Tag Archives: Mark 7

Big Dogs and Bad Dogs

December 10, 2024 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus…”
Mark 7:1 (NIV)

When I began my career over 30 years ago, I had zero experience in the fields of market research or quality assessment, which are the two primary services our company provides. This was intimidating, to be honest. I was a young man entering a world I knew virtually nothing about. Our company’s founder and CEO explained to me that he was not hiring me for my acumen in research and assessment, which I would learn, but rather for my gifts in communication.

What I learned in those early years is that the research and quality assessment our company provides are complimentary. Our customer research tells a client’s executive team what drives their customers’ expectations and what the company needs to do operationally to improve their customers’ satisfaction, retention, and loyalty. Quality Assessment (e.g. “Your call may be recorded for quality and training purposes…”) helps uncover how the front-line Customer Support and Sales representatives can actually improve and deliver on those customer expectations in their daily conversations and interactions with the client’s customers.

These are two very different audiences.

The executive team members handling operations, sales, and marketing are educated, experienced, and influential individuals. They think about data in strategic and tactical ways on an organizational and operational scale. There’s a certain language they speak and a way that they think.

The front-line representatives who are actually interacting with customers and handling the countless daily “moments of truth” in which customer satisfaction is built or broken, are a very different group. They tend to be among the least paid and least powerful individuals in the company. They have a very different lingo and way they think. They also have the monumental, typically overlooked, task of communicating directly with the customer while applying the policies and procedures that have been dictated down the chain of command from the C-Suite.

And, as Shakespeare famously wrote, “There’s the rub.”

My real job, my boss told me, was the ability to take objective data and effectively communicate the same results to these two very different audiences. These audiences, by the way, typically have little appreciation or understanding of one another. I had to help the executive team understand what the data said and what they needed to do operationally to deliver on those expectations through the company’s policies and procedures. To the front-line sales and support representatives, I had the responsibility to communicate the same data in a way that would help them craft their conversations and communication with customers. Often, that means managing the broken policies and procedures that we had yet to convince the executive team to change.

This came to mind today as I read the chapter, in which Jesus is likewise communicating with two very different audiences who have very different perspectives about everything.

The chapter begins by telling us that an entourage of “teachers of the Law” had come from Jerusalem to hear and inspect Jesus. These are the “big dogs” of Jesus’ religion and culture. These are the execs making a visit to the plant in rural nowhere from the Jewish C-Suite at corporate headquarters. “Everyone be on your best behavior. Look sharp, and busy!”

The big dogs call out Jesus for not following their corporate religious HR policies and procedures. Everyone was expected to wash their hands a certain way, as well as the cups, plates, and utensils they use per corporate policy 4A, sub-section B, paragraph three in the employee handbook. Jesus told his team they could ignore these silly rules. The Big Dogs have come to put Jesus on a corporate Performance Improvement Plan and press Him to get in line with corporate policy.

Instead, Jesus gives the Big Dogs an ear-full about how hypocritical and out-of-touch they are with the day-to-day realities of life for the front-line workers in the sweat shops far from the C-Suite. The policies and procedures are not only silly, but they’re rigged to benefit the corporation and its executives, not the customers or the front-line team members.

This does not go over well.

Not surprisingly, Jesus decides to take some PTO from His base of operations in Galilee. He hits the road and gets out of Dodge for a while. Mark tells us that Jesus first goes to the region of Tyre and Sidon then makes His way to an area known as the Decapolis. These are not places where the Big Dogs hold sway. In fact, these are primarily non-Jewish regions where non-Jewish “Gentiles” live and operate. The Jewish Big Dogs considered non-Jewish Gentiles and their lives to be dirty, base, and unacceptable. They literally called Gentiles “dogs” as an insult. The “Big Dogs” looked down with derision and condescension on the Gentiles. Gentiles were the “Bad Dogs.”

So Jesus, having infuriated the Big Dogs, goes to hang out with the Bad Dogs. While He’s there, a Gentile woman comes to Him begging for Jesus to heal her demon possessed daughter. Jesus trots out the corporate employee HR handbook stating that policy 8C, sub-section A, paragraph two forbids him from talking to or healing a Gentile, especially a female Gentile and deal only with the good Jewish children of Abraham (preferably the men). Why? Because Gentiles, especially women are “dogs.” So says corporate policy.

“But Jesus,” the woman replies. “Even dogs get scraps dropped from the children’s table.”

I can picture the smile on Jesus’ face. This lowly “bad dog” gets what all the corporate “big dogs” can’t see or understand from their corner offices at corporate headquarters. What was intended by the Founder to provide an exceptional customer experience of Life and Love had been lost in a culture of profit and power seeking, bureaucracy, and top-down authoritarianism. Jesus makes the demons leave her daughter.

In the quiet this morning, I’m so thankful for the “real world” experience my career has given me to observe how systems operate and to interact with individuals on every different level of those systems. It’s been fascinating to try and use data and truth to change the thinking and behaviors of individuals at different levels of an organization in order to facilitate change that will benefit the client’s customers and culture. I’ve learned a lot, not only about business, but also about life and human beings. Jesus was dealing with a very similar system because they are human systems. As a disciple of Jesus I’ve learned that systems typically don’t successfully change without human beings changing. If you change the motives and outcomes of enough human beings, there’s a chance to change the systems they’re in.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

The Contrast

May 4, 2021 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.”
Mark 7:18-19 (NIV)

When I was a young man, I spent a short period of time working in a county office building where I participated in the the legal investigation and documentation of real estate transactions. I did it for less than a year, but it was an eye opening experience. I observed and learned how government worked under the control of a political machine. I observed and learned how people use the letter of the law to circumvent the spirit of the law to achieve their own selfish ends. I learned and observed how people try to use real estate to con others, and once or twice I actually caught people doing it. It was a crash-course in “how the world works.”

In yesterday’s post/podcast I mentioned that it’s easy to get stuck looking at the text with a microscope while ignoring the bigger picture. I can lose the forest in the trees, as the old saying goes. In today’s chapter, what resonated most with me was, once again, not mired in the minutia of Jesus words, but the larger context of what is happening in the story.

Jesus ministry, at this point, has taken place in the rural backwaters of Judea. If I were to use the United States for context, I would say that Jesus has been spending all of his time and energy in fly-over country while avoiding both coasts. All of the miracles, crowds, and exorcisms have Jesus trending off the charts and the establishment powers-that-be have begun to notice. Since the beginning of time, power-brokers at the top of the political, commercial, and religious establishments have known to ceaselessly look for any threat to the stability of their power and the continuity of their cashflow.

I found Mark’s observation fascinating:

“Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it.”

The more they talk about it, the more of a potential threat Jesus becomes to the religious powers-that-be. In the beginning of today’s chapter, Mark notes that an entourage of political and religious leaders from Jerusalem come to see for themselves what the hub-bub is all about. They are big fish coming to the small pond of Galilee, but along the blue-collar shores of Galilee they are not in their own environment while Jesus is definitely in His.

The Jerusalem entourage are here to find ways to discredit this threat to their control on the religious institution and the lives of all who adhere to it. They quickly call Jesus out for not washing his hands before supper, which the establishment long ago elevated onto the checklist of religious rituals and behaviors they used to maintain their self-righteous judgement of who is naughty-or-nice, who is in-or-out.

Jesus response resonated with me because He calls them out on a point of legal order. Nowhere in the Ten Commandments or the laws of Moses was ritual hand washing a thing. The religious-types, over time, had created rules that were part of legal codes which codified and expanded the interpretation of the original spiritual principle. Jesus turns this into a very simple illustration that gets to the core of the difference between His teaching and that of the institutional human religious establishment.

The religious leaders made a spectacle of their ritual hand-washing before meals to show how pious and righteous they were. Jesus quickly points out that at the same time these same religious leaders had used the letter of the law to allow children to avoid the obligation of adult children to care for their elderly parents. They allowed people to bring “offerings” as a charitable donation to the religious establishment which would otherwise have been the money needed to pay for their parents needs. They then declare a form of bankruptcy as to escape their financial obligation to their elderly parents with the absolution of the religious institution who benefitted handsomely for it.

This is a version of what I observed and learned in the county office building when I was a young men. This is how the Kingdoms of this World work.

Jesus’ response was a simple word picture. Along with hand-washing, the power-brokers from Jerusalem also had many dietary restrictions which also fell into the category of religious rule-keeping. Jesus’ observation is so simple. Food, he says, goes in the mouth, through the stomach, and out the other end. Whether eaten with ritually cleansed hands or dirty hands, the food never passes through the heart.

From a spiritual perspective, the distinction is essential, Jesus says:

“It’s what comes out of a person that pollutes: obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness—all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution.” Mark 7: 20-23 (MSG)

The entourage will return to Jerusalem. Their dossier on Jesus will speak of a popular teacher among the poor and simple masses who follow Him in throngs, hang on His every word, and are won-over by His miracles. He will be labeled an enemy of the institution. He threatens the stability of their power, their control over the masses, and ultimately the stream of cashflow from their religious racket. We are still a couple of years away from this religio-political machine condemning Jesus and conspiring to hang Him on a cross, but the pieces are already moving on the chess board.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself once again inspired by Jesus. The more I read the story, and read His teachings, the more I see the contrast between the heart-principles of the Kingdom of God and the religious rule keeping of the institutions of this world. I am compelled to continue following the former with all my heart while exposing the latter for what it is. In other words, I want to be more and more like Jesus while shunning the religious institutions and establishments who point to their moral codes and religious rules and say, “this is what Jesus meant.”

I believe that humans will perpetually turn eternal Truth into earthly rules and religious systems. C’est la vie. It’s part of the fabric of a fallen world in this Great Story.

Nevertheless, I get to choose every day which I follow.

“Hang on Jesus. I’m lacing up my shoes for another day. I’m right behind you. Where are we headed?”

Chapter-a-Day

Inside Out Transformation

April 7, 2020 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

[Jesus] went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 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.”
Mark 7:20-23 (NIV)

I was a young man when I began my spiritual journey following Jesus. The community of believers I often associated with were very concerned about religious appearance and moral purity. My hair was expected to be short and my dress was expected to be coat and tie. My ears were to be kept pure from rock music, my eyes kept pure from looking lustfully at women, and my body to be kept pure from the usual vices of drugs, alcohol, and smoking.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with these things. I’ll be the first to confess that I wasn’t perfect, but I’m also quite sure that adhering to the religious rigor kept me from getting into various kinds of trouble. As I progressed in my spiritual journey, however, I began to observe a few things.

First, my peers who were born and bred into the religious rigor as part of their strict family and faith systems were often big on obedience to the rules and traditions but really short on any real spiritual or personal maturity. They adhered (at least publicly) to the letter of the religious rules to keep the family and community appeased, but I never saw any real inner desire to pursue the things that Jesus was really getting at.

Second, the adults in these communities and religious systems were really focused on all of the easily recognized and visibly apparent illicit behaviors. People, especially young people, were publicly shamed for all the usual social vices. No one, however, seemed to care when it came to gluttony at church potlucks, gossip between the youth group member’s mothers, the man in the church with anger issues who used the Bible to justify the secret physical abuse of his family, deacon John who was not shy about his racism, elder Bob who was a dishonest businessman who’d filed for bankruptcy three times, or that the women of the church treating Ms. Jones like a social leper because her husband left her, filed for divorce, and so she must not have been the dutiful wife he needed.

Finally, I eventually found myself really dissatisfied. When I made the decision to be a follower of Jesus, it was about me being less pessimistic, impatient, immature, shallow, dishonest, inauthentic, and self-centered. It was about me wanting to grow into more self-less-ness and more love, life, joy, and peace. Checking off a bunch of religious and moral rules wasn’t addressing my desire to become more like Jesus. In fact, I don’t think Jesus would want to be with these people. I realized that Jesus would probably want to be with all the people that got shamed and kicked out of that church for their public mistakes.

In today’s chapter, Jesus is hitting this stuff head on. He gets in trouble with the religious rule-keepers because they didn’t ceremonially wash their hands before supper. He looks at the good religious people from His own religious system and explains that they are doing the same thing I witnessed among my own religious community. They were keeping all of the religious rules about washing your hands and eating only the prescribed dietary foods, but they weren’t doing anything about the anger, malice, judgment, critical spirit, discord, gossip, dishonesty, selfishness, racism, hatred, and condemnation that was polluting their souls.

This morning, I find myself contemplating the Jesus that I’m reading about in Mark’s account. I love that He was not about me keeping external rules and regulations, but about me getting my heart and life transformed from the inside out. I love that Jesus heals the daughter of a “sinful” outsider who His religious community would never have even acknowledged. I love that Jesus continues to compassionately pour out love, kindness, and healing even when He was tired and wanted to be left alone for a while. I love that He keeps telling people not to talk about the miracles because they weren’t the point; The miraculous physical healings of eyes, ears, and limbs merely pointed to the real miracle He came to perform: His love transforming me from the inside out as His life emerges from my dead, self-centered spirit.

That’s the Jesus I want to be more like, and keeping rules won’t get me there.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Mark 7

November 23, 2011 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“Don’t you understand either?” he asked. “Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.) And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.” Mark 7:18-23 (NLT)

I have watched with interest as the growth of the natural, healthy, and organic food market. Ten or fifteen years ago the health food market was confined to small mom and pop stores in major cities and food co-ops for the granola set. Today, almost every major grocery store carries a plethora of all natural and organic foods. There are now large, national chains of health food stores.

Our culture has increasingly embraced more healthy and organic foods in contrast to the highly processed mass market foods available in every grocery aisle. I’m not adverse to this. I think it is a good thing. God advocates taking care of our bodies and treating them like a temple.

Nevertheless, I remember Jesus’ words: “What does it profit you to gain the whole world and lose your soul.” Reading Jesus’ words about food in today’s chapter, I hear Him making a corresponding point. What does it profit you to eat all natural and organic food, and work to keep your body in optimum health, if on the inside your spirit is withering in anger, depression, malice, greed, lust, or shame?

Our bodies are good for, at best, eighty to just over a hundred years. Our spirit is eternal. Where should I make the greatest investment?