Proper 17 ( September 1, 2024)

A Defiled Heart Made Clean

Sermon Goal: That hearers confess that their hearts produce nothing but evil but that by the Gospel God creates in them new, clean hearts that desire to keep his commandments.

“Just follow your heart.” Or, “Their heart was in the right place.” Undoubtedly you’ve heard these comments before. Secular psychologists say that to follow your heart can lead to disaster, since the heart is the seat of the emotions, and following every positive or negative feeling could get you to make some bad decisions.

God’s Word tells us that the heart is the source of a sinful intellect and intuition, a sinful understanding and will. That’s actually the way the Scriptures speak of the heart. So, just following ones heart is in reality to follow something that is defiled. The only real solution is God acting outside of us and for our benefit. And that is what he does!

God Takes Our Defiled Hearts and Creates Clean, Fruitful Hearts by His Gospel.

Every Heart is Defiled and Yields only Evil.

The Pharisees and scribes lived as if something else defiled people.

They had asked Jesus why his disciples ate without washing their hands, against the tradition of the elders, thinking this defiled them (Mark 7:1–5).

They believed and lived as if what defiled a person is what goes into him—like the right foods eaten the right ways—which are really mere outward works, even those invented by man instead of those commanded by God.

They taught others to do the same, profaning the name of God among us.

Jesus corrected the crowd’s false belief out of love for them.

He had quoted Isaiah to the scribes and Phari­sees to call out their hypocrisy: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Mark 7:6).

He teaches the crowd that “there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him” (Mark 7:15).

Jesus did not want the crowd misled by the moralism of the Pharisees.

Jesus corrected the disciples’ false belief to prepare them to teach others the same.

He teaches the disciples that it is not what goes into a person that defiles him, since what goes in enters not the heart but the stomach and exits as waste.

It is what comes out of a person that defiles him, because “from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts” and so much more (Mark 7:21).

Original sin causes actual sins. We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sin­ners.

One of our confessional documents puts it like this: “Original sin is born in us because of the sinful seed and is the source of all other actual sins, such as wicked thoughts, words, works…” (FC Epit­ome I 21). This is true of every human being, save Christ.

Jesus describes what flows from the defiled heart: both actions that can reoccur:

Mark 7:21–23 NKJV

21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

God Creates New, Clean Hearts in Us

through Christ by his Spirit-filled Gospel.

This clean heart has existed only in one man: the God-man, Jesus Christ.

His heart was pure and holy, since he is God’s Son made flesh from the virgin Mary (Lk 1:35).

From his heart came forth love for both God and man, fulfilling God’s Law for our sakes (Gal 4:4–5).

From his heart flowed water and blood as he was pierced for our defiled hearts (Jn 19:34), cleansing us by his atoning blood (cf Lev 16:30).

This shows us the Father’s heart of love for us, that he gave his only Son into death for our sin (Rom 8:32).

Through the Spirit-filled Gospel, God gives us what Jesus gained on the cross.

Christ rose and sent the Holy Spirit to take what is his and “declare it to you” (Jn 16:14). So all Jesus accomplished with his holy heart, the Spirit now declares to be your own.

By the Gospel, he washes you thoroughly from your iniquity and cleanses you from your sin, making you whiter than snow and creating in you a clean heart (Ps 51:2, 7b, 10; cf Jn 15:3).

In the watery Gospel, Holy Baptism, he gave us “the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5–7; cf Eph 5:26; Ezek 36:25).

Through faith alone, our hearts are newly created by this Spirit-filled Gospel (Acts 15:9).

Through faith, we receive and benefit from what Christ gained in his life, death, and resurrection and what the Spirit gives us in the Gospel.

This faith God gives us as a gift of his grace alone (Eph 2:8).

With such hearts, we can approach God’s throne of grace and “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb 10:22).

Newly Created Hearts Bear Fruit

by the strength God alone gives.

We must remember that our sinful hearts were not removed in Baptism but remain in us until we die.

So in spite of our faith and sanctified good intentions, those evil thoughts and that catalogue of vices will continually seek to defile our hearts (Rom 7:18–19).

But we return to the cleansing of our baptism by confessing our sins and receiving in faith the absolution: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:9).

As we return regularly to “stand firm” in this (Eph 6:13), sin will not rule over our hearts (Rom 6:14), but the Holy Spirit will “renew a right spirit within” us routinely (Ps 51:10).

And our newly purified hearts are zealous for good works (Titus 2:14).

Just as evil thoughts flow from the defiled heart, so “the springs of life” (Prov 4:23) and “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22–23) flow from the heart that’s cleansed by the Spirit-filled Gospel (cf Mt 23:26).

But we do not look to our hearts to decide what good works are, since our defiled hearts would deceive us with a defiled understanding and will.

Instead, God prepared for us beforehand what those good works are to be (Eph 2:10). They are done according to his Law and lived out in our assorted stations in life within the three estates, as Scripture teaches (see Old Testament Reading).

Our strength for these works of love comes only from the heart purified by Jesus’ blood (Heb 9:14).

Paul sums it up: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim 1:5).

So find strength in the purifying blood of Jesus. Once shed. Continually given in his Supper. For you.

And you have a defiled heart made clean and fruitful once more.

“Just follow your heart”? No, that’s not our creed. “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” That’s more like it. That’s relying on God’s grace in Christ, looking outside yourself to his work and Word. And that leaves you with a heart cleansed in the flood of Jesus’ blood, causing you to sing:

By grace! On this I’ll rest when dying;

In Jesus’ promise I rejoice;

For though I know my heart’s condition,

I also know my Savior’s voice.

My heart is glad, all grief has flown

Since I am saved by grace alone. (LSB 566:6)

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Liturgical Setting

During the season of Pentecost, our hearts are focused on the life of Christ’s church. By nature, however, our hearts are focused on anything but this life in Christ. Our Gospel contains no good news about our hearts. Rather, “out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts” (Mk 7:21). Yes, God says that “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen 8:21), and, “the heart is deceitful above all things . . . and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9).

The Introit, however, gives us the Gospel that God washes away our iniquity and cleanses us from our sin, creating in us “a clean heart” by his grace alone. This clean heart comes from Christ, who shed his blood on the cross to wash us clean and show us his Father’s gracious heart. The Spirit delivers this clean heart to us through his work in the means of grace. Through these means, our hearts are focused on the life we have in Christ and how he is still at work in our midst.

This clean heart we have through faith in Jesus does not eradicate the natural, defiled heart within us, though. Instead, we still have the old man (cf Rom 7:18). Thus, in the Old Tes­ta­- ment Reading, the Lord tells Israel to listen to everything he is teaching them. “Only take care,” he says, “and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life” (Deut 4:9a). There is great need for believers in Christ to keep God’s Word and salvific work before themselves so that it is imprinted upon their hearts and the hearts of their “children” and “children’s children” (4:9b). The natural, defiled heart, aided by the world and the devil, is trying to push that clean heart out.

How do we “take care,” though? The only “source of all that is just and good,” our Collect reminds us, is God. He alone will “nourish in us every virtue and bring to completion every good intent that we may grow in grace and bring forth the fruit of good works.” The Epistle teaches that God causes us to “stand against the schemes of the devil” by giving us “the whole armor of God” (Eph 6:11). We “stand firm” (v 13) by putting on this baptismal armor, taking up this armor that he provides us through his means of grace. With this armor on, our hearts remain clean through faith alone, and we are connected to Christ, the source of our new spiritual life.

Relevant Context

The Pharisees and scribes had gathered to Jesus when they witnessed his disciples eating with defiled, unwashed hands. This contradicted the tradition of the elders. They questioned Jesus for allowing his disciples to do this. Jesus called them hypocrites, quoting Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Mk 7:6b–7; cf Is 29:13). This “heart” of the Pharisees and scribes, and really of all mankind, Jesus speaks to more specifically in our Gospel text.

Textual Notes

V 14: προσκαλεσάμενος, “called to himself.” Jesus tenderly invited the crowd to himself because they had been deceived by the Pharisees and scribes. Jesus wants to “guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice” (Small Catechism, Lord’s Prayer, Sixth Petition).

ἀκούσατέ μου πάντες καὶ σύνετε, “listen to me all of you and understand.” Jesus is looking not for those who listen only with their ears but for those who understand with their minds and hearts. Verse 16, which is in the Byzantine text but not well attested elsewhere and therefore not in most translations, reinforces this understanding: “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”

V 15: κοινῶσαι . . . κοινοῦντα, “defile.” The verb κοινόω is used five times in this lesson. It means to make common or impure. We get from this word the word Koine, which is the common form of Greek in which the New Testament is written, as distinguished from Classical Greek. The Pharisees and scribes had complained about Jesus’ disciples not going through the ceremonial washings, indicating that they were defiled because they ate food with unwashed hands. Jesus now counters their claim by telling them that it is not what comes in from the outside but what comes out from the inside that defiles a person.

τὸν ἄνθρωπον, “the person, man.” This use of the article is known as a generic article and refers to the class of all mankind. It is proverbial. We see the same in verses 18, 20, 21, and 23. It means that everything spoken of in these verses about the defiled and evil heart applies to every single person who has ever lived or ever will live—except Jesus Christ. Christians have hearts cleansed by faith (Acts 15:9) but still have the sinful heart that dwells in them (Rom 7:17–20).

V 17: καὶ ὅτε εἰσῆλθεν εἰς οἶκον ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄχλου, “and when he had entered the house and left the people.” Beginning with this verse, the audience changes. Here ἀπό communicates separation. Jesus’ audience had been the crowd, but now Jesus separates and begins to catechize his disciples, who ask him about the parable.

V 18: οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀσύνετοί ἐστε; “Then are you also without understanding?” Jesus brings out the need for catechizing the disciples, who are more like the crowds than they might realize.

V 19: καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα, “cleansing all foods.” Jesus fulfilled all of the Old Testament, including the food laws. This is also why Jesus tells Peter in his vision, “What God has made clean, do not call common” (Acts 10:15).

V 21: ἔσωθεν γὰρ ἐκ τῆς καρδίας τῶν ἀνθρώπων, “for from within, out of the heart of men.” The catalogue of vices that follows tells you why you should never follow your heart! Jesus focuses not on outward things but on the inward, the source of all defilements. When the heart is not holy, then whether you are guilty of these vices and appear evil or you ceremonially wash your hands as the Pharisees did and appear good, either way you are defiled because your heart is defiled. The parallel text in Matthew is used as one of the sedes doctrinae of original sin in the Formula of Concord (FC Ep I 21).

οἱ διαλογισμοὶ οἱ κακοὶ ἐκπορεύονται, “come evil thoughts.” From these evil thoughts we have an appositional restating that describes the kind of evil thoughts that come from the defiled heart. In the Greek of verses 21–22, notice that not only the evil thoughts are in the plural but so also are the first six vices, which are translated as “sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness.” This indicates that these are not one-time occurrences that come from a person but are many and diverse. The last six vices in verse 22 are in the singular; perhaps to speak not of actions but of an attitude related to the actions.

V 23: πονηρά, “evil things.” This word for evil conveys not just the state of being evil but also the activity of evil thoughts and works.