Jesus makes an interesting and arguable
assertion in verses 14 and 15 of today’s reading: “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.”
The Food and Nutrition Service
(FNS), a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, strongly disagrees,1
as do countless dieticians and nutritionists. What goes in the mouths of
Americans on a daily basis, making the U.S. one of the most obese nations on
the planet (12th out of 191),2 does indeed “defile” us,
according to these experts.
Some food is bad for us, and if
ingested regularly or to excess can seriously mess us up. The list might
surprise you: Fruit juice, soy protein, farmed salmon, sugar alcohols, microwave
popcorn, margarine, shrimp, vegetable oils, table salt, artificial sweeteners,
fat-free and low-fat milk, Agave nectar, canned green beans and pancakes for
breakfast.3
Pancakes?
Fortunately, there’s no ban on bacon.
Some foods have been banned from the
U.S.: Haggis, Japanese puffer fish, shark fins, Ackee fruit, Beluga caviar,
Queen conch, sea turtles, Kinder Surprise eggs, sassafras oil, Chilean sea
bass, absinthe, horse meat and foie gras.4
So, Jesus’ comment that “whatever
goes into a person from outside cannot defile” notwithstanding,5 all
of us know that if we want to be healthy, we’d best limit ourselves to one
double-cheese-bacon-avocado-with-mayo burger a week. Or maybe one a month?
What, then, does Jesus really mean?
He surely cannot mean what we think he means, because we’re quite sure
that he himself did not eat certain foods. He might have had pancakes, hash
browns and scrambled eggs for breakfast, but not bacon. Didn’t happen.
So we know that Jesus understood
that there are some things you don’t eat.
Even the disciples were confused.6
They did not understand that Jesus’ point was that what goes into “the
stomach, and goes out into the sewer” does not truly make us sick. The disease
from which we suffer comes from a different source.7
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