Look After Yourself

I have taken in a few British dramas on Netflix and such, and I now notice how their dialogue and expressions differ from ours. One example is that here I am used to hearing “Take care.” as a salutation when parting. In the UK it seems they are more apt to say, “Look after yourself.” I think they both carry the same meaning; I just paid more attention to the kindness and wisdom of reminding people to mind carefully their own wellbeing. It is kind because you wish them to be well. It is wise because it takes work and attention truly to take care of yourself.

It is a bit of a leap from there to what caught my attention in the scriptures coming up Sunday, but there is a connection, I would say. The statements, “Look after yourself”, or “Take care”, are wishes for the general wellbeing of each other. What Moses says to the Israelites and what Jesus says to the Pharisees and scribes stand as solemn warnings about the need to mind their spiritual health. Look at this collection of phrases from Deuteronomy 4:1-9—

So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. …You must keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you. …You must observe them diligently.

But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children.

This is a reminder that the ordinances from God are powerful. Observing them will make the difference for good in their life in the promised land. They are to check themselves against the commandments for their own good. Only in this way can they secure wholeness for themselves.

Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark, is really telling the religious authorities who had come from Jerusalem to Gennesaret that they are way off—missing the mark. They are worried about their external rules and are distracted from noticing evil intentions they harbor within. Failure to wash hands or pots properly, failure to ritually wash food from the market does not contaminate as much as what pollutes from within. Notice the instructions from Jesus in the first half of Mark 7—

Jesus said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written …‘You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’” Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

Do you have disciplines for yourself that allow you to check yourself from time to time? We should be asking ourselves, “Okay, really, how are you doing?” Maybe you have a spiritual director who helps you to check. Perhaps you have a trusted friend who regularly helps you in this way. I hope you do. A loving community of faith says it and means it: “Take care. Look after yourself.” You are that important.