Honor Me

     In scripture, we often see Jesus taking the ways that people think about things and turning them on their head. The teachings of Jesus were radical, but we've sanitized them today, and put enough distance between the teachings and us, that we sometimes miss the point. We made Jesus tame instead of letting his teachings and actions change us as well.
    The teaching in Mark 7 about clean and unclean is a perfect example. Jesus is essentially asking us a really difficult question - what makes something clean or unclean? And second, is that a reflection of the heart of God?
    Here's the thing, we can make scripture through interpretation say whatever we want it to say. But what we really need to be looking at is the Spirit - is the Spirit of our interpretation in line with the heart of God? Because if it isn't, if we make it more about our traditions or rules then about God, we've missed the point and we've dishonored God.
    Recently I watched the moving Loving, which tells of the court case that overturned the laws concerning inter-racial marriage. The judge that originally jailed the Loving's in Virginia for being an inter-racial couple used a lot of God-talk to justify his decision. But was that honoring to God? No.
    Traditions constantly need to be examined to see if they reflect the heart of God and honor God. Because too often we let our human interpretations speak for God instead of actually praying about God's intention. Let us not become people who focus so much on the law that we forget the Spirit, or so much on what we have made tradition that it blocks us from following the heart of God.