.  Look anywhere, just don’t look at Jesus, because looking at Him may actually change the direction of your life.   Perhaps the more sinister lie the devil tells us, is that if we can clean up some of the dirt we have on our hands, we could actually make ourselves clean.  So we spend endless hours, washing ourselves using disinfectants, and trying to make some little part of our filthiness, just a bit better … but to no real effect.  Trying to conquer our own desires, is akin to focusing on the externals, and has the same success as a baby attempting to change their own soiled diaper, it makes only a bigger mess.  This was a lesson we needed to learn.  The idea that cleanliness is next to Godliness needed to be debunked, because our understanding of what real cleanliness is, is the problem.

Peter continued the lesson for us in the gospel transcribed by John Mark in chapter seven, and picking up in verse 14 as Jesus speaks saying … “And when he had called all the people unto him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand: [verse 15] There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. [verse 16] If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.”  The Pharisees had tried to make the argument that without washing our hands before we eat, we are bound to get contaminated with the food we consume.  Their argument is logical and truthful.  But it is missing the greater point.  Washing our hands, and washing our food, may help to eliminate germs, and bacteria we would have otherwise missed.  But it is not what we eat, or the cleanliness of our food, that is the greater concern for what can and will defile us.  A perfectly clean peach is better than a perfectly clean pork chop as an example.  And perhaps dirty hands eating clean foods, is better than clean hands eating unclean dangerous foods.  A focus on the externals always leads to this kind of superficial thinking and comparisons.

Jesus was plainly saying, it is not the outsides that can do you harm, or what you need to try to clean.  “Nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him”.   That phrase alone was heresy to the Jews.  Daniel had made a reputation for avoiding unclean foods in the days of Nebuchadnezzar.  All the way back to Noah, there was a distinction made between clean and unclean animals.  The unclean animals entered the ark 2-by-2, the clean entered 7 at a time (a distinction Hollywood always avoids when making movies of this story).  And going back all the way to Adam, there was only a certain type of sacrifice considered acceptable to God as Cain quickly learned.  So when Jesus blows away all the conventional thinking of stating nothing we can consume causes us to be defiled, He appears to be speaking in direct contrast to centuries of Jewish tradition.  But Jesus was not trying to undo His own council on what is good and bad for us to consume.  He was instead, as usual, talking about something deeper.  What we eat does not save us, or cause us to be lost.  It only impacts our health.  We can become stronger or weaker physically by what we consume in food, but our salvation remains neutral.  Disobeying the guidelines set out by our Maker, will inevitably cause us WAY more pain, than obedience would have resulted in.  But food is not a salvation issue, neither is how often we wash our hands in a given day.

But this seeming contradiction between clean and unclean was a mystery His disciples just could not get their heads around.  They needed further clarification, so they pursued it later in private.  John Mark records the events beginning in verse 17 saying … “And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable. [verse 18] And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;”  Keep in mind the questions raised here were in reference to his “parable”.  Even in this Peter understands that Jesus is not speaking in strictly literal terms, but in story form, or in analogy form.  This is a good first step towards understanding.  But Jesus seems a bit taken back that His meaning is still not understood by even His own disciples, so he questions them a bit.

Mark continues in verse 19 … “Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?”  Eventually everything we eat will be processed by our digestive system and excreted from our bodies.  Whether our food choices were good or not, they end up in the same place.  To somehow equate food to salvation is a mistake.  This false equivocation is what the Pharisees had built an empire upon.  Temple sacrifices were butchered and the meat resold in shops owned by the priests.  The animals used in sacrifices were provided by priests who owned farms on the side.   Worshippers who traveled to Jerusalem from great distances did not usually bring animals with them on the journey, instead they bought the sacrificial beasts when they arrived.  So the priests sold the live animals for sacrifice, then they resold the meat later for food.  Restricting the entire process, and claiming that salvation was only possible by adhering to their restrictions, had made killing animals more important than ending sins; eating kosher, more important than loving others.  Instead of focusing on the heart, and how we could reflect the love of God to those in need, the Pharisees had turned the focus to the hands and stomach, to clean and unclean things, not clean and unclean hearts.

Jesus continues his explanation in verse 20 saying … “And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. [verse 21] For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, [verse 22] Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: [verse 23] All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.”  You will notice in the response of Christ, that He immediately follows verse 20 with verse 21 so that we are clear he is not talking about our bowels, or the excrements of human anatomy.  It is not what we throw up, or excrete that has the power to make us defiled.  However, what exists in the core of who we are, in our desires is what makes us defiled.  It is our very desires that will require reform, re-creation, and restoration to make us clean.  Christ explains this in priority order.  He begins with stating it is heart that is at the source of this.  The heart is associated with what we love, with what we desire, with what we want.  The “yearning” of our hearts tells the story of who we are, defined by what we want.  So to use the heart, is to say this is the deepest definition of who we are.  In essence, we want the wrong things.

Next, Christ continues with the very FIRST thing that defiles us … namely evil thoughts.  Way before we actually commit a single sin in actions, we commit it in our minds.  Our motives matter.  Our very thoughts matter.  It is our desires that drive us to first think about sin, to entertain the idea of sin, to want sin.  We want it, before we do it.  We desire the WRONG things.  This is not a problem in just “some” areas of our lives, it is problem in every area.  It is bigger than just our sexual expressions, it is our everything - from our greed, to our gluttony.  It encompasses our apathy for the poor, and our desire for expediency over service.  It encompasses our pride, our arrogance, our desire to always be right, and the other guy to always be wrong.  It encompasses our need to gossip and sway public opinion to our side of any issue.  To think our problems are isolated to chemical addictions, and sexual expression, is to vastly reduce the field of battle on which our sins find great expression.  It is our thoughts that occur in sin, that defile us, a long time before our bodies and hands take the actions that cement what we already want.

Next up, Jesus hits the most frequently committed sins, in His day, and in ours.  Adulteries and fornications top the list.  This says that more married people cheat on their spouses (even if only in the lust of their minds) than do unmarried people who wish sex without commitment.  It is no accident that sexual sins occur at the top of the list, for our biology can easily be corrupted in this way.  We have inherent biological needs, that are meant to be paired with the intimacy of the confines of marriage.  To avoid treating people like meat, marriage offers us the focus to serve only one, in a triangular relationship with God at its center.  But Satan tries to sell us the idea, that variety is better than intimacy.  He tries to sell us that risk makes sex exciting.  He tries to sell us that the forbidden is the only fruit worth eating.  And like sheep, we wander right into sin.  It is also interesting to note here, that the first sexual sin cited is adultery, then fornication, not homosexuality.  That does not mean Jesus is endorsing homosexuality by omission, however, it does tend to highlight where MOST of the sin exists in His day and in ours.  Rather than trying to remove the splinter from the eye of our gay friends, perhaps we should be removing the log from our heterosexual eyes first.

Next up in the list of sins is murder.  Then like now, murder rates were not so exorbitant, but keep in view that sin begins in the mind.  Murder may be less frequent, but hate is certainly not.  To hate in the mind, is to murder in the hands.  Murder does not usually occur to those we love, but to those we disdain, or those we care nothing about, it does.  Greed then tops the list with thefts, covetousness, wickedness, and deceit.  We steal, and we lie about it.  We want what others have, and we are pretty much willing to do anything to get it.  It may not be outright theft, but it may be sabotaging the promotion of a coworker in order to get the promotion ourselves.  It may be a host of secondary “questionable” activities that enable our greed, and give us the “things” we want.  Lasciviousness, and an evil eye, then appear on the radar of our Lord.  Our lust, our constant viewing of what otherwise might be innocent with an evil eye, or evil intention, becomes the problems we most suffer from.  These problems are universal, but absolutely only known to our hearts, and to God.  No one knows what we think when we see that beautiful girl, or handsome guy, or shiny new car.  But God does.  He knows what we would do, to get that thing we want.  He knows how far our sin would lead us into destruction, and how much pain we would cause others while engage in our sin.

Finally, Blasphemy, pride, and foolishness are cited.  Here are the sins of the church.  Here are the sins of the faith.  The religion in the day of Christ, was His own religion.  He was not there to denounce the Jewish faith, the Law, or the prophets.  Instead He was fulfilling all of it, to the letter.  The Christian faith of today is not the “wrong” belief system.  But as Judaism was corrupted in the days of Christ, so Christianity can easily be corrupted in our own day.  The blasphemy inspired by pride, and the foolishness of men, in the days of Christ lead the religious leadership to believe they could save themselves.  They were babies believing they could change their own diapers.  Just like us.  We too have decided we can through the strength of our will, and the dedication to our spiritual routines, clean our own soiled diapers and save ourselves.  But we are equally blasphemous, proud, and foolish.  Babies must be made clean by Dad, they cannot do it themselves.  After all, Jesus keeps focusing on the heart, on the core of who we are, of what we want, as the core of where our defilement comes from.  Who but Jesus can change the heart of a man or woman?

Christ concludes by stating that all these evil things come from our hearts, not our food, our clean or dirty hands, or any other external.  Our sin is worse than our poo.  Our poo is confined to us.  Our sin impacts the lives of others.  Those who we claim to love are hurt by the sins we commit.  Those who truly love us are hurt when we are hurt.  Our sin is more than distasteful, it is a circle of pain, like a rock tossed into calm waters.  Our sins have ripple effects that send pain in every direction, impacting everyone and everything they encounter.  What seems like harmless sins are anything but.  They are the excrement of our lives.  They are the vomit, the poo, and the unclean bodily fluids.  We can be made clean by Christ.  But more than that, we can find a way through submission to Jesus, to never want to be dirty again.  It is only then, that we can understand what it means to be made clean, or to stand next to God.