From the heart
Day 442, Monday, Oct. 27
Matthew 13:53 – 16:12
While Jesus said that he did not come to overturn the law but to fulfill it, he does take several opportunities to show that some parts of the law are overemphasized by the people of his day. Nowhere is this clearer than his response to dietary and cleanliness laws.
In one of the most explicit statements about this, he says in 15:11 that, “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that it what defiles them.”
A few verses later he explains, “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
For the observant Jew it was required that they ceremonially wash their hands before eating. While we would consider that a common-sense health practice, for them it was about religious devotion.
Jesus is telling his hearers that it being righteous or unrighteous isn’t about eating the right foods and following the required rituals, but rather about having a heart that does right and avoids sin. We are shown to be clean or unclean not by the rituals we follow, but by avoiding sinful thoughts and actions. It does no good to follow the right rituals if we have a heart filled with thoughts of evil.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Monday meditation

Psalms 18:7-19
The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—the dark rain clouds of the sky. Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning. The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy, with great bolts of lightning he routed them. The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at your rebuke, Lord, at the blast of breath from your nostrils.
He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Prayer focus
Lord, cleanse our hearts.