To recap the story, some local village leaders asked for help from the big wigs in the home office. These men came with the express intent of scrutinizing and challenging Jesus' teaching. The visiting leaders observed for a bit. And challenged Jesus about the ceremonial hand washing.
Stephen (our pastor) pointed out that in this day and age, hand washing was pure ceremony. They had no concept of germs or bacteria. You were essentially wasting water in a symbolic gesture - at least to their understanding. Jesus answers them by completely ignoring what they said. Instead, he addresses the ceremonial aspect. Jesus points out one of their own traditions that was routinely used as an excuse to avoid following God's commandment.
Then Jesus says it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out. When asked, Jesus went on to explain that what comes out (words, actions) come from the heart. Sin begins in the heart, not in broken rules. Being someone who thrives on rules, I struggle a bit processing that.
What stands out to me, though, is Jesus' complete disregard for the physical. Nowadays, we realize there were sound health advantages in the kosher diet. God didn't just willy-nilly make up something just for the sake of having laws. And yet despite all of those rules, Jesus basically says that keeping them or not doesn't matter. Sin starts inside.
Paul takes up this theme when he tells us that law only shows us our sin. It can't change us. I see this as one more example of Jesus' disregard for the physical. Imagine being there when God merely spoke and all this stuff sprang into existence. Jesus views the physical as mere words. It took almost nothing to create, and takes just as little to destroy. If you could make something appear by merely wishing, how much would it be worth to you? Gets dented? Shoot, just wish up another. No sweat. That's a glimmer of how Jesus views my stuff.
I have this weird dichotomy of both having my emotions attached with places and things, while simultaneously knowing that only God matters (and by extension, other people). It's strange longing for Him yet "feeling" because some place triggers a reaction. I can't quite wrap my head around the mechanics of that yet.
I come back to the law of entropy - any closed system deteriorates. The universe cannot sustain itself. It will, without fail, breakdown. To have any discussion of forever, you must first accept that there is something outside of the universe creating new energy or stuff. Let's speculate for moment that there is a giant cosmic oneness. We are all a small piece of a larger consciousness.
I'm broken. I'm also fairly sure that if you're reading this, you're broken too. So all the pieces of this consciousness are broken. We're all part of this closed off universe spinning towards its own destruction. Doesn't that include the consciousness too? Isn't it bound by the same limitations as the parts?
In order to be beyond the reach on entropy, one must be outside of the universe. And if one is outside, then the universe is not closed. Still with me. Okay, how does an inert consciousness be bigger than itself? If it is outside the universe, is it not controlling the universe? Then it's not inert, is it?
And that's as far as I got along that line of reasoning. It doesn't feel complete. I'm just not sure where it leads next.
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