Out Our Way: The Gospel according to Goliath: The heart of the matter

Mark 4: 17-23

Out our way, folks sometimes tell of great horse they have known. In Wyoming, I rode a Morgan mare named Autumn out at the Empire ranch. Cecil and Elsie had raised her and her siblings and all were good horses — but Autumn was beyond good — she was great.

I recall Cecil — who had to weigh more than 300 pounds — once rode her cross-country in a 50-mile race, and easily came in with the leaders. The vet who checked the horses wondered aloud if Cecil had been cheating — had not ridden the full 50 miles through the sand hills of Wyobraska, the area where the panhandle of Nebraska connects with the plains of Wyoming — because she was still raring to go at the end of the trail. Well, Morgans are great horses, but it wasn't the breed that set Autumn apart, it was the heart.

You may have seen the videos about other great horses — Seabiscuit or Hidalgo. They tell the story of different breeds of horses, but what they had in common was heart or spirit. That is what made them champions.

Christ spoke about the heart or soul being the primary factor that matters in life. Some Pharisees were concerned about customs and traditions, but not about righteousness and love. They spoke of people being "defiled" by eating nonkosher food. Jesus was more concerned about being defiled by having a nonkosher heart.

Shall Rabbi Schwartz be condemned to hell for eating a strip of bacon, while Rabbi Weiss, who beats his wife, hates his neighbors, cheats on his taxes but who has never tasted pork, gets a free pass? Apparently some people think religion is all about show and following rules rather than a process by which we begin to be transformed into rightoeus and truly good people. Goliath and I disagree and so does Jesus.

In the text cited above, Jesus noted that when it comes to purity and cleanliness before God, what comes out of the heart is far more important than what goes into the stomach. I might eat something I shouldn't and even be made sick by it for a time — but eventually the system gets rid of it and I am clean again. But a bitter, hateful heart can stick around for a life time or even longer.

Consider the problem with ISIS in the Middle East. Christians are routinely persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and often publicly beheaded by Muslim extremists. I am no expert on the subject, but I have been told that much of this extreme hate and wickedness goes back many centuries to the time of the Crusades — when soldiers claiming to serve Christ murdered, slaughtered and devastated Arab populations.

That these European nations thrived and came to dominate the world including the Middle East for centuries is part of ongoing history for these people. When the 9/11 attack on New York murdered thousands of innocents, many extremists cheered. The same when British and Belgian and French and German victims were senslessy slaughtered — there was dancing in the streets in some places. It is seen as revenge for the atrocities committed against the Arabs. Hate lasts a long long time.

(I am still not quite able to accept Jane Fonda despite her acceptance of Christ in recent years. Oops! It seems there is some unkosher heart in me that still needs to be addressed!)

That seems the point of Christ's teaching here — at least, it is what I think He wants me to get from it at this time: There is darkness and wickedness and unkosher aspects in all our lives. It WILL come out from time to time no matter how hard we try to pretend it isn't there or hide it. I remember in seminary making a racist remark to one of my best buddies — who happened to be of Asian ethinicity — and he simply said, "Up against the wall, Whitey!" Only then, as Chuck grinned and laughed at my embarrassment, did I realize that nasty, racist, wicked, unkosher aspect of my heart was there, revealed, and could not be denied.

Unkosher food will defile the body for a time — but unkosher thoughts and attitudes will defile the soul forever unless we cleanse ourselves of them! Good thing to know. 

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John Bruington, Goliath, Scout and the gang are to be found each week on the church website: havrepres.org. Also sermons, cartoons and Bruin Town Tales are published weekly except when the idiot pastor messes up the computer and sends the whole thing into cyber space. Hey! Maybe the Cyborgs will be converted.