Bread For Everyone | Mark 7:1-30

March 15, 2026 - The Gospel of Mark - 

Jerell Carper takes a closer look at Jesus' encounter with the Pharisees, whose preoccupation with cleanliness traditions was preventing them from dealing with their corrupt character and lack of neighbor-love. Jesus flips the script and shows how he's arrived to offer cleanliness to the unclean, and he shows this new mission to the Greek population through his travels to Tyre, the Decapolis, and a repeat bread-multiplication in Gentile territory. 

/// Fourth Sunday of Lent ///

Gospel of Mark: Part 4

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Here we go. The sermon titled today is called Bread for Everyone. Bread for Everyone. In Ursula K. LeGuin's science fiction science fiction novel, The Dispossessed, there's this kind of radical experiment society that forms on a particular moon. It was an attempt to build a community that's free from hierarchy, property, and domination. In its early generations, the society was vibrant and outward-looking. It was driven by a desire to reshape how humans live together. But by the time that the novel's main character, Shevik, enters the scene, the culture had gradually shifted into a defensive posture. So instead of creatively living out their ideals, many citizens of this new society were now concerned with protecting the system itself. The society began to pride itself on purity, and that isolation began to stifle its freedom. And so Schevik, he realizes that this original vision of the planet has been lost, and so he travels to another planet, which is actually the society that they kind of formed against. And he starts engaging with outsiders and sharing ideas and collaborating across ideological boundaries. And what this main character finds is dynamic outward energy that has been lost in his homeland. And like our scripture today, this novel suggests that when ideals become stagnant, when they are only guarded, they can lose the vitality that they once had. This novel in our text portrays a movement from defensive purity toward open exchange with those around. So let's take a closer look at what's going on in this odd text, this confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees, and then some really strategic things that Mark places right after these encounters in a series of events that we should pick up on if we know our ancient Near Eastern geography, which I know that you do. I will show you a map and it will be awesome. The big idea is that Jesus wants to realign God's people to focus more on what flows out of us than the impurities that could affect us. So this is our fourth week of the gospel according to Mark. Good news. The kingdom of God has arrived. The first lesson we had about God's people going out into the wilderness and kind of beginning to receive God's kingdom by repenting in the wilderness with Jesus. Next, Kristen Wall came, still top-notch sermon. She preached about God's kingdom arriving in our physical and our mental and our spiritual and social realities. And then last week, Justin talked about the kingdom through parables and how it produces in unexpected ways among unexpected people. So let's go back at this original text, and I want to like jump into it because there's a lot of good stuff in here. We're gonna glean it out of it. So the Pharisees travel from Jerusalem and ask Jesus this question. By the way, Jesus is north in Galilee, so this is a very long trip. I'll show you in a map. But they spent a lot of energy to come confront Jesus. So these Pharisees see some of Jesus' disciples eating food with hands that were unwashed according to their traditions. So they come to Jesus and they're like, hey, Jesus, your disciples are not living according to this tradition we have that we're supposed to wash our hands or wash our cups or bowls after coming from the marketplace. They're in a condition of ritual impurity. And so we need to wash our hands, wash the cups before we eat. We've all kind of agreed this is what we're supposed to do. You're presenting yourself as a rabbi. Why is it that your disciples don't do this? Could have been an email. Long, long journey just to confront Jesus. I think it's important for us to kind of just refresh on who are the Pharisees. Um, most of my life reading the Bible until I looked into it, whenever I came across like a religious leader in the gospels, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, teachers of the law, scribes, whoever else, I just kind of lump them in this one category of bat religious bad guys, right? Those are the bad guys that don't like Jesus and Jesus doesn't like, and they're all just kind of this big clump. But it's important, I think, in this text to understand the Pharisees, because they're different than some of the other characters. Um, there's kind of two major groups. The first are the Sadducees and the chief priests, and this is a very small group of people that are centered in Jerusalem, in the temple. They have really close ties with Rome. They're very wealthy, kind of aristocratic, and these are kind of the conservative bunch. They only read the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, and they don't believe in a resurrection. And these are kind of the wealthy, snobby, snooty, centralized Jewish leaders, um, the more conservative folk. They're have their hands tied with the Roman government. But the Pharisees, we should start with some compassion and appreciation for the Pharisees. These are rabbis who are trying to help God's people who have been scattered outside of Jerusalem, all around this region, figure out what it looks like to be faithful to God when they don't have the temple, when they're not kind of in political control of their nation. And so they would teach in these things called synagogues, kind of like churches. They're basically pastors, they're everyday people out, scattered all around the Jewish regions, helping God's people know what it means to be faithful to the law by teaching and by raising up apprentices. And they're the ones kind of out and about. So they're also a little bit more progressive in that they read the whole Old Testament and they also believe in the resurrection. And so we think, I think we think of them as kind of uptight, but we can also have categories for a more progressive posture that's still very aggressive, right? We understand that here. And Eugene. Um, and so they are at their heart, they are helping God's people be faithful to the law because they want God to kind of get them out of exile, get them out of Roman rule. And so what they've done is they have built all of these extra laws and interpretations of the law to help people understand how to live faithfully. So the way I like to think about it is if you have a kid, you have kids, and let's say your driveway goes up to a busy road, and you want your kids to know, don't go on the road, right? Logically. Um, so you get some polycones and you maybe bring them in about seven feet off the road, right? And you tell your kids, whatever you do, I don't care if the ball goes in the road, don't go past the polycones, right? They're here because we don't want you on the road. Um, they're showing you where you can go. They're kind of interpreting the danger for a five-year-old who just doesn't understand the road. So this is what a lot of the Pharisees' traditions are doing. There's this law about unclean and clean things. And so they add all these extra rules and traditions and boundaries to help God's people basically not get close to the cliff. And so this is what's happening. They're at its kind of core, they're trying to interpret the Old Testament and help people follow it faithfully in its everyday ways. And so we come across this tradition of the elders, they're like, hey, we're trying to help God's people be faithful. You're this rabbi who's very influential. You're kind of undercutting us, you know, we're the good guys in this situation. Um, and so just as a side note, when we come across followers of Jesus, Christians, who maybe have a more conservative or kind of uptight moral boundary markers of things that they don't want to do. Maybe it's like drinking alcohol or smoking a good cigar, whatever it is. We're all drawing lines somewhere, and I think it can be easy to kind of judge the more conservative posture people and say, like, you just need to live a little. But it's actually a more disciplined life, right? It's actually harder to have some of these boundaries set. And so I just want to start like Pharisees, they're kind of bad guys, but at their core, they're trying to do what's right. So let's have a little bit of compassion on them. Except for the fact that Jesus doesn't. So let's let's find out why he's so mad. Why did they walk the whole way here? So here's here's how Jesus responds. He's filled with compassion. He invites them out to coffee to talk casually about how they're probably missing the point and hopes that to inspire them to new ways of living. No, he starts dropping Isaiah quotations and calling them names. So he says this Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites, as it is written, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain, their teachings are meal, mere merely human rules. And here's what's interesting: he says, you have let go of the commands of God, and you're holding on to these human traditions. He says you have a fine way of setting aside God's commands in order to observe your own traditions. And then he gives this example about honoring your father and mother. But it's interesting that he says they've set aside or they've nullified. So something more is going on here than just setting a boundary marker. It's the way that they're living is actually undercutting more clear, more important commands of God. These traditions about washing food are somehow preventing them from caring about the more important issues of the law. And Jesus gives this example about basically them inviting people to designate funds or property kind of designated to the religious world. And so if you had money or if you had land, you could kind of say, This is, I offer this up to God, and that's kind of part of my religious worship. And then you turn and you have your father or your mother who actually have a financial need or need that property, and you kind of say, Well, sorry, I can't help you, I've already offered it according to this tradition. And so Jesus, like, that's his example, but he says, you do lots of other things like this. This is what you're always doing. You're focusing on these small, little issues, and it's not that that's bad, it's just that that is causing you to neglect these really big, important issues. He says you have a fine way of doing this. Isaiah is right when he describes people like you. On the outside, you look like you have God's character. Like you look like you're doing churchy, Christian, righteous things, but inside, your desires and your affections, you're way off, you're way off the mark. And I think there's a sense, oh, that we're all guilty sometimes, right, of focusing on the small things and then neglecting the bigger, more important things. As a silly example, it'd be like your house is burning down, but you're out pulling the dandelion weeds, right? You're like, we have more important things to deal with right now. Or if you're like me, you organize your junk drawer instead of filing your taxes on time. You know, that's not bad, but that is preventing you from doing the more important, often more costly thing. Um, I I resonate with this text because I think most of my life I I lived like that. I kind of grew up in a more um conservative church experience, and I'm not blaming anyone. I impose a lot of this on myself. Kind of take it on me to say, how can I get as far away from like the line of sin as possible? I grew up in kind of the Francis Chan, like be radical for Jesus kind of phase, as well as some purity culture movements and like the culture wars of not watching movies or dancing or listening to non-Christian music or hearing a swear word. And I kind of created a little kind of self-righteous bubble for myself. Um, and so I kind of resonate with this text as I I've I've been there and I've lived that. One of the things that changed some of that for me was like even into my late 20s, was traveling and being exposed to other Christians in other places of the world who I saw loving God and loving their neighbor better than me, but didn't fit my mold. There's someone I know, you know, it's from another town, so no, nobody that you guys know. He was awesome, and he was he smoked so many cigarettes, and it was like really hard for me to process like, how can you love Jesus and smoke all these cigarettes? And I, but I've also spent time in like the the housing projects of Cabrini Green and poor places of Tijuana, poor places of Portland, and it got me out of this bubble to see that God is actually doing some really cool things in and through and for people who don't fit in my nice, neat little categories of self-driven purity. And what Jesus is saying, that it's actually that desire, it's that obsession with the little things that might matter, but ultimately don't, that's distracting us and preventing us from caring about the more important things. And so Jesus is frustrated with these leaders. And so after he kind of rebukes them, he's like, This is a teachable moment. Let me use these guys as an example. They came the whole way here. Let's talk about it. So he calls the crowd, he's like, hey, listen, you guys have to understand this. Nothing outside of you, nothing of these things that you think are unclean, they're not going to defile you when they come and get near you. Rather, it's what comes out of you that's going to defile you. And so there's this whole law setup of what's clean and what's unclean. And what Kristen actually nodded to this earlier, but what Jesus starts to do is he takes a culture of people who are obsessed with not touching unclean things and not so that their uncleanliness wouldn't rub off on them, which to give them the benefit of the doubt is something that the Hebrew Bible seems to talk a lot about. What Jesus starts flipping the script, and he, as the clean person, starts touching the unclean people, and they become clean. It's this reversal of flow. He's like, stop worrying about the unclean things touching you. What's gonna make you unclean is what's in your heart that's coming out of you. And what needs to happen is purity in your heart needs to flow out of you into those unclean places. As you follow Jesus, actually, what's going to start happening now is that the unclean people are going to become clean through your own purity that's inside of you. It's not what you eat, it's not washing your hands for this ritual purity, it's something much deeper, it's something that's in your heart. And he lists these things in verse 20 and 21 and 22 and 23. Um, and he lists basically 12 kind of virtues or sinful postures that we would have that are actually going to make us unclean. And Jesus is saying that our concern shouldn't be external, unrighteous things moving in our direction. Our concern should be whether our integrity and our righteousness are moving in an outward direction. Don't focus on the unclean things pushing into clean space, focus on the clean things pushing into unclean space. Don't play defense, play offense to use a sports ball metaphor as a male preacher. All right. And on one hand, Jesus isn't saying anything new. This has been a major motif in the narrative of God's people. Abraham's family is blessed by God and meant to live as a blessing. And the Pharisees should have actually been sniffing this scent the whole time. And Jesus knows it and he calls them out. You are missing the big, obvious motifs of the Old Testament. But on the other hand, it is true that these Pharisees are following the law, that there is something here. And so Jesus is actually kind of taking the script and pushing it further. He's raising the bar. He's saying, What I don't want you to do is create these simple black and white, straightforward categories. You just check the box and you're good. I want you to look at two more costly and revealing postures, and they're this one, the unseen character of our hearts, and two, the way that we treat other people or our neighbors. Look at those children. So cool. That's like our church. That's awesome. Sweet. Okay. If you're listening on the recording, all of our kids walked by the windows, so they're waving to us. Alright. So Jesus in the text, if you're if you have your Bible and you're following along, he starts to list these things that we should actually be concerned about. Sexual immorality, which is pretty straightforward. Theft, which can even mean secret stealing or fraud. Murder and adultery are pretty straightforward. Check this one out. Greed. The desire for more. Wealth, possessions, or advantage, it can even mean covetousness. So it's like, all right, spend less time thinking about washing your hands and more time recognizing how greedy your heart is. Malice, harmfulness to others. Deceit can mean trickery or baiting someone, manipulative dishonesty, not telling the whole truth to get something that's beneficial for you. Brass or unrestrained behavior is lewdness. These things are not, these things are hard to measure. Like, how do you quantify envy? Which literally means an evil eye. It's jealousy or stinginess or resentment towards someone else's success. He's like, this is flowing out of you. This is what's defiling you. This is breaking God's plan for the world, not whether or not you washed your hands or someone else washed their hands when they're eating with you. Arrogance and pride. I'd love to meet one of those people someday. We all are, right? We want to appear better than others. We look down on other people, or folly is just kind of a reckless disregard for God's ways. And so Jesus confronts these Pharisees saying, You look morally pure from the outside, but inside you're arrogant. You do all the church programs, but inside you have envy. You smell good, you look good, you don't cuss, you don't watch bad movies, but inside you are greedy and you slander others. We have this idiom called we have bigger fish to fry. As anyone recently said, we have bigger fish to fry. Yeah. Um, it's the idea that, hey, if you only have so much fire and limited time and you have a feed a lot of people, don't start frying the small fish, start with the big ones. Kind of what's the most important thing? And I wonder if in our lives or in the lives of church streams that we swim in or have swim in, is it possible that we have spent a lot of time frying the little fish and not worrying about the big fish? I think doctrine is important, but what's also important if you're being part of a church or selecting a church if you move to a new town, according to Jesus, is one, the character of its leaders and its people, and B, its actions and postures of neighbor love. So it's possible to have correct doctrinal statements and appear to be pure, but to have corrupt hearts and an unloving posture toward other humans in the world. And for Jesus, this is a foundational issue. I wonder, actually, do you have the map? We've been looking at that slide the whole time. Do you have the map? Okay. So you can see down at the bottom in Judea's Jerusalem, Jesus is up there in Galilee. And you notice what's what's in the middle between those two? Samaria, right? This is like their distant, angry, grumpy cousins that are not as faithful as they are. And it was, as you guys probably know the story, it was tradition to kind of, if you're going from the south, Judea up to Galilee, you would bypass Samaria because those are the bad guys. Jesus famously doesn't bypass, and he tells the parable of the Samaritan, the good Samaritan meets the Samaritan woman with a well. Um, and I just wonder in the in the Pharisees' journey, right, from Jerusalem to Galilee, how many people did they walk past who needed food, who needed forgiveness, who needed cleanliness, who needed the presence and grace of God? And they marched right past to go confront Jesus about washing his hands. I think this is something that Jesus is talking about. He says, Hey, you're concerned with these little fish, these traditions, but God is up to big fish commands. If we're going to be talking about being unclean, you should all check your hearts and the way you treat your neighbors because those desires and those actions are what's actually making you unclean. In this moment, our concern isn't about the unclean thing coming into our community and changing us. Rather, it's about the clean coming out of our community and changing them. And this is what Jesus says in these words. We got that, okay. So this is kind of an interesting shift in the theology of Jesus, and this is a dialogical encounter with some grumpy religious leaders. But it's really important when we're reading the Bible to recognize how Mark composed this. And what's really cool is that the next few things that Jesus does actually shows what he's saying. So he tells it and then he shows it. If you're reading Mark, you're gonna read this story, and you're gonna say, What on earth are we talking about? I just explained it to you. So now you know. The very next thing that Jesus does is he's he's he's in that region of Galilee. He goes up to Tyre in Syrophoenicia. So this is outside. I mean, traditionally in the Bible, Dan, um, oh, this map doesn't have Dan. Dan's a like where that yellow ends. Dan is kind of like the furthest northern tribe. And so what he does, Jesus goes outside of the bounds of Israel. Okay, so he's talking to these people within the bounds of Israel. He marches way up, way up north to Tyre. Tyre is a Phoenician port city. Um, it's modern-day Lebanon, it's old, it's influential, it's a trading city, it's right on the it's right on the water. In this time, it was ruled by Rome and had deep Hellenistic culture. It was wealthy, it was pagan, it was cultured. Um this is where you go to get the good sushi, right? I've already used that joke. I'm gonna use it again. Um, I don't know. What's a modern day example? I don't know. Going up to Seattle or something, right? Um, and so Jesus leaves the territory of Israel and he's trying to hide, but this woman, this Syrophoenician woman at birth, finds him. So notice she's ethnically Phoenician. She's her skin color is different, she looks different, she dresses different, she has a different accent and language, her culture is different, her religious worldview is different. She is an outsider. This is like a Ruth figure. And she comes to Jesus saying, My daughter is possessed by this demon, and I need you to like heal her. And Jesus does something really interesting. He's like, All right, kind of, I am here to feed bread to my people, which is Israel. He kind of pushes back on her. Like, come on, Jesus, you just said this thing. And she shows faith, and rather than just wanting Jesus' healing, she's like, All right, I understand that you're here to save Israel, but even the dogs eat the crumbs under the table. So I know I'm not your people, but would you just let me eat your breadcrumbs? Would you just let me eat what falls through the cracks, because I need you. And Jesus says, you know what, your faith, go, your daughter is made well. And this is like, okay, this is Jesus has Jesus is the anointed Messiah, he's here to save Israel, he's here to knock out their enemies, knock out the outsiders, and preserve Israel and re-establish rule. And he goes outside of Israel and to these people who don't know him, don't understand his religious background, and he heals them. And it shows their faith of, okay, there's enough bread crumbs, even for this Gentile woman. And then what's really interesting is that this is kind of like this hinge point. And Jesus, then from Tyre, he goes over to this region of the Decapolis. Any linguists, what does Decapolis mean? Decca, Polis. Ten cities. Thanks, Jamie. Ten Jesus points. All right. The Decapolis is also where you go to get good sushi. It's the center of Greek and Roman culture. They're speaking Greek language, there's pagan temples, there's theaters, there's Roman-style government. Um it's a largely non-Jew population. And so Jesus goes over to the Decapolis now. Like that's a long journey. He's not in Jewish territory. And what he does is he heals this man in the decapolis, which is really cool. He's already healed people in Israel. Now he's healing people in the decapitis. He's already cast out demons in Israel, now he's casting out demons in Tyre and Syrophonesia. And then what's really, really cool is he, there's this story, the very next story is the feeding of the 4,000. If I've been reading through the Bible, there's the feeding of the 5,000, there's the feeding of the 4,000. And it's basically a replay. The same things happen. Jesus broke bread, people give thanks, there's extra um left over. And I've always thought, like, all right, same story twice. The disciples seemingly don't understand the second time. Like, Jesus, do the thing with the bread. They don't get it. Um, and I wonder, so what happens is this feeding takes place outside of Israel in the Greek areas. And originally the 5,000 was within Israel. And so what Jesus starts to do is he starts to replay his kingdom acts outside of Israel the moment after having this conversation with the Pharisees. And Mark is strategically laying this out. That the blessing of God within the people of God is actually meant to spill over into the world around us. God's people are supposed to be a light that shines, an oasis whose river flows outward, life that multiplies, a compelling witness to God's goodness that attracts and draws in those around. The outsider who has faith is always welcome at the table. There is bread for everyone. There's not just crumbs for the Syrophenician woman, but there is an abundance of the bread of life for those who are outside of the bounds of Israel, outside of its social and cultural and religious context. This is the story of Ruth on replay. This conversation animates Paul's letter to the Romans and the Galatians. This is the whole movement of the book of Acts, from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth. This is the foundation of God's covenant with Abraham. This is the covenant in Eden that they would be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. This is the gospel. The good news of God's salvation is not just for those who are ethnically and ritualistically tied to the nation of Israel, but it's abundant life and available to everyone through the faithfulness of Israel's anointed king. So to Pharisees who are worried about being unclean based on what they touch, Jesus is blowing that out of the water. He says, You have a bigger mission. Consider what's coming out of you and the direction that your community is flowing. And he is taking down the boundary, the caution tape, and saying, Go, go into all nations and proclaim this good news to the Jew first, but also to the Greek. Mark wants his readers to see and hear how Israel's king and salvation has room for those outside of Israel. So as an illustration, I was just talking to a Christian. You were back back along the Mackenzie River. If you've ever been to Saheli and Coosa Falls, it's some of the most beautiful, bluest river. I got a picture. Here you go. Um, flows, it looks like teal, it looks fake, honestly. If you haven't been there, you should go. And uh I like to use this illustration of water that sits still, water that's in a pool or something. What happens if it's just left there? Like over time, yeah, it's gonna get gunky. But water that is flowing, water that is moving in a direction, it's crashing over the rocks, it's moving in a new territory. This water stays fresh and clean. And so I want to just end with a final illustration, which is the table. Um, I was recently at the Watkins house, and their table, when you need more people, what's in the middle? You ever have those tables where it slides open? I got a picture here. Yeah, slides open, and what's in the middle? Leaves. I don't know why we call them leaves. More table, right? Um, we're at the Summermans and they did that. Um, the Zims, you guys have giant tables, you know, whatever. Um, but we have we understand that when our table isn't big enough for everyone who's invited, what we do is we open it up and we get out more leaves. And this is what Jesus is doing. He's saying, All right, you're worried about who can't come and sit at this table with unwashed hands, and you're worried about eating bread with unclean hands. He's like, what we need to be doing right now is busting those tables wide open and throwing in every leaf that we can because there needs to be room for everyone because there is bread for everyone. The way of Jesus is about leaves, not limits. All are welcome to the table, no matter your wealth, your socioeconomic status, your gender expression, your intellectual or physical ability, your age, your smell, your size, your past or your present, there is room for you to encounter the good news of Jesus in faith. We proclaim the gospel with wide tables. This is what Jesus is saying here, whether you're Jew or Gentile, soldier or leper, tax collector or fisherman, rich or poor, lower the caution tape and make room for the unclean, because this is the place where the unclean become clean. And if you're with me, and there's some of you are saying, yeah, but, and we're having some things. This is actually part one of what's going to be coming next week, which today is about a wide table. Next week is about a narrow path. We're gonna talk about the costly way of Jesus. And what we want to set up within our citizens' culture is that everyone is welcome to the table, and everyone who sits at the table is invited to lay down their lives and costly die to themselves and follow the way of Jesus to the cross. I think what we can often do in the church is we want to make really narrow tables. It takes a lot to kind of get in. You have to believe all the right things and all do all this stuff. Once you're in, it's it's it is easy. You just sit and you chill, you cruise. I want to kind of flip that. Like, let's invite people to the table, and then let's invite everyone at the table to follow the costly way of Jesus. So there's bread for everyone. As you come to the table today, um, just remember that you were the outsider. Like many of us here are not ethnically Israelite. Um, and so you are welcomed to, with your sin, with the brokenness in your hearts and life, receive the life and forgiveness of Jesus yet again. And then I invite you all to go. Go with the flow. Go um be clean people who move out into unclean spaces this week. Let's pray.