The Johnson list - long but not distinguished.

       Once again we find Jesus railing against the Temple elite, the pharisees and the self righteous leaders that seem fit to make us twice as fit for hell, as they are themselves. Jesus speaks about empty traditions and religious laws that circumvent God's intent of love. It's all right there in this passage. Way down at the bottom of today's passage from Mark is a list of sins that we might want to be especially mindful of. They all seem quite timely. This list seems like a recipe to cure our present dilemmas of how to live. Perhaps more precisely, how we should repent from our current political and moral morass.

fornication - Right up front, this is isn't about being celibate or even non-sexual. This is about mindless fucking and one night stands. This is about disrespecting our gift of sexuality, using it as means for immediate gratification without love even entering into the equation.

theft - I'd say there are very few of us that hide a secret that we routinely go out and steal things. We are not car jackers. We don't break and enter to steal someone else's flat screen TV;  we don't pocket jewelry while browsing, con the elderly out of money. Sure that happens, but for most of us we can feel confident we are not abrogating the 8th commandment, at least not in the most literal of terms. Have we perhaps though become so numb to what we as society allow that we may steal something as in the same vein we might tell a 'white lie'?  Stationary from work? a refund we are not entitled to? Someone's mistake we don't fess up to that benefits us? Returning an item to a store after we have used it?  That all seems like stealing to me. Are we willing to look closely at ourselves and our lives?

murder - This is a good one ( 6th commandment ). How many of us have actually taken a life? Do you think Jesus mentioned this because He thinks that people go around just 'offing' people?  I often say that having the two great commandments makes the Ten much, much harder to follow. Sure we haven't put a gun to someones head or gut but have we demeaned anyone? Killed someones reputation? Belittled and called someone a bad name? In essence, we are fully capable of killing someones spirit and that to my way of thinking is still killing. This, I believe, is what Jesus spoke of.  Do you have any soul searching to do in this regard?

adultery - another classic, the seventh commandment. Most of us are not like our current President who is perhaps a serial cheater and who had extramarital affairs while his third wife was pregnant; or who cheated on #2 by starting up with #3. Most of us find that amoral even if somehow we rationalize it to all as President. ( I cannot ). Adultery is an abrogation of the intimate relationship of marriage. It isn't just physical, it also pertains to the emotional and even spiritual aspects to marriage. So perhaps we have not been as continuously and totally faithful as we could have been, eh? We like to focus on just a physical act as adultery but it  really is so much more. Jesus said that even looking and committing adultery in your mind is just as bad as actually entering into a physical relationship. Personally I don't carry this to the extreme that I cannot look at a guy and not say 'mighty fine' or 'Very nice'. But I do not allow myself to enter into a mental scenario  where I am visualizing what that nice body might be good for. Then I am not only approaching adultery but also a sense of fornication. 

Look, we don't get credit for not doing what we are not supposed to do in the first place. We have to know that we can lead ourselves astray by errant thoughts or musings that we run with. That gets us into dangerous territory no matter that we may not have 'sealed the deal'.

avarice - perhaps a sign of the times. How do we live in a time that seems to be run by Madison Avenue? How much do we want? There is a big difference between want and need. That's a great lesson that my Dad taught me. Is it a want? Is it a need? So, how about that tenth commandment then? Let's go further. As a person on the precipice of full retirement, how do I view the stock market? I am always cheering for the market to go up, up, up! Is this a form of avarice?  It is certainly something to be aware of.  Being faithful is not something we enter into only on Saturdays, Sundays or holy days. We are called to holiness every day and with every act we engage ourselves with.

wickedness -  There is a term that was popularized by the show Avenue-Q and that is the German word Schadenfreude, happiness at the misfortune of others. I don't see most people going out of there way to see people suffer or to actually cause someones pain. That is wicked. I do however know that I  myself get a bit of pleasure when I see someone get their comeuppance.  Of course that is based on my judgment of what justice is, not God's. Perhaps that's the rub here. I am certainly willing to be happy at your pain if I think you deserve it.  But is that right? Isn't that a bit wicked? Or is that wicked with a sly smile that we might invoke?  Where do we end though with such wickedness?  Again, food for thought.

deceit - I am loving this list from Jesus. Don't you think that someone today could have come up with this list today? and yet it is from Him. Deceit is not merely a lie. This is lying with purpose. I tried to to convey to my own children as they were growing up that half truths are not the truth. That's sort of where deceit lies. You tell someone else ( or even yourself ) a half truth ( a lie by any other name ) to suite your purpose. In typical kid fashion, it's telling me that 'Johnny threw a rock at me' while omitting that you threw a rock at Johnny first.  How often do we engage that kind of behaviour or self justification of a lie.? 

licentiousness -  it is amazing to me how many items on this list seem to come back to our President but that probably makes me just a guilty of just another item on this list myself. Be that as it may, this goes onto adultery and fornication.  It really goes to the heart of sexuality and I have to note that all these references seem to be toward the straight community. Just say'n. Heterosexuals seem to need a great deal of supervision if God sees it necessary to add so many notices of what bad sexual behavior is.  This stricture if you will, goes beyond what most might consider normal sexual expression. I personally find it acceptable for almost anything that both parties are willingly enter into that is not dangerous or harmful. So, this goes beyond 'normal' and I think this enters into the territory of usury of others, non-consensual. Perhaps a better way of saying that might be inducing  someone to do things that are beyond the norm and that they might not be willing to do if it were not for some emotional need to satisfy the other.   I wouldn't no want to get into a litany of what is an approved or non-approved list of sexual practises. I do think we need to be aware of the intimate nature and psycho-sexual ramifications of our most intimate of gifts from God. Sexuality is an area of our being that has always been ripe for abuse and players use that to their advantage. Caveat emptor seems like a mild warning against licentiousness. 

envy - I remember someone who always asked where my husband and I went on vacation only to follow it with " I wish I could do that". As someone who is rather frugal and whose travels are not really indicative of spending a lot of money, I would always note that you can do it too. It all depends on how you spend your money. We all have choices and we really can't have it all. Should we even try? Can't we be happy with what we have? Isn't everything graced by virtue of how we use and live with what we have?  Envy is so anti-God.  God is all about  using the tools we have, not just who we are, to build the kingdom. We are witnesses and ambassadors.  That's a difficult task to undertake when you are always looking at what someone else has.  It can't be done if you are not satisfied, happy and thankful for who you are and what you have.

slander - I recall someone saying once that "I hate to gossip . . . . so listen carefully, I am only going to say this once!" Last night at a cocktail party in my neighborhood a fight broke out. True story. There were words, a hurled drink and then punches flew. You could almost wish a little old nun would appear, grab them both by the ears and march them off for a serious talking to. I did not witness the actual confrontation. What I did witness was the slander after the fact from both 'sides'.  Wow, if an event could split a gathering this was it. When we disagree with someone or simply their position, political, religious or whatever, why must we resort to bad mouthing people?  We can't seem to agree to disagree, we don't even attempt to understand or listen. We 'listen' long enough to interject our own next point that has to be made. In other words we don't listen at all really. We simply wait for the other to need a new breath of air and use that opportunity to go off on our own.  This isn't about listening at all, this is about rejecting the other because we feel rejected or disrespected.  This is such a common and horrific dynamic. We should never feel the need to demean as a means of supporting our position or opinion. Adolescents do this by making up names for people that disagree with them - oh yeah, that's our President again. He has nicknames galore and all because someone disagrees with him. How can this man be of God, let alone the chosen one? I digress. Let's not slander or demean, eh?

pride -  they say it is not boastful ( or prideful ) if what you say about yourself is true. There should be great pride in who we are. God made us, purpose built, a created being from a vision of God for what the world needs now - you.  Of course we should have pride in who we are, gay , straight whomever we are, whatever gifts and talents we are graced with. What happens though when we think we are 'better than'? That is the sin of pride.  To say that my gifts or talents or being is better than yours is disrespectful and against God Herself. We are all magnificent creations but not better, just different, diverse, a rainbow of people straight and gay and everything in between and around.  

folly - the definition of folly is a lack of good sense; foolishness. Perhaps the biggest folly is to think we know everything or that we are aways right. In our myopic vision of the world, we judge that we are thee way, the correct way and the only way.  It is a sin of epic proportions because it negates everything that God wishes for us all. I'll say no more.

      For this long list of sins and our thoughtfulness, introspection and repentance, I pray. 

Mark 7:1-23

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
“This people honours me with their lips,
   but their hearts are far from me; 
in vain do they worship me,
   teaching human precepts as doctrines.” 
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God)— then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’

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.’

When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder,adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’