Outside-in, or inside-out?

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, ‘Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.’

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. ‘Are you so dull?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.’ (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean).

He went on: ‘What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come

- Mark 7:14-15

The Times once asked a selection of eminent writers and thinkers to reflect on the question, 'what is wrong with the world?' GK Chesterton wrote back:

"Dear Sirs,
  I am".

We have met the Pharisees a few times in Mark. They were deeply devout people and - in some ways - had good intentions. They were aware of the great gulf between sinful humanity and a holy God, and wanted to help people to cross it.

To an extent, Jesus agreed. There was a gulf - a deep chasm between our broken fragmented lives and His pure goodness. But Jesus absolutely rejected their take on both the causes and the solutions. Incessant ritual washing, sprinkling food, pedantic observance of this and that tradition, while the thrust of the Law of Moses was ignored and evaded. The Pharisees would foist this 'outside-in' vision of holiness on anyone they could. Call it performative purity - a fake-it to make-it spirituality.

But that would never work - and nor will any of our efforts to clean the outside of the cup while ignoring the dirt inside. What's the source of the strife, conflict, greed, and violence? Our hearts.

What to do? Old religion points us to rigorous ritual observance. New-age philosophies point us to crystals, candles, and connecting with nature. None of these things go deep enough. And the truth is, nothing human is capable of dealing with the human heart.

Our hope is in the mercy of Jesus. Hebrews 10:22 says that faith in Jesus will see our hearts sprinkled and our bodies washed. But then that's the gospel itself - and 'inside-out' liberation that starts with our hearts and moves to every part of our lives: freedom from all our efforts to justify our existence, and a freedom then to serve, in love, God and our neighbour.