Mark 7

How easily this slipped away from me!

I started getting busy before Christmas,
and told myself I would get caught up over the holiday.
Now the holiday is almost over
and I have not read one single chapter!

I hope I can be more consistent from now on.

Anyway....

(it feels strange trying to pick it up where I left off,
it was so long ago that I've sat here.)

So where were we?

Jesus is in a place called Gennesarat,

Mar 6:56 And wherever He entered,
into villages or cities or country,
they laid the sick in the streets and begged Him
if only they might touch but the fringe of His garment.
And as many as touched Him were made whole.

Then the Pharisees and scribes track him down from Jerusalem,
and start questioning him about Jewish traditions
(and the fact that He and his disciples aren't following them)

And he makes some statements that cause me to question
many of the traditions I see around my own life:

Mar 7:7 However, they worship Me in vain,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."
Mar 7:8 For laying aside the commandment of God,
you hold the tradition of men, the dippings of pots and cups.
And many other such things you do.
Mar 7:9 And He said to them,
Do you do well to set aside the commandment of God,
so that you may keep your own tradition?

I can't help but think of my own religious upbringing
(in the Catholic church).

Now that I have read a good portion of what Jesus has taught,
and I find few teachings that parallel the religious stuff
I remember from my childhood,
I feel somewhat bitter about it.

Things like
"Don't eat meat on Friday", and
"Women shouldn't be in church without their heads covered",
or baptism of babies
or purgatory
or confession
or calling men "Father"
or giving up something for lent,
or the countless other traditions created by men
to "lord it over the laity",
all these seem like the "living by the law" stuff
that never worked
and
that Jesus came to free us from anyway!

Even though I try to be merely amused by these things,
I know deep down I have a scar somewhere
that won't let me let it go.
Its almost as if "The Church" kept me away from "the church"
for so long
because I couldn't tolerate the trappings.

And I feel like so many people are duped by the Sunday morning ritual
that they only have the smallest glimmer of the light Jesus has for them
if they only knew it.

Of course, who am I to judge?

Maybe I am feeling good about my new understanding,
that I don't have to blindly follow ritual and tradition
like the rest of the sheep,

but I'm instantly deflated by the truth behind it.

Mar 7:15 There is nothing from outside a man
which entering into him can defile him.
But the things which come out of him,
those are the ones that defile the man.

And what comes out of me?

Well, rather than make a personal confession here,
I'll just leave it to him to explain:

Mar 7:21
For from within,
out of the heart of men,
proceed evil thoughts,
adulteries,
fornications,
murders,
Mar 7:22
thefts,
covetousness,
wickedness,
deceit,
lasciviousness,
an evil eye,
blasphemy,
pride,
foolishness:
Mar 7:23
All these evil things
pass out from inside
and defile the man.

Yeah, so maybe I am free of most ritual and tradition,
but I am certainly not free of those things!

(...and I always thought the heart was a good thing!)

You know, I wrote that with a smile on my face
(about the heart being a good thing)
but now that I think about it,
that one point could explain a lot in my own life

"out of the heart of men proceed evil...."

Could that be true?

These evils proceed from my own natural heart?

hmmm.

I believe that a person's soul is their soul,
meaning that it is always there and it never changes.
It just is what it is.

I believe that a person's mind is always changing.
It grows, learns, understands.
It is always gathering, organizing and adapting.

But I have been wondering about something.

Why is it that when my mind is on these truths
I have little difficulty understanding what they mean,
And yet I find it so difficult to be the person I think I should be?

If my soul is not part of my daily decision making,
and my mind is clear and knows what is right,
what is it in me that causes me to fail continually?

Is he telling me that it is my heart?

Now I recall reading that we are promised a new heart
when we are born again.

Can't the one I have be repaired?

Now I also remember something a teacher said.
"Nowhere in the bible do you ever hear of
someone's heart being healed.
They are always given a new one!"

If this is true,
My final thought of the day is this:

If I know in my own life,
from within me somewhere
is pouring out
evil thoughts, pride, lust, greed, etc
...
and he is saying this is from my heart,
...
then I know
that even though I have been baptized several times,
and asked for a new start many times,
and felt reborn at least once,
my heart is still not right.

So what's the deal?
Do I ask for a new one every day or what?