Good Eats

Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”  

When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) “But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”

This reading from Mark speaks to all us: “Watch our tongues!”  They betray what’s inside that often is better left unsaid.

We all should “eat” that which makes us better human beings.  What we view and what we read should steer us away from hatred, evil, etc. and towards the good.   Very fortunately our Gospel is good “eats.”

Deacon David Pierce