Mark 7

Central Image

The boo-scare — loving something yourself and assuming the other person wants it too — which set up the sermon's one question: now that we know this king is powerful and good, what does he actually want from us?

The Turn

The Pharisees assumed the new king would want what the old regime always wanted — clean hands, food laws, religious scorekeeping — but the insiders who should have known better miss him entirely while an outsider woman in Tyre gives him the one thing he's after.

Outline

"You've got to know what they want" — the boo-scare

Toby loves a jump-scare and figured everyone did, until he scared Missy on a drive to New Orleans and she went straight into shock with one tear down her cheek. The lesson that set up the whole sermon: if you're in a relationship with somebody, you have to know what they actually want from you — not just assume it's whatever you want.

A new sheriff in town (the Mark recap)

Two weeks ago Jesus told the storm to "sit down and shut up"; last week he turned out to be the good shepherd, the one man who should hold that kind of power. So this week's question lands — he's powerful and he's good, now what does he expect, and how is it different from the old regime? New authority, new expectations, like the teacher who won't do it Mrs. So-and-so's way.

The wrong question, and the Corban racket (Mark 7:1–13)

The Pharisees ask why the disciples won't wash "our way" — a rule the Old Testament never handed ordinary Israelites — and Jesus answers with Isaiah and his only sarcasm in Mark: they honor God with their lips while their hearts are far off. The Corban dodge proved it — call your money "devoted to God" and you could skip caring for your own parents while looking holy. "And you do lots of stuff like that."

"Wash your hands all day — what comes out still stinks" (Mark 7:14–23)

Nothing going into you defiles you; what comes out does. Toby kept the image as crude as Mark made it — food goes in fine and comes out foul, and that's the picture of the human heart. Right there Jesus declares all foods clean: the Messiah has come, so every law that existed only to get Israel to the Messiah is finished.

The doggies under the table (Mark 7:24–30)

Straight from the cleanliness fight Jesus walks into Tyre, a Gentile city full of "unclean" people. The woman isn't some marginal figure — she's urban, Greek-speaking, mainstream, and Jesus is the outsider to her. She falls at his feet, and when he tests her with the "doggies" line she one-ups him — the only person in Mark to best him in conversation, and the only one who calls him "Lord." She gave him exactly what the Pharisees wouldn't.

"Be open" — the deaf man in the Decapolis (Mark 7:31–37)

The word for the man's speech trouble is the one Isaiah 35 uses for the Messiah's in-breaking age — the very text read that morning. Jesus takes him aside and does something strange — fingers in the ears, spit, a touch to the tongue — not magic but relationship, telling the man what's about to happen before he says "Be open." The outsiders keep bringing Jesus what he wants; the insiders don't.

The Landing

He comes right out and tells you what he wants — your heart, the core of you, given to him in faith — so go looking, honestly, for where you're playing games with people and with God, because that's exactly where your heart isn't handed over yet. Give that for Lent; and if you've never given him your heart at all, that's where everything starts — there's water, come get baptized.

1. Toby was sure everybody loved a good boo-scare — until he scared Missy on that long drive and she sat there in shock with one tear running down her cheek. When have you given someone something you were certain they'd love, only to find out it was the last thing they wanted?
2. Jesus throws Isaiah at the Pharisees: "this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." Toby said "lips" stands for all your outward religion — so what's the gap Jesus is naming between their outward religion and their heart?
3. Toby refused to make it nice: "You can wash your hands all day long, but what comes out of you still stinks." Why do you think Jesus reached for that of all images — food that goes in fine and comes out foul — to talk about what's in us?
4. Toby said the spots where you're playing games are the spots your heart isn't given over all the way. Where are you playing games with God right now?
5. The Corban racket let a man call his money "devoted to God" and skip caring for his own aging parents while still looking holy. What's your version of calling something holy to get out of something you actually owe?
6. The people who should have known better missed him completely, and a Gentile woman in Tyre nailed it. If you've been in church a long time, what makes you so sure you're the woman at his feet and not the Pharisee asking why he won't do it our way?
7. Toby said the Pharisees took something extra and made it the measuring stick for everybody. What's the First Christian version — the unwritten thing we quietly measure people by that Jesus might not care about at all?
8. Pick the one spot where you're playing games with God, the place your heart isn't handed over yet. What's one actual thing you'll do about that spot this week — not someday?