June 18th, 2017
Devotional
“The Gospel of Mark: Honor Me” - Mark 7: 1-23
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Monday: “Why Don’t?” - Mark 7: 1-5
Imagine the scene. You are famished. You have spent a long day working and you sit down to dinner only to have your parents ask you if you washed your hands. The difference in today’s scripture between wha the disciples experienced and what we probably experienced in childhood is this - the disciples are essentially being accused of not being good Jews and breaking the traditions of the people.
Is washing your hands a good thing? Yes. Does it make you a bad Christian if you fail to wash your hands? No. As we saw last week, there was a lot of concern in the religious leaders teachings around eating practices, because who you associated with and what you put in your mouth could make you unclean. So the religious leaders ask Jesus what they think is an important question, “Why do your disciples not live according to the traditions of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?
Have you ever noticed how much time, energy, and attention we can put into the wrong things. We can slip into the same mind set of the religious leaders in Jesus’s time today when we focus more on traditions then reflecting the heart of God.
Tell of a time that you put too much time and energy into tradition. What did you learn?
Did the religious leaders teaching around clean/ unclean reflect the heart of God? Why or why not?
Prayer: Jesus, we confess that sometimes we miss the point. We put too much into keeping traditions that no longer honor you instead of seeking to build up your Kingdom. We become champions for following our interpretations of your rules instead of seeking after your heart. Help us we pray, to truly follow the spirit of your commands so that you can be honored and glorified. Amen.
Tuesday: “Hold to Human Traditions” - Mark 7: 6-8
No one likes being called a hypocrite, but it is a word that is flung around a lot today. It means actor, pretender, or fake. The truth is we all risk becoming hypocrites from time to time when we become more engrossed in what we are doing then asking why we are doing it in the first place.
Sometimes we need to re-examine our traditions to make sure that they honor God with our hearts, and sometimes that will mean changing things. For example, one of the churches I served always had a big Christmas Eve service. One year in council someone asked why we have an offering on Christmas Eve and the reply came “because we always have done it that way.” After further examination we arrived at the fact that all of our worship services have a time of offering. Why? “Well that’s just the way it is.” Eventually we arrived at the conclusion that we have a time of offering to give our first fruits and very best to God. However, as a congregation they didn’t need that offering for their budget so they changed things to give one hundred percent of the Christmas Eve offering away as an act to honor God. They re-examined and then re-worked the tradition.
Traditions add value to what we are doing, however, they are not meant to be the same forever. They are contextual. We need to make sure that our human traditions do not block our hearts from the leading of God.
Tell of a time that you changed a tradition. Why did you do so? What happened?
Why are traditions important? Why must we constantly examine our traditions? How could our traditions unintentionally block us from following God?
Prayer: Lord, help us to get to the heart behind the traditions we hold on to. Help us to hold our traditions gently, offering them to you for examination and re-working. May we always honor you with what we do, both as individuals and collectively. Amen.
Wednesday: “ The Traditions You Hand On” - Mark 7: 9-13
We do not set out to alter God’s intentions with our traditions, but it can happen from time to time. Traditions can be rich and can lead us even deeper in our relationship with God when they are used well. But they also can make us focus more on the tradition then on God if we aren’t careful.
In today’s scripture Jesus is talking about one of the Ten Commandments: “Honor thy Father and Mother.” Somewhere along the way, it had been changed a little and after time the tradition got handed on more then the Word of God, which became problematic.
We have twisted the intentions of God to say extremely hurtful and untrue things over the years, using it to belittle other races that are not white. We have used it to say awful things about the Jewish religion. And then we have passed all of these hurtful things on from generation to generation without thought. We need to examine the Word of God to see how to reflects the heart of God instead of simply relying on what we think we have been taught, which becomes problematic.
How have we twisted scripture to hurt people and build ourselves up?
What traditions have you seen dismantled in your life time that did not reflect the heart of God?
Prayer: Lord, we confess that we can use your Word as a weapon. We have used it to justify our racism, sexism, and hurtful actions. We have taken your Word out of context for our own building up and tearing down. Forgive us, we pray. Amen.
Thursday: “The Things That Come Out” - Mark 7: 14-16
Jesus starts to turn his comments and teaching away from the religious leaders and looks right into the crowds. They had been taught again and again through tradition that they had to be extremely careful about what goes into their bodies because it could defile them, but really it was what comes up that could defile.
Apparently, the disciples and the crowds continued to miss the point because re-thinking and dismantling tradition can be hard. Jump ahead to the book of Acts where Peter is given a dream multiple times concerning what he could eat. He kept hearing the voice of God telling him to eat animals appearing on a sheet that he refused to eat because tradition told him it would make him unclean. Eventually the voice tells him that nothing God has made clean can be deemed unclean, and finally, Peter understood.
We still don’t understand sometimes today. We judge people in ways that do not honor God. Why? Because we want to make ourselves feel better, superior. When words come out of our mouth that are meant to belittle other people, we are not clean. When we teach our children to bully other people, we are not clean. Our heart and our mouth are directly linked, and can be more poisonous then when we are putting in.
How can what comes out of our mouth be unclean?
Prayer: Lord, cleanse us we pray. Cleanse our hearts, our minds, and our mouth. Free us from saying and thinking things that do not honor you and exist only to lift us up amongst one another. Forgive us, we pray. Amen.
Friday: “For it is from Within” - Mark 7: 17-23
People usually do not just wake up one day and act in a way that belittles God’s name. For example, I once heard a teaching that folks don’t just fly off the handle one day and murder someone. Instead, there is usually a heart issue that starts deep inside them - anger, jealousy, etc. that festers until it becomes something akin to hate. That hate starts to manifest itself in intentions, thoughts of what a person would like to do. After time those intentions become actions, like murder.
The heart is the seat of where things start. The heart reflects our values and intentions. For us, as Christians, we need to be in prayer asking if our heart reflects the heart of God. If we value what God values or if we have let our values replace God’s values. If we have have let what we want replace what God wants.
How does your heart reflect the heart of God?
How is the heart the beginning of all actions?
Prayer: Lord, we want our heart to beat for what your heart desires. Help us to value your values and love what you love. Help us to seek your peace in this world. Let us not become sucked into values and behaviors of the world that lead us astray such as anger, jealously, deceit, and pride. Free us to be your people. Amen.
Saturday: Preparing for the Word
You are invited to read and pray this week’s text and topic: “The Gospel of Mark: The Last Will be First” - Mark 9: 33-37
Family Activity: Cut out a paper heart. Right in the middle of the heart the things that are important to God. How can we live out those things in our lives?
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