food and speech

Good morning sisters and brothers,
Jesus continues his response to the Pharisees who criticized his disciples for eating with ceremonially unclean hands. He argues that eating with unclean hands doesn't make someone unclean because the food that we eat goes into our stomach, not into our soul. The same argument held up later as the church was figuring out how to relate to "unclean" food or sharing the table with gentiles. Food is just food. Where the mouth reflects and impacts our spiritual lives is in what we say. This passage reminds me again of the power of words and my own need to be more careful about how I use them.
God bless,
Sam

Matthew 15:10-20

10Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: 11it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” 12Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” 13He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”



15But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” 16Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

the mind of Christ

Good morning friends,
Today's reading from Paul is challenging. The essence of the reading is what God is doing in us through the Holy Spirit. He says that people can only know what it means to be truly human because of the human spirit inside them. That means that all people can figure out human nature if we spend the time and attention to get in touch with our spirit. Christians still have that human spirit, but we also have the Holy Spirit from God. It's as if God gives us a partial "spirit transplant" by putting some of the Spirit of God into us. Because of that new Spirit, not only can we get in touch with our true humanity by paying attention to the human spirit inside us, we can also get in touch with who God is and what God wants by paying attention to the Holy Spirit inside us.

Paul continues the same line of thought in terms of spiritual gifts, because God gives gifts to all of us. Here we see that not only Christians, but all people have gifts of the Spirit. The thing is, without paying respectful attention to the Spirit of God inside us, we can't receive those gifts because we won't understand what's going on. Also, by paying attention to the Spirit of God inside us and seeking to obey God's will we grow in that Spirit and become more spiritually mature. We also start to become more like Christ, developing Christ's mind, as Paul says. So spend some time getting in touch with God's Spirit inside you. Let the Spirit shape you and guide you, and God will make you more like Jesus.

God bless,
Sam


1 Corinthians 2:8-16

8None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. 12Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.


13And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. 14Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. 16“For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.