Sermon for Sunday 5th July 2026 – Mark 6: 53

Preacher: Fr Benjamin Drury – St Paul’s Athens

 

Saint Mark’s Gospel today, together with the Book of Wisdom, invites us to look honestly at our hearts and souls.

 

In the ritual practices of the Pharisees, we see what may seem to us a strange and unfamiliar preoccupation with purity. They observed many careful outward rules so that they would not be defiled: not by what they ate or drank, not by what they touched, and not by those with whom they kept company.

 

Many of these careful rules were once connected with hygiene and devotion. Seen in another light, however, they may remind us of some of the more unusual regulations introduced during Covid.

They are set before us as a contrast with what truly defiles a person. What really damages the soul is not something external, but what is within and then comes out. This accords with the Book of Wisdom: “God is witness of their inmost feelings, and a true observer of their hearts, and a hearer of their tongues.”

What defiles us, what is truly evil, is what lies within: evil intentions and all those things listed in Mark’s Gospel.

 

Christ is often referred to as Wisdom, or as the Wisdom of God. With this in mind, we may hear the Book of Wisdom’s warning more deeply:

 

“Wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul,

or dwell in a body enslaved to sin.”

Think of Holman Hunt’s famous painting of Christ knocking at the door: “Lo, I stand at the door and knock.” Christ enters the heart and soul at our invitation, through our free will and our cooperation with him.

We therefore need to learn how to discipline our spirit so that we may welcome him in.

 

As the Book of Wisdom says:

“For a holy and disciplined spirit will flee from deceit,

and will leave foolish thoughts behind,

and will be ashamed at the approach of unrighteousness.”

 

Of course, we need God’s help to cleanse and heal our souls, and to form us into the likeness of Christ. Yet the responsibility also lies with us. It is our task to respond to the call of God. As he has invited us to his heavenly banquet, so we invite him to the humble altar of our hearts.

Mark’s Gospel speaks of what defiles. In more modern English, perhaps we might say: that which damages the soul.

Our responsibility is to look within our own hearts, for it is there that the root of the damage so often lies.

Sin often damages us more deeply than the damage our sin does to others. Think of the gravest of sins, if indeed we can rank sin: murder. The one who is killed loses their life, but not their soul. Yet the murderer risks their immortal soul. Mortal sins are called mortal because they wound the soul of the one who commits them, with a wound that perhaps no earthly reparation can mend. Only the healing of God can heal the damage of mortal sin.

 

If someone sins against you, pity them for the damage they are doing to themselves. Pray for them. Each sin, each act of rebellion against God, damages the soul, even if only in a small way. When we acknowledge this, we are brought not merely to shame or despair, but to a useful and truthful state of mind: the recognition of our need for God, and of our soul’s need for the healing he offers in his loving care as the guardian and shepherd of our souls.

Our Gospel today is set in Galilee, by the lake. If you have been there, I hope you can remember the tranquillity sometimes found in that place. So much of Jesus’ teaching took place beside this, at times, peaceful lake: a place good for the soul, a place of healing. And healing is precisely what Jesus had been doing. Just before the Gospel passage about defilement, he had been healing the sick. He is the healer of our souls. He offers healing where there is defilement, and restoration where there is damage.

 

The Book of Wisdom gives us remedies for a sick soul and for lovelessness: guard your thoughts, because perverse thoughts separate people from God. This reminds us that what is within us matters. Bad thoughts damage the soul because they draw us away from God; and the more we rebel, the harder it can become to return.

 

If it feels hard to keep asking God to lead you back into his paths, recognise your need of him and come to him again.

When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever he was.

 

Rush to him. Bring what is sick to him, just as those who flocked to him in Galilee did:

 

For “wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.”

 

If we are touched by Christ, we too will find healing for our souls.

 

Fr Benjamin Drury MA Oxon.

Chaplain – Apokrisiarios

St Paul’s Church,  Philellinon 27, Athens 10558