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Today's Scripture

I think that most people will misinterpret the title of this reflection. They might think I am going to exhort them to begin contributing or volunteering in their faith community or standing up for a cause. Those are all great, but that's not what I will focus on, because that's not what Jesus is doing in today's reading.

You may have heard me say before that humanity is a child. God's child. God is, at the same time, caring for us individually and raising humanity to its full stature. God is called the 'divine pedagogue' or teacher of children. Children are taught in stages based on what they are able to comprehend and understand. When a child is little, you don't teach them not to cross the street by explaining the physics of motor vehicle speed and impact and it's effect on the body. You just tell them: don't do it, it's bad. Later they will learn that the street is not bad, it's the cars they have to look out for, etc.

God teaches in this way in the Old Testament and asks the Israelites to follow specific dietary (and other) laws without really explaining the why. Many of these laws had positive effects that weren't explained at the time, but the key was that God told them and they trusted. This is at the heart of the relationship. Now Jesus is asking people to trust Him.

Jesus elevates the conversation from a physical meaning to a spiritual one. It is not what we physically consume that will defile us. It is also not necessarily what we intellectually consume (we can be exposed to bad ideas, concepts, behaviors, etc.) but what we CHOOSE with our hearts to share into the world. Our hearts are the place of decision, where we choose what we will pursue. Unlike animals, we have free will that allows us to choose something beyond what our physical needs and desires might be.

Jesus is telling us it is time to step up our understanding into the spiritual realm and realize that we have the ability to speak goodness into the world, that we have the ability to inspire loving choices in the world, and He is asking us to choose these over: evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. Our choosing reflects our heart and reveals if we have allowed what we have consumed to consume us, to defile us.