Big Rocks First

When I was in college I had a strange routine to prepare for writing a big term paper. Before I would sit down to put pen to paper or fingers to computer keyboard I would set out to clean my entire dorm room. If there was dust somewhere, laundry on the floor, dirty dishes sitting on a dresser, or books askew I would spend however much time it took to set right everything. There were a few times when I decided that I did not have time to do this, so I went to write my paper at the library instead. Could I have written the paper without cleaning up? Sure, well physically I could do it, but psychologically maybe not.

I hope that you will observe that my behavior was at best peculiar and at worst bordering on a mild form of obsessive compulsive behavior. We tend to laugh at idiosyncrasies that we or a loved one possesses. And yet, what happens when we begin to construct our ritual and routine around these odd actions? I may have actually written a better paper because I was not focused on the dirty laundry I needed to do, but what happens if I let the miniscule aspects of life control my main priorities?

A long time ago my mom gave a devotion at summer camp. She had a glass cylinder about a foot tall and with a diameter of about 8 to10 inches. In the container she wanted to put some sand, big rocks, pebbles, and some medium sized rocks. At first she started with the sand, then put the pebbles, then the medium sized rocks, before finally trying to stuff the big rocks inside. Guess what! This method failed horribly. There was not enough room for one of the big rocks let alone all of them. Then, she tried another way.

During this second run through she put the big rocks inside first. Then the medium sized rocks, next the pebbles, and finally the sand. This time they all fit with a little bit of room to spare. I sat amazed thinking about how much of a difference it made to take care of the big things first. Obviously this demonstration impacted me, as I still remember this process. Jesus too challenges us to focus first on the weightier parts of life before we focus upon the small stuff.

In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus railed against the Pharisees’ over-commitment to hygienic rituals. To a group of people that had so many sanitary rituals this obviously was a big deal. Jesus thought that their practices were backwards though. They were in essence putting the sand in their jars before they took care of the big rocks. Food does not make one unholy or out of relationship with God. Rather, Jesus stated that it is the intentions that exist within the human heart that may defile a person.

We as a culture worry more than perhaps any other in history about what we eat. Instead of whether it will make us impure we wonder, “Will this make me gain weight?” Jesus bids us to let go of our worries about the religious purity of food and even how many calories it has, as he says all things that God makes are holy. Instead, we are to focus on what we have control over, that is the intentions that grow in our hearts. Let us make sure that we focus on this big rocks first, before we concentrate too much on the small sandy matters in life. Let us focus on the intentions of our hearts before we obsess too much over our rituals.