In Christ the direction of contamination reversed — now life flows into death — so the church can go into the mess and stay who it is.
Central Image
The platypus: the boundary violator who grabs a little of everything and commits to none of it, used as a symbol of what God explicitly called Israel not to be in their faith.
The Turn
For four thousand years, death contaminated life — unclean made clean unclean. When the woman with the bleeding issue touched Jesus, the flow reversed: she didn't make him unclean, he made her clean. Something genuinely new had arrived.
Outline
The Setup: Two Things That Can Never Meet
Kevin's plumbing truck + food truck. John Travolta in the bubble. Both images do real work before the sermon gets going. The plumbing-truck brownie names something visceral: some things cannot be mixed, and we all know it. The boy in the bubble names the opposite failure: a faith so clean it never touches anything. Toby is going to hold both of these in tension for the rest of the sermon.
What the Food Laws Were Actually For
Reading Leviticus 20:24-26. The laws weren't about hygiene — they were a cultural and spiritual barrier. A Jew could have a Gentile over to eat, but he couldn't eat at the Gentile's house. That asymmetry wasn't accidental: it created proximity without assimilation. The food laws kept Israel distinct enough to be the incubator for the Messiah and the proof that God keeps his promises. Matthew draws the genealogical line from Jesus back to Abraham precisely because Israel held together as an identifiable people. The laws also declared something else: all of Israel's ordinary life was holy. A plowman and a priest both lived before God. There was no secular corner of life. The food laws were a daily reminder of that — not oppression, just identity marked out in what you do and don't put in your mouth.
Perry the Platypus and the Logic of Unclean Animals
Most of the unclean animals are either boundary violators — chews the cud but no cloven hoof, lives in water but no fins and scales — or things tied to death and decay: buzzards, rats, blood, carcasses. The platypus is the extreme case: mammal, lays eggs, duck bill, webbed claws, poison glands. It can't commit to being anything. That's exactly what God didn't want Israel to be — picking a little of this god and a little of that fertility rite and a little of the Lord when it's convenient. The boundary-violating animals were a walking, crawling, swimming reminder: you don't get to be uncommitted.
The New Testament Pivot: Life Flows the Other Direction Now
Jesus is in a crowd, everyone pressing in. A woman who has had a bleeding issue for years reaches out and touches the hem of his garment. The expected result is that Jesus becomes unclean — that's how it always worked. Instead, she becomes clean. For the first time, life flows into death rather than death contaminating life. Jesus could absorb uncleanness without being taken by it because sin and the curse had no claim on him. That moment is the hinge of the whole sermon: what the food laws pointed toward has now changed, because the Messiah they were protecting arrived and altered the direction of the current.
What This Means for the Church
We are not Israel. The food laws served their purpose and ended when Christ fulfilled it. But the thing they were marking out — that all of life is sacred, lived before God, no secular exemption — that stays. And now, filled with the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, we stand on the other side of that reversal. We can go into the mess. The church's calling is to hold both: identity in Christ that doesn't evaporate in the presence of hard things, and genuine engagement with real people in real mess. Neither the bubble nor the pride flag. Toby named it plainly: he and Missy landed at this church because it seemed to be a place that held both. That's the standard he's putting in front of the congregation — not a doctrinal checklist, not a vague openness, but both.
The Landing
Jesus didn't find any of us cleaned up and ready — he came to us in our mess, brought his cleanness to our uncleanness, and didn't water himself down to do it. That's what he calls the church to be for everybody else.
Questions to Think About
- Kevin Householder is a great plumber. He's probably not going to start a food truck. But Toby used that image to open something up — what was the instinctive reaction you had to the plumbing-truck-brownie combination, and why do you think he started there?
- Toby said the food laws weren't oppressive rules — they were a reminder. What were they reminding Israel of, and why would a constant, daily reminder matter to a people entering a land with a culture and gods already in place?
- The platypus showed up as the image for what God didn't want Israel to be — the boundary violator, grabbing a little of everything. What is it about that kind of "uncommitted" faith that makes it dangerous, not just inconsistent?
- Toby described two church failures: the bubble (doctrinally tight, no contact with real mess) and the pride flag on the back wall (open to everyone, identity gone). Which direction do you naturally drift toward, and what does that say about what you're afraid of?
- Jesus didn't become unclean when the bleeding woman touched him — she became clean. That was new. Where in your own life have you experienced someone carrying the life of Christ into your mess rather than waiting for you to clean up first?
- Toby said we hold both: "I am in Christ, spotless before God" and "I am a sinner" — both true at the same time. Most of us actually let go of one of them. Which one are you more likely to drop, and what does dropping it cost you?
- Toby said one reason he and Missy landed at this church was that it holds both — truth and mess. Is that actually true of us right now, or is that more of an aspiration than a current reality?
- Think of one person in your life who is deep in the mess — someone you've been keeping at arm's length. What is one specific thing you could do this week to move toward them without pretending the mess isn't there?