Mark 7:1-23: Inside and Outside

Presented to Nipawin Corps on March 03, 2008
By Captain Michael Ramsay

We met John in the introductory story the other week. John is now married to Janet and they live somewhere up here in the North where he recently learned some lessons about shovelling snow. Now John didn’t always live here. He actually grew up in a big city down south many years ago. His graduating class though was only about the same size as Tisdale – not Tisdale’s grad class – all of Tisdale. Life was a little bit different.

Now John used to be a Mars Bar fan. Actually, he can still be led astray by a Mars Bar at times but once upon a time when he was in junior high, it got him into quite a bit of trouble.

But in John’s school of 3000 people there were two popular groups of kids: the INSIDE people and the OUTSIDE people. Now the INSIDE people were the one’s who had all the money. They wore the fashionable clothes, they were the one’s that as each of them turned 16, their parents were planning to buy them new cars. Their parents had all the fancy jobs and they knew they were special.

The outside people, on the other hand, didn’t necessarily have all that same stuff and so they hung out outside in jeans and a T-shirt all year long outside for two reasons – one because well, he didn’t live in Northern Saskatchewan so they could be outside in a just t-shirt all year long and 2) they were smokers and jr. high students -even back then- weren’t allowed to smoke in the schools.

John was neither in with the inside people nor out with the outside people but neither was he in with the outsiders nor out with the insiders; John was quite happy just hanging out in his own little world with a couple of friends until one day, something happened…

John’s social studies class was studying law and as a final project; everyone was going to get dressed up as different characters and have a mock trial. All the kids signed up for what they wanted – prosecution, defence, witnesses, accused, and the leftovers were on the jury. John was on the jury.

Now there was this fellow, Bill. Bill knew John but Bill was a very popular person –too popular for John - Bill was the defence attorney, Bill wanted to win this case and Bill was one of the inside people.

So at lunch hour there was John walking through the inside of the school - thinking about nothing more than, well, Mars Bars – when Bill, the inside person, approaches – “Hello John; how are you John; do you want a Mars Bar John?”

“Why yes I do,” says John thinking how lucky he is to have a Mars Bar offered to him right when he was wanting a Mars Bar…and he begins to eat it…

“Now all you have to do is to get the jury to vote for acquittal on the trial this afternoon,” says Bill, the INSIDE person, as John, thinking of nothing more than his Mars bar, agrees and heads OUTSIDE to go home for lunch and when he is OUTSIDE, he sees Silvia…

Silvia smiles at John. Silvia is a beautiful girl. Silvia is a popular girl. Silvia is an OUTSIDE girl. Silvia has never smiled at John before and Silvia – Silvia is prosecution in today’s trail and Silvia smiles at John.

John is quite surprised by all this attention so he quickly finishes his Mars bar, puts the wrapper in his pocket, scrapes he teeth clean and smiles back in an awkward, Jr. High school kind of way.

“John, what are you doing today … after school?” Silvia asks.

“Going home to watch TV, have a snack…”

“No,” says Silvia who is smiling in a teasing sort of way. “No” says Silvia “John, what are you doing today after school…with me…right after you convict the accused in law class?” She winks, turns, and walks away with the OUTSIDE people.

Oh…wow. Now, this is starting to sound like a date – John had never had a date before. He really didn’t know what to do, he just knew that this was turning out to be a great day; not only has he got his first ever date, but he also got a Mars Bar and …, oh wait.

Well, what to do now? John has a moral decision to make…should he support the OUTSIDE PERSON Silvia, or the INSIDE PERSON Bill who has already paid his bribe…then – for a fleeting moment - he wonders all together whether jurors should take bribes at all and then he has an idea; he runs home as fast as he can. He doesn’t stop to have lunch; he just grabs his change from his dresser. Just enough. He will buy Bill a Mars Bar, pay him back, and tell him that he can’t be bribed and then he’ll have a date with Silvia.

After he buys the Mars Bar on the way back to school, he becomes so pleased with his idea that he starts thinking about what he and Silvia could do on their date. They could go out to this coffee shop that sells deep fried Mars Bars and then it could become their place and they could go there everyday and have deep fried Mars Bars and John is really getting excited now about the prospect of this. He and Silvia could go and have a Mars Bar everyday together and then he thought that he could go for a Mars Bar right now and then, looking down, in all his excitement, he noticed that indeed he is having a Mars Bar right now…Bill’s Mars bar…uh oh.

Ding time for class.

John goes to class and he sees Bill, and the INSIDE people, and he musters as much courage as he can and he tells him that he can’t be bribed… and then he runs to hide in the jury box…

The trial goes well and the jury is sent to deliberate. John is sitting with the other jurors still dreaming of his life of Mars Bar dates with the OUTSIDE PERSON Silvia when all of a sudden he notices – the other Jurors – and one of them is a girl he’s never met before, an INSIDER PERSON named Janet, who says, “so its decided then, he’s innocent.”

“Guilty” says John, who is wondering how this could have gone so terribly wrong. “Innocent” says Janet, “Guilty” says John and Janet pulls out a Mars Bar…the accused gets off. John, never does get a date with Silvia, but he did get 3 Mars bars that day so he figures that it wasn’t all bad a day after all…

If you’ll turn with me to the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 7, you’ll notice that Jesus shares with us a little parable about the INSIDE and OUTSIDE of a cup as he speaks about moral dilemma not too far divorced from high school bribery of today’s story.

So here’s the situation: the Pharisees, who we’ve looked at before, they really do want to keep the law and all the traditions. They want everything to be perfect. They are sort of like an albeit misguided type of hyper-holiness movement of their day. It says in verses 3 and 4 that not only do they observe the washing of dishes, food, and hands, but they really do try to keep all the traditions.[1]

Jesus says that the Pharisees of our account here are missing the point. He quotes Isaiah, in Verses 6 and 7 and saying, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites;[2] as it is written: ‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’”[3]

He goes on, Verse 8: “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human traditions.” These are harsh comments. Jesus isn’t really being gentle, meek and mild in this passage is he? He’s shooting from the hip – so to speak – and this is something he tends to do with the religious people, the synagogue-going people, the church people, isn’t it?

We’ve studied about how he extends so much charity to the outsiders but to those who should know better, he tells it like it is, doesn’t he? Jesus continues, verses 9-13, “And he said to them: ‘You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honour your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.’”[4]

Jesus says that by their very traditions they are transgressing the will of God. My question to us is, do we ever do that?

Do we ever worship with rules taught by people (verse 7) instead of with hearts for God? I’ve been in churches where, honestly, inappropriately dressed visitors[5] were asked to leave. I have heard of people asking others not to sing in church because they don’t sing well enough. I have heard people lament the cigarette butts outside their church or even make racist remarks in the service itself. I have seen people miss the whole worship experience because they were upset with other people’s fidgeting children or something else; what are some things that distract us from the heart of worship? I have heard people cry, for example, because others’ act of having a cigarette, they say, is going to send them to hell…

But Jesus, on the contrary, tells the crowd, verse 15, “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’”

Now Jesus says a lot more in this little statement than I can possibly explain in my sermon today because – look at verse 19 – it says that along with everything else he is saying here, Jesus is declaring all foods clean. In our Bible studies, we’ve looked at how Jesus has redefined the Sabbath already, applauded his disciples for not fasting, and how he has openly exposed himself to ritual uncleanness on more than one occasion, and now Jesus is reinterpreting the dietary laws that govern so much of the Jewish traditional life: he is saying here that it is okay to have bacon for breakfast, ham sandwiches for lunch and pork chops for dinner. (Don’t forget its potluck today.) Now, this is alright by me for sure but the world of Jesus day is changing here – but this is, as they say, another story for another day

When Jesus tells the crowd, verse 15, “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean,’” he is telling them a very simple truth: what we do, no matter how good, no matter how nice, no matter how proper, no matter how noble, what we do, will not get us into the Kingdom of Heaven. These good deeds, laws, rules, traditions, these things do not matter in this way. What comes from the outside world will neither keep us out of the Kingdom of God (see the parable of the Sheep and the Goats though –Matt. 23- there are certain things that communities that follow Jesus will inevitably do).

What will defile us, however, is what comes out of us (cf. vv.19, 20), Verse 21ff: “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’” This is what defiles us.

So this is a very simple truth like I said…it is not what the world pours into us that purifies or defiles us, it is the effect we have on the world as what is inside of us is poured out.

There is a children’s story by Robert Munch (illustrated by Michael Marchenko) entitled the Paper Bag Princess[6]. In this story, Prince Ronald was about to marry Princess Elisabeth when a dragon comes smashes the castle, burns all the royal possessions and carries off – Prince Ronald.

So off to the rescue is Princess Elisabeth. There is only one problem though, the castle is smashed, she is all covered in soot and can’t find anything to wear except a dirt old paper bag.

Undaunted, she puts on the paper bag and proceeds to prove her Royal worth by out-manoeuvring, out-smarting, and defeating the dragon while rescuing Prince Ronald.

When Ronald sees his rescuer, He looks at her and says, “Elizabeth, you are a mess! You smell like ashes, your hair is all tangled and you are wearing a dirty old paper bag. Come back when you are dressed like a real princess.”

“Ronald, says Elisabeth, “your hair is nice and your clothes are all pretty, you look like a real prince but you are … [not].” They don’t get married after all.

You see, Prince Ronald was clean on the outside but he lacked some of the good fruit of Galatians 5 on the inside that we read about earlier. Elisabeth, however dirty she was on the outside, showed patience, perseverance, and other beautiful fruit; on the inside she was clean.

So today as we leave here and step out into the world I encourage us all to make sure that we are clean on the inside. Look at ourselves in the mirror of Mark Chapter 7 and make sure that our glasses are shiny indeed. Make sure that inside there is no, as Verse 21ff of our passage today says, make sure there are no “evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’”

If upon examination, we do see these things, reflected in our glass, don’t worry, it doesn’t need to remain that way. There is a great detergent out there called ‘Sin Away’ produced by the blood of Jesus that can remove any stain and get those glasses as shiny as new again.

Then, as we seek the Lord and our glasses become clean, we will find that they are soon filled with, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control and the like for against such things there is no law (cf. Gal 5:20-22).

Let us pray…


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[1] Walter W. Wessel Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Mark/ Withdrawal From Galilee (6:14-8:30)/F. Commands of God and Traditions of Men (7:1-13), Book Version: 4.0.2: “..the Jewish custom of ceremonial hand washing [was] a custom based on the "tradition of the elders" (v. 3). This consisted in a great mass of oral tradition that had arisen about the law. About A.D. 200 it was written down in the Mishnah, but in Jesus day it was still in oral form. Its purpose was to regulate a mans life completely.”

[2] The word ‘hypocrite’ (hypokrites) literally means ‘play actor’.
[3] Isaiah 29:13 NIV from MSS: The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.” Jesus quoted from the LXX, but as you can see the meaning is in tact, even though the NIV translators translated different versions for the verse and the later quotation of the verse.
[4] CF Exod 20:12, 20:17; Deut 5:16; Lev 20:9.
[5] I think ‘visitors’ is a key term here. If the person is a regular attendee and is able to afford acceptable clothing to the congregation, it would be hoped that someone would encourage them to dress in such a way as to not cause their weaker brother/sister to stumble.
[6] Audio version: http://www.robertmunsch.com/books.cfm?bookid=27; Robert Munsch (Illustrator: Michael Marchenko). The Paper Bag Princess. Annick Press: 1980.