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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Using the gospel text for our sermon today, please be seated. Some background about that gospel reading today is what we heard last week, actually, that some Jewish religious leaders, Pharisees, approached Jesus and asked him about his disciples, who were eating food that had not been washed properly according to Jewish religious tradition. And so they questioned Jesus about it, and he accuses them of putting human traditions above God’s idea about how people are clean and unclean.
The Pharisees were saying that there were things that people had to do to make food and themselves clean. But Jesus goes beyond that. He goes beyond those rules about clean and unclean. And really, well, Jesus gets to the heart of the matter about what makes people clean and unclean. He says it in today’s Gospel reading several times about nothing outside of a person can defile a person, can make them unclean. It’s what’s inside and comes out of them that makes them unclean. Jesus really reverses the whole idea about what makes a person clean and unclean. He says what makes a person unclean isn’t outside of them, but inside of them.
Then Jesus says something really, really difficult, really hard. It’s that list, that list of all of these evils that can come out of a person’s heart. I’m not going to reread it there because they’re hard to read. And they’re hard to read because they say that Jesus says that these things, these evil things, this list… They’re inside of people. They’re inside of you. They’re inside of me. They are in our hearts. Jesus said, out of the heart come these things. We are capable of any of those things on that list. They can come out at any time.
I like to think I’m a nice guy. But you read this list, and you got to think differently about the things that people are capable of. The heart. We understand the heart isn’t just a piece of flesh inside of us that helps regulate the blood flow in our body. It’s more than that. The heart is the physical center of people, but it’s also the spiritual center. It’s our core being. There’s the literal physical heart, and then there’s the idea about our heart.
Right? A Lutheran Christian sermon. Because being unclean isn’t a stomach problem, Jesus points out; it’s a heart problem. What goes into you doesn’t make you unclean. Food doesn’t make you unclean. The problem is you’re already unclean.
And another difficult verse in the Bible from the prophet Jeremiah—he says, the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Yes, it’s true, sometimes we like to say, well, God looks at the heart. Right? That’s not always good news. In fact, some people, I love it when people say, well, just follow your heart. And I’m like, really? I’m going to get away from you for a while. Or, I want to give my heart to Jesus. Really? You see the things that are in there? What a fine gift to give to Jesus. You need a new heart.
And that’s exactly what Jesus wants to give you, a new heart. You look at that list. Okay, maybe you haven’t done the things on that list. Okay, maybe you were even checking them off. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Okay, good, if you haven’t done those, but they’re still there in your thoughts, in your words, sometimes in your deeds. These things are there. Again, maybe you haven’t done them, but maybe you’ve thought them. Sexual immoral thoughts, planning to steal something, wanting to do so, wishing someone was hurt or maybe dead, wanting what doesn’t belong to you. It’s all the same. Thought, word, deeds—it all comes from an unclean heart.
And it’s a struggle. I know. And maybe you struggle with some of the things on that list. Maybe you’re checking them off the list and saying, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It’s a struggle. And the solution can be a struggle too. What do I do about this? I know. I know I’ve got this problem. I know I’ve got this.
And I think the best thing to do with it, first of all, is to get it out of you. Not by doing it; that’s not what I mean. But confessing it. Get it off your heart. Confess it. We do that in the general confession. In fact, we even confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We’ve sinned in thought, word, and deed. We didn’t say it today, but we often do in the confession that we have not loved God with our whole heart. Amen. Or a neighbor as ourselves. That’s great. Confess it. Get it off your heart.
You know, we confess it, and we understand that our hearts are naturally unclean. I have to say it this way: sin is in our veins. It’s in our blood. It flows through us. But Jesus wants to give you a new heart. He wants to take your burdened, unclean, full of evil heart away and give you a new, clean one.
You may think that your heart is beyond cure, and that’s okay, because God wants to give you a new one. God can change the matter of your heart. And He does so by forgiving whatever evil things have come out of your heart. You’ve probably had a time when you messed up really bad, and you hurt a friend of yours or did something that made you feel really guilty, and you were really sorry about it. And the person you hurt forgave you. I bet that took a burden off of your heart. That’s the way it is with God.
Your heart is clean, not because of what you can do about it, but because of what Jesus has done. That’s part of the struggle. We know we’ve done wrong. We know we’ve sinned. We’re burdened by that. And we struggle with the solution. What do I do about that? And the solution is not inside of you. The solution is outside of you.
We know what’s inside of us. Jesus, thank you for that list and all that reminder. But what’s outside of us is where we become clean. And that’s what Jesus is really getting at here in the gospel today, that there’s nothing you can do, no human tradition that you can follow, no eating the right food or washing it in the right way to make your heart clean. No, what makes you clean is not in you. Now, what’s in you, what’s in us, in our hearts—that’s a mess, okay? The solution is outside of us. It’s in God’s action for you to give you a new heart.
And He gives you that new heart in Jesus. Jesus came to the earth with a beating heart, just like ours. But his heart was full of compassion and love and forgiveness for you, you who are by nature sinful and unclean. And Jesus came here to take away the guilt of your thoughts and your words and your deeds of your unclean heart and give you a new one. But it cost him, okay? It cost Jesus his life, where on the cross his heart stopped in death for you.
It was a death in your place for the evil of your heart. On the cross, Jesus took all of the unclean hearts of the world, including yours and mine, and died with them there. But the heart of the matter for Jesus, his love and forgiveness, could not die forever, because just three days later, Jesus’ heart began beating again as he rose from the dead to give you a new eternal heartbeat again.
The heart of Jesus, so full of love for you, could not stay dead. The heart of the matter, the heart of our matter, I should say, the heart of our matter is sinful, but the heart of Jesus’ matter is forgiveness. And he gets rid of the heartache and the heartbreak of your sin with a new, clean heart. Now, in Jesus, the core of your being, your heart, is not unclean. You have a new heart.
And that’s the heart of the matter of Christianity. What it really boils down to what Christianity is, is that loving, forgiving heart of Jesus to forgive your sins. And that’s the heart of the matter why Christians gather together. We gather together to receive what’s outside of us. We confess our uncleanness together. And we have God’s words of forgiveness come from outside of us into our ear holes to receive that and know we are forgiven.
At the altar, we receive into our hands what’s outside of us. We receive Christ’s body and blood in the bread of wine and then take it into us for that forgiveness of sins, really to become a real part of us. That’s the heart of the matter in gathering for worship, to receive what’s clean outside of us in those words of forgiveness of Christ. And with that new heart then, that new clean heart, we go out to serve God and serve others, serving with a clean heart, full of joy and happiness of what Christ has done for us.
Now, that’s the kind of heart that we can give to God—a new, clean one that He’s given to us in Christ. Today, in America, there’s plenty of blame and finger-pointing going on about what or who are the problems of the world. But the problem today isn’t Democrats or Republicans. It’s not socialists or capitalists. It’s not liberals or conservatives. It’s not the press. It’s not the NRA. It’s not even another person or another guy or gal that we can point at. It’s anyone who has a heart. You and me.
If you want to look for the problems in the world, look no further than the mirror. Or look no further than your heart. Because each of us are filled with those evils that we can commit. I heard somebody say this week, they said, if you want to change the world, then change yourself. And I said, okay, fair enough. And I wanted to add to it, already thinking about this sermon, I said, you want to change yourself, change your heart. Or better yet, get a new one. Have your heart changed by Christ.
Yeah, we look at the problems of the world; we look no further than ourselves. But if we want to look for forgiveness, for a new clean heart, look no further than Jesus. Because really, that’s the heart of the matter. That’s the heart of the matter for Christianity today—forgiveness for the evil that’s in our heart and a new one given instead.
Yeah, these verses. I’m glad they only come up every three years. These verses are hard. Probably my least favorite verses in the Bible. Right there, Mark 7. Because that’s us. That’s me in those. And in it, Jesus really gets to the heart of the matter about showing the sin in our hearts. But he also gets to the heart of his matter, his love and forgiveness there. For that evil. His heart is full of love and forgiveness to clean us and give us a new heart.
I know it’s common in Texas to say, “bless your heart.” It’s usually well-intentioned to help comfort somebody who said something bad happened to them, or they’ve messed up and they did something wrong, or they failed at something. Oftentimes, I think “bless your heart” is just code for, man, what you did was stupid. Amen.
But when I say it today, I don’t mean it that way. I mean it more well-intentioned and sincerely for Christ’s blessing for your heart to clean it and give you a new one. Amen. Now may the peace of God, which goes beyond all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
