HEART TRANSFORMATION

In broad strokes, religions are largely built around what they perceive to be clean over unclean, pure over impure, or if you like, proper over improper. The idea of what is clean and what is unclean dominates much of religious dogmas, teachings, and practices down through history. This construct further promotes and delineates the clean or the “converted” ones from the “pagan” ones. The neatly drawn box serves as a well-defined religion and separates one religion from the other, often deeming one’s own religion more superior to other religions. Judaism in the Bible was no exception. There are painfully detailed instructions outlined in the Book of Leviticus regarding what is clean and thus acceptable versus what is unclean and thus unacceptable when various offerings and sacrifices are considered. In the New Testament, Jesus spent much of his time upending what the Jews thought and believed were clean or pure. How people relate to God and to one another in communities is largely constructed on the bounded beliefs and practices of what is clean, pure, or proper. Both Jesus and Paul turned upside down the accepted prevalent table fellowship practices, which were the outflow of what is clean and acceptable, and emphasized the importance of “interior” or heart cleanliness over external cleanliness. No wonder both Jesus and Paul were considered radical and even blasphemous. 

However, it seems that the Church has not learned from Jesus or Paul and is still obsessed with prescribed acts of propriety emphasizing external or behavioral modifications and adherence. The Church continues to divide and draw lines between what it perceives to be clean or proper versus what it perceives to be unclean or improper. This leads to blind promotion of external conformity that is substantially removed from internal transformation. Clearly, it is easier to measure and “police” external behaviors over internal heart transformation.

One such “division” pertains to how the Church considers the world generally unclean and, in some camp, outright evil. In such belief, we are to avoid and thus “flee” from the world. We must hate the world and not love the world. It is not that such view is entirely wrong. To be sure, the Bible talks about two worlds. One is the world that Jesus died on the cross for, which desperately needs to be redeemed. The other is the world of “systems” that are devised and manipulated by the devil. The latter world is the world of carefully constructed systemic bondage that imprisons and undermines the entire creation, including human beings. In this sense, the world is associated as a system of sin. The former world is the world that God loves and is groaning in pain that Paul talks about in the Book of Romans. 

I too have a list of what I perceive to be clean and proper. I operate out of my own set of propriety and judge others according to my set. I may not judge others outwardly, but I realize I do have a certain checklist. Over time, I have less appreciated wordy and protracted public prayers including prayers for the meals. I certainly am not saying I am right but it has become a clear preference of mine. I also have very little patience toward people especially leaders who I perceive to be poor listeners. If a leader does not pass my propriety test of being a good listener, he will get judged by me. But I realize there is a possibility of the fact that he or she can be preoccupied with something on the day of interaction.

One of the first things I was told when I went to Indonesia, decades ago, was not to use my left hand when eating or handing something over to others. When entering the historic Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey as a tourist, I was told to wash my face, arm, hands, and feet. When entering a Hindu temple in Bali, I was told to wear a skirt around my waist as I was wearing shorts. When entering a church years ago as a young believer, I was told not to wear a hat or to chew a piece of gum during service. When I was given an opportunity to preach at a Korean church, I was asked to take off my shoes up on the podium platform. I mean the list is long wherever we go. 

When missionaries or devout people go to another culture, they invariably take their own set of cleanness and propriety. One of the significant cross-cultural communication tests revolves around the inevitable clash of these sets of proprieties between the locals and the missionaries. Thus a natural question to consider is: whose set of propriety should prevail? The ultimate answer is not based on who wins the day but on interior cleanliness and the transformation of all parties involved. However, in order to get there, those who are visiting from the outside would do well to adhere to the prescribed rules of propriety of the local culture. Furthermore, if we are to witness the change from within, we ought to acknowledge and own our set of propriety and recognize its shortcomings. Only then are we ready and qualified to critique others’ sets. Where honest and loving conversations flow in critiquing the sets of external proprieties of both cultures, there is hope for internal transformation. When this happens, the internal transformation leads to the external transformation of behaviors and proprieties and sets “the captives free.” 

The list is long if we are to capture who is considered unclean or impure. The talk of what is clean or unclean divides, and the divisiveness is more harmful than any one of us recognizes. Perhaps a good starting point is to espouse that God effortlessly embraces all the uncleans and deems them clean if we come to God broken and honest. Which leads to the important work of cleaning what is inside and witnessing internal transformation as well as external transformation. . .