Americans are increasingly conscious about what we consume. Soaring rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and substance abuse – not to mention a culture obsessed with body fat – have led to a focus on fat, sugar, gluten, pesticides and their attendant evils. Vegan, vegetarian, Paleo, organic diets are all the rage. We know all about the damage we can do by what we take into our bodies.
Perhaps we’re not so different from the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. Focused on the fine points of the Mosaic Law, they were hyper-conscious about the dangers of eating the wrong food, or overlooking the proper precautions and rituals. Jesus had a thing or two to say about that:
Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”
He went on to list a great many sins and character flaws that issue from the human heart – and to suggest that we concern ourselves more with what comes from inside us than from without.
It’s not an either/or, of course. The emotional climate in which we operate factors into the thoughts and behaviors we exhibit to the world, just as the actual food and drink we consume play a role in how healthy our minds and spirits are. But Jesus is right, as usual: It’s ridiculous to worry about the toxicity in our food supply while we sow discord in social discourse, or to demand transparency about genetically modified foods and not in our financial or political systems.
To Jesus’ list of “evil intentions” and wickedness of which the human heart is capable, I would like to add a list of all the good things that also issue from inside us: compassion, generosity, forbearance, empathy, love – the fruit of the Spirit at work in us that Paul mentions in Galatians.
As we allow the Spirit of Christ to live in us, we can become more aware of the interior landscape in which we ask that Spirit to dwell. Is it littered with garbage and debris, old wounds, dysfunctional patterns of being and relating? Toxic dumps of anger, fear, envy and shame that leak into our reactions and interactions? Might we ask God to tour that landscape with us, and invite healing and cleansing of all that leads to hurt? There’s some prayer work, to be done with God alone, or with the help of a spiritual director, confessor and/or therapist.
And then let’s pay attention to what we take in – not only good and healthy things for our bodies, but all that is good and true and worthy (another great list from St. Paul in Philippians 4…). So may we be able to say with the Psalmist, “Let all that is within me bless God’s holy name.”
I’m going to take a few days off from Water Daily here and there this week and next. See you Friday!
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