So...

"It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

Jesus - Matthew 15:11

So, there I was, thinking I'd be having a quiet easter weekend this year, when I discovered that something totally unexpected was in the offing.

I was visited by a friend who is very knowledgeable in the field of nutrition and food (author, podcaster, lecturer, and so on). One of the things that came up in our conversation was how she had recently moved from practicing a Vegan diet to one which included other foods she's previously viewed as off limits. I was fascinated by the process of thinking and research that had lead her to this (we all have moral/ethical/social issues in life that we juggle with), and couldn't help wondering how this was going to work through, particularly in the public sphere of her work in her field.

I didn't have to wait long to find out!
The next day, she posted a podcast on Face book and other places, seeking to clearly present her change on these issues. Within a very short time, feedback began to flow, some supportive and encouraging, but some very harsh and judgmental, with quite a few comments to the effect that this change had happened because of the fact that she had become a Christian in recent times, and this was clearly a bad move.

It was at this point that I decided to enter the fray, not because I have anywhere near the kind of clarity on health and nutrition that my friend and others have, but because it was very clear that Christianity was, once again, being miss-understood.

The last few days have been pretty remarkable, as I've listened to people expressing what they think makes them 'good' -
Their attitude, their character, their diet, their morality. It can all, apparently, equate to something righteous so far as godliness is concerned.

God, of course, must keep silent.
There's no space here for hearing what He has said about us, or to look at what has been done in and through the Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus.

What never ceases to amaze me is how quickly we de-fault to thinking we can do what counts, be good (because of some mantra we declare, or behavior we cherish) and thereby change the world, without truly looking ourselves in the eye and seeing what lies just beneath the surface.

A couple of final threads are still ongoing, but most of the people who eagerly jumped into the conversation at the weekend with their 'I'm fine because' home-spun religions quickly vanished once I started to ask them - what do you really mean by that? or is that really good enough?

In the Gospel, we read of a rich young man who came to Jesus with a list of His 'goodies' - all the ways he was doing what, he deemed, was good and god-pleasing. He eagerly tells Jesus this, and asks, 'so, do I make the grade?' Jesus has to tell him no. The very lifestyle he was investing in was in reality divorcing him from God. If you're serious, said Jesus, sell all of it and follow me. The young man left sad.

No scheme or method we devise is ever going to make the grade because, as the verse above notes, it's what's inside of us that's going to condemn us. We need a far more radical remedy than we can ever devise, and that's why Jesus Himself came to us - to set us free from sin by 'becoming sin' for us - bearing our sins in His death on the cross.

If we're looking for a quick fix to our and the world's problems here and now, we're going to be either sorely disappointed or seriously delusional regarding what we do.

Thankfully, that's not the end of the story.
Like my friend who visited last weekend, we can live in a manner where all of life becomes filtered through God's work of redemption through His Son, and that begins to give us an understanding and a foretaste of the glorious new creation that is to come.

That is certainly worth waiting for.