Reflections for Youth - Playing Games

The gospel scripture this week from Mark get a little weird and maybe a little gross.  Just a warning here - but it's possible that Jesus might even be talking about poop. Yikes. But, we will get back to that. 

So, poop aside - this week's passage has me thinking about playing games and following rules. What kind of game player are you? Are you competitive and like to make sure that all the rules are followed as per the instructions? Are you a person that likes to make up new rules, change the rules, or let people slide when they mess up? 

We are headed into a holiday weekend and if I spend any time with my family it will involve games. Both my husband and my families are big game players.  Sometimes it gets pretty rowdy and serious. Once a cousin had to go to the emergency room on Thanksgiving because of a wild game of Spoons. (It's a card game involving grabbing spoons from the table when you have certain cards and ends with about 8 stitches in a cousin's forehead.)

Anyway, I am sure that you have all also played games with someone like my brother. He's competitive and serious about the rules. No wiggle room. 

When we were little if my brother didn’t win he would always say “Let’s keep playing until we see who comes in second!”

But here’s the thing about rules, sometimes we can be so concentrated on the rules and who is right and who is wrong that we forget to have fun while we are playing the game.  (Oh Geez, I think I called my brother a Pharisee.) 

Read Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

So let's get back to Jesus and his followers who were often called out for not following the rules. The Pharisees, the Jewish religious experts, in this passage noticed that some of the disciples didn’t wash their hands before they ate and they asked Jesus about it. The Pharisees were people who had strict rules about how they should live. They were living out their faith by following strict rules about washing hands, food, and pots in a certain way to show their obedience to God.

But Jesus uses these question to say something about about the Spirit of God - to remind them that sometimes you can get so caught up in following the rules that you can miss the fun and the most important part—that God loves us no matter what. 

So here's where the poop part may or not come in. The Pharisees are asking why the disciples are not following the traditions of the elders.  And Jesus responds by telling them that all their rules are human traditions and not God's traditions. 

“Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.  Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them,” Jesus says.
(Sounds like he's taking about poop - right?)

Jesus goes on in the passage to tell them love and obedience for God comes from within a person's heart and our insides need to be just as clean as out outsides.  

"For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder,  adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.  All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

So, he's probably not talking about actual poop  - but perhaps the other yucky stuff that can come out of us.  No amount of hand washing is going to clean that stuff up unless we clean ourselves up from within, 

I am sure that Jesus wasn't  saying that not it’s important to wash our hands. I think he wanted to remind the people that we don’t just need to work on our outsides and keep ourselves clean.  We also need to work on our insides and love God and other people with all of our hearts.  

Rules of a game, and rules in our world certainly help keep everything in order, but we also must remember that its not just about the rules but living in the Spirit of God that’s important. 

Maybe think about this next time you are playing games with your family or friends.  Are you concentrating too much on the rules and not enjoying the game? And also wash your hands.