Mark 6:14-21 English Standard Version Copyright \u00a9\u00a02001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.<\/strong><\/p>\n 14\u00a0And he called the people to him again and said to them, \u201cHear me, all of you, and understand: 15\u00a0There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.\u201d 17\u00a0And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18\u00a0And he said to them, \u201cThen are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19\u00a0since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?\u201d (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20\u00a0And he said, \u201cWhat comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21\u00a0For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22\u00a0coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23\u00a0All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.\u201d<\/p>\n Brothers and sisters in Christ, grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.<\/p>\n Each week we gather here for worship, and we do so by beginning with the Brief Order for Confession and Forgiveness.\u00a0 The LBW (Lutheran Book of Worship) also includes the Corporate Order and Individual Order for Confession and Forgiveness.\u00a0 Why do we do this and what does it mean?\u00a0 Well\u2026let me give you a brief explanation.\u00a0 The Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship<\/em> by Philip H. Pfatteicher says the following about confession and forgiveness:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026Confession and Forgiveness is intended for use as a personal application of the gospel through the forgiveness of sins.\u00a0 It is a traditional use of what the Lutheran Confessions, drawing on a long tradition in Christianity, call \u201cthe power (or office) of the keys,\u201d based on Matthew 16:19, 18:18, and John 20:22-23, to disclose \u201ca sure and firm consolation for the conscience.\u201d (pg 87)<\/p>\n As sinners we cannot help but do things that draw us away from God.\u00a0 As baptized believers, we in turn seek out God\u2019s forgiveness at the beginning of our worship of Him so that we may approach his altar with a clean heart.\u00a0 We cannot clean it ourselves, but instead rely on the Holy Spirit to fulfill the baptismal promises made through the Word and Water.\u00a0 Forgiveness and a clean heart are only possible because God deems it to be so.\u00a0 Therefore, we do this brief order each and every week as have all the saints that have gone before us.\u00a0 Early Lutherans used this rite prior to coming to communion, and that tradition has continued to us today.<\/p>\n Last week, as we heard Mark 7:1-13, we heard how Jesus was scolding the elders for their traditions.\u00a0 That scolding continues today, but focuses on what it means to have a clean heart and how we can attain a clean heart.\u00a0 The first part of our text is that continuation of the scolding from last week.\u00a0 Jesus is again talking to the elders and reminds them that their human traditions of eating certain foods are not what defiles a person.\u00a0\u00a0 Now to me, and maybe it\u2019s because Mark writes it plainly\u2026Jesus\u2019 words seem pretty straightforward on what defiles a person.\u00a0 You may remember last week that I preached about how I love Mark\u2019s account because there are times when things are said in a very matter-of-fact manner.\u00a0 This is one of those cases to me.\u00a0 But Jesus\u2019 disciples don\u2019t seem to understand what Jesus is saying.\u00a0 Maybe they are remembering Leviticus 11, which shows us the animals that God deemed clean and unclean.\u00a0 But here, and Mark explicitly says it, Jesus declared all foods clean.\u00a0 It is reminiscent of Acts 10, where God lowers a sheet full of animals for Peter to eat from and in doing so declares previously unclean animals clean.\u00a0 I\u2019m thankful for this, because one of my favorite foods is bacon.\u00a0 Bacon is proof enough to me that God loves us and wants us to be happy.<\/p>\n If bacon makes us happy, and if bacon no longer is a forbidden food that defiles us, then what does?\u00a0 All the things that come out of our hearts that shouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 Jesus gives us a pretty comprehensive list.\u00a0 When we look at this list, we see that everything on that list prevents us from living with God, Family and Neighbor.\u00a0 It seems to me that this list is the opposite of the intention of the 10 Commandments and God\u2019s law.\u00a0 The 10 commandments teach us how to live peaceably with God, Family, and Neighbor.\u00a0 They are prohibitions that lead us to being able to prosper within the order of creation.\u00a0 Evil Intentions, along with everything else Jesus mentions here, destroys that connection and the ability to prosper, and therefore go against God.\u00a0 There is why we gather for Confession and Forgiveness each and every week.\u00a0 As sinners we are not able to fully live with God, our families, and our neighbors.\u00a0 But with the help of God, we can do better.\u00a0 We can grow in our relationships, grow in our faith, and strive to be the baptized children of God that we are.\u00a0 When you come to the altar of God soon, do so knowing that you come with a heart that is not defiled, but that is cleansed by God\u2019s Word and forgiveness.\u00a0 For God knows our hearts and is ready for us to know his.\u00a0 In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pentecost 15B (Proper 17) | September 1, 2024 | A sermon on Mark 7:14-23 | by The Rev. Dr. Judson F Merrell, STS | Mark 6:14-21 English Standard Version Copyright \u00a9\u00a02001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. 14\u00a0And he called the people to him again and said to them, \u201cHear me, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,157,853,108,110,235,782,349,3,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-20228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-markus","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-engl","category-judson-f-merrell","category-kapitel-07-chapter-07-markus","category-kasus","category-nt","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20229,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20228\/revisions\/20229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20228"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=20228"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=20228"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=20228"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=20228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}