Sometimes advertisement campaigns are too complicated. Our recent history with Obamacare is a good example. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent just on advertising, and still the official line is that 8 million have signed up. Of course they won’t tell us how many have actually paid for their new plan! They promised no loss of plan, no hike in premium, complete access. And yet there will still be the same number of uninsured after Obamacare as there were before Obamacare. The uninsured have just shifted. The problem we were told it would solve has not been solved, and every bad thing possible has come true.
The buzz around Google’s Glass, has been a disaster for Google. The privacy concerns have pushed Google into a defensive posture, something they are not used to. For a leader in their market around the world, having such a terrible launch has to be devastating. And if they anticipated the privacy concerns, they should have hit the ground on day one with a campaign to combat these concerns.
Global warming is having difficulty staying afloat in the stream of scientists who are simply showing evidence that the whole theory is not ‘settled science,’ but a politically and ideologically driven redistribution of wealth. Just look at the proponents of the theory and watch their personal carbon footprint. Private jets, limos, huge houses. If they were so concerned, they would practice what they preach. But instead they get richer with every sermon they preach to their private dinners and every legislative act.
Even our school lunches have become politicized with a very poor advertising campaign. Kids just won’t eat the stuff, partly because parents have failed to educate the pallets of their children, and partly because it is nearly impossible to create bulk meals for the price allowed that meet the new standard. Good idea poorly executed and poorly researched.
The religious leaders of Jesus day were so focused on their message that they missed the obvious truth. They preached that food could make you ritually unacceptable to God. So they became obsessed with ritual purity. They became so wrapped up in their manmade rules that they missed the reason for the original rule.
But Jesus had a way of cutting through the advertising and getting to the important substance underneath. He says that the important stuff is inside us, not outside us. You can splash a coat of paint on an old rotten garden shed, but it is just a freshly painted old rotten garden shed.
What I find interesting in our text is that He speaks this truth to the crowd and not just to His disciples. He wants everyone to understand this simple principle. It is the stuff on the inside of us, our attitude, our beliefs, and the actions that result from these, that really tell the content of the heart. And since our heart, using the Biblical term, is the center of our being, if the center is dirty, then we don’t stand a chance. We will be spewing dirt with our lives. Not only will be dirty, but we will make those around us dirty as well.
Are you a cleansing force or a force that spreads filth?
The Arnold Journey 