Mark 7:14-23: follow your stomach...or is it heart?

I remember in graduate school learning that when archaeologists dig in the Holy Land, one of the things that helps them determine if the site is the remains of a Canaanite or Israelite city is the presence, or indeed the absence of pig bones.  It's telling that such was the adherence of the average Jew to their religious dietary laws that thousands of years later academics bank on that devotion to help form conclusions about the identity of places.  All this not withstanding, a cursory reading of the Old Testament reveals that there were still murders, rapes, swindling, and all types of immorality to be found, even in the very midst of God's chosen people Israel.
Jesus addresses this reality when he states something that, to most of us in a contemporary secular society, would seem obvious.  The food you eat doesn't determine the person you become, at least not in a moral sense. It may add real estate to your waistline- as a diet and exercise-free holiday season has proven in my case- but your menu for each meal doesn't make you righteous or unrighteous.  It seems so evident as to barely be worth mentioning to us, and yet it was a highly controversial statement for Jesus to make in His context.  Jesus is reversing the social convention, insisting that if we truly want to be pleasing to God, we should pay less attention to what we put in our mouth, and more attention to what comes out of it.
The psalms, the prayer-book of the Bible point us in the right direction when it comes to considering how our heart informs our relationship with God and those around us.  In several instances, it speaks of worship as being a giving of our entire selves to the Lord:
"I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds." (Psalm 9:1)
"But I have trusted in your steadfast love, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation." (Psalm 13:5)
"Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure." (Psalm 16:9)
"the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." (Psalm 19:8)
"The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am healed; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him." (Psalm 28:7)

The story of humankind's origins shows that from the beginning, our actions were governed by the disposition of our heart:
"The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." (Genesis 6:5)
"And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, 'I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.  Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done." (Genesis 8:21)

I draw two things from this.  First, perhaps we should spend more time in prayer.  If references to the importance of the heart in worship are prevalent throughout the psalms, and yet people in Jesus' day put so much more emphasis on the stomach, perhaps that is an indication that people weren't reading psalms, or more likely they were hearing them, but they weren't listening to them.  Prayer, whether it be through the words of a psalm or words crafted by our own mind, reminds us of who we are, and whose we are.  Second, maybe we should spend less time learning all the rules, and more time learning our own story.  The list that Jesus gives is one that can be easily drawn from the record of human experience as it is recorded in scripture.  Notice that in Jesus' list, evil thoughts come first, symbolizing their role in causing the following sins, which range from every type of sexual immorality, to stinginess.  There is something remarkably different about Jesus' list, when compared to contemporary Hellenistic lists' of vices in His day.  Rather than focusing on sins against God or one's country, Jesus' highlights sins we commit against others.  In a marvelous way, Jesus is using the composition of His list to make abundantly clear that when we sin against others, we do in fact sin again God.

It's funny, if you want to know how I am doing with my diet, you can log into the website I use and quickly scan the list of foods I have eaten that day, or even over the past several days.  It will tell you a lot about my physical health.  To learn about my spiritual health however, much more is required.  If taking the time and the effort to evaluate our physical health is wise, then checking the disposition of our heart, the home of our spirit, is an even sounder investment.  A bad diet and poor physical health can cause a host of problems for our bodies, but a sick spirit harms not only ourselves, but our relationship with God and those around us as well.