Wash Your Hands!
Notes
Transcript
Matthew 14:34–15:20
The Pharisees judge and condemn Jesus for not keeping their human traditions. Jesus points to one particular way the Pharisees break God’s Ten Words for the sake of their human tradition. This is hypocrisy - actors on a stage pretending to be righteous. The condemnation that comes out of their mouth reveals the truth of their hearts. We all have our own ordering of God's Commandments… and a list of ones we prefer to ignore. Then we are free to judge others who get the order "wrong." Where do we elevate our traditions over the commands of God? Where do we judge others? What do our words reveal about our heart?
Wash Your Hands, You Filthy Animals
Wash Your Hands, You Filthy Animals
Every year at camp we like to teach the children a life skill called washing your hands. We gather by the bell for lunch and dinner. We sing a song of blessing. We pray. And then I tell the sweet, innocent, little children?
“Wash your hands, you filthy animals.”
Inevitably some try to say they already washed their hands, but I point out they just held their neighbors hand for prayer and they didn’t, so back you go. They just want lunch first.
The worst is when I stand as they come out and high-five them. Inevitably someone does… and I didn’t wash my hands… so back they go to wash their hands again.
Hilarious. I’m a terrible person. But also, these are some solid life lessons.
We wash our hands because we know it reduces the spread of germs, especially before eating food because the germs go from hands, to the food, in our mouth, and then infect our bodies with bacteria and other fun stuff.
It is amazing and beautiful how often God’s law taught and prepared God’s people for this, long before they had the understanding of things like “germ theory” to protect them.
But this is a story about how Jesus and his disciples didn’t wash their hands.
The Stage
The Stage
34 And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret.
35 And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick
36 and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.
Genessaret - Northwest shore of Galilee, not far from Capernaum. So back pretty near home base.
Back home, healing all in the region, even just touching the “fringe” of the garment.
Enter the Pharisees
Enter the Pharisees
We know at this point they are officially out to get Jesus. Since the healing on the Sabbath.
So they catch Jesus, or at least Jesus’ disciples, on the same thing we catch the boys on coming out of the restroom. “Wash your hands, you filthy animals!”
1 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,
2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.”
But it isn’t just his disciples, Jesus didn’t either:
38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner.
But note the word the Pharisees use, for at least they are honest. They don’t say “law”, they say “traditions.” The word is “paradosis”, “alongside opinion” and refers to the ever growing collection of rabbinic writings interpreting the law. In the same way we can take the writings of Church Fathers, or even modern commentaries as helpful, but not equal to Scripture. It isn’t even totally clear where this interpretation comes from, though some write about the hands being “fidgety” and others about them being ritually unclean by default.
Jesus turns the rebuke around on them.
They don’t keep God’s law, and then condemn him for not keeping man’s tradition.
4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’
And then quotes another part of the tradition:
5 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,”
6 he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.
Sorry, Mom, Dad, I took the money we had set aside for your retirement and that was my tithe to the temple this year.
Could the circumstance arise where you had to choose between your sacrifices to God and providing for Christmas gifts for Mom and Dad? Sure… but then using what is a rare and desperate circumstance to justify frequent elder neglect and abuse is awful.
There is no social security, there is no welfare system, the responsibility of the child to Honor Their Parents is the sole provision for the well being of those who can’t do the hard labor of farming and shepherding anymore.
It may actually be worse than them giving the money to the temple. In Mark 7:11 Jesus calls this a Corban
11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)—
It’s like a vow if I break the vow, then the money or property belongs to God. If I lie, I will give you my house. And if you keep the vow, you keep the stuff.
So the vow, the promise, currently costs them nothing, is promised to God in a technical / hypothetical way, but still denied to the parents.
7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
8 “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
For the first time, Jesus calls some people in particular “hypocrites.” Actors on a stage, this is “righteous” theatre, this is virtue-signaling, it isn’t a new thing.
And, no accident, the context is the same. People condemning others, judging others, ignoring or hiding or discounting their own wickedness.
What Isaiah said of the people of Northern Israel, harsh and brutal, and God came and ended their nation…
“In vain do they worship me…” how brutal is that? But they aren’t worshipping God as He is, as He has revealed Himself, as He teaches, as He speaks… they are worshipping a self-constructed idol they slapped the name YHWH on. God is not fooled by their “Righteousness theater.”
And he isn’t fooled by ours either.
What’s Your Favorite Commandment?
What’s Your Favorite Commandment?
What’s Your Favorite Tradition?
We all have a list, explicitly or implicitly. These commands I like, these commands are important to me. These commands are easy and obvious, they resonate, and I find them life giving and joyful. These others are weird, I don’t like them, or I feel called out by them.
I order the commands of God.
And I feel better about the ones I miss if I keep the “better” ones, the “higher” ones.
And we then have traditions based on our interpretations and applications of the commands of God.
You’ve got some.
Color of the carpet, position of the chairs. Emergency Business Meeting, should we have one aisle or two?! I’m thankful to serve in a church where that is a hilarious joke and not the story of our last church split.
Theological Positions. Is it important to wrestle with the Word of God and apply it to our lives as best as possible? Yes, absolutely. And we should have strong ideas, strong feelings, things we are committing to whole-heartedly out of the Word of God. But if those interpretations become the occasion for us to not love our neighbor or not honor our parents… that’s exactly what the Pharisees were doing here!
French Wars of Religion, 30 years war, at least all nominally fought and killed in the name of specific theological positions within the Body of Christ.
I think that breaks Jesus’ actual heart.
Sabbath. I like that one. A lot. It’s a gift from God, it’s a blessing. Does the Scripture say you need to attend church at 11am Sabbath morning? No… it says “remember” and it says “keep” and Jesus and his disciples went to synagogue on Sabbath, but it’s tradition, working out how to “remember” and “keep” well. It is NOT an occasion to condemn and judge others.
It is NOT to say that these things aren’t important, or aren’t good ideas.
But they aren’t as important as the explicit Commands of God, the Commands of Jesus.
There is a right and proper hierarchy. It goes like this:
Love God
Love God
Love Others
And Jesus tells us some order of priority EVEN amongst the Commands of God. In particular, in how we rightly understand the Commands of God. The Greatest Command - Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind and soul. And like it, love your neighbor as yourself.
Why? All the Law and Prophets hang on this, hinge on this, are rightly understood through this interpretive lens.
If the way you are interpreting your “favorite commandment” doesn’t line up with those two… you’re wrong. God’s not wrong, the Commandment isn’t wrong, but your interpretation, your application, your heart is wrong.
Is your heart to please God or to be right?
Is your heart to be more right than the next guy?
Or, even, care less about being right then proving them wrong! (Seeing plenty of that in politics… let the country burn, as long as the other guy burns first)
Is it to love God and love Others… and then we see that worked out through the 10 Commandments and all the rest of the Law and Prophets. The 10 Commandments have a special place as moral law, written in stone by the finger of God and placed in the Ark of the Covenant, God shows us those are special, but all the Law and Prophets is toward this end.
So, you could develop this practice of hand washing as a thorough application of ritual purity desiring to be faithful to God, loving to God, above all.
But you could not get to condemning and judging Jesus and his disciples for “falling short” of your made up rule. That is driven neither by love for God or love for them.
It reveals a heart of condemnation.
Jesus gives us this test, this measure, to know our own heart and, to a lesser extent, to be warned against the hearts of others.
How do I know if my heart wrong?
How do I know if my heart wrong?
What Defiles a Person?
10 And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand:
11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
We still are far more likely to judge someone for what they eat today than the words that come out of their mouth.
I’m not talking about cursing, and neither is Jesus. He’s talking about the Pharisees and the judgmental condemnation coming out of their faces. Far uglier than an F-bomb… far uglier in the sight of God, and should be far uglier in our eyes as well.
12 Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”
Oh, I love it so much. Hilarious. I think he knows, on this one.
13 He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.
14 Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
Every wonder where “blind leading the blind” came from? So good. They fell in a pit, like a well, you know why they fell in the well?
They couldn’t see that well!
They. Couldn’t See. That Well! Thank you.
15 But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.”
I think they got lazy with the explaining last time, this one was barely a parable. Jesus calls him on it:
16 And he said, “Are you also still without understanding?
17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?
18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
20 These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”
Again, this is “moral purity”, not germ theory. The Pharisees weren’t concerned about COVID, they thought the hands were unclean, which made the food unclean, which made you unclean.
He has said before, “what comes out of the mouth” proceeds from the heart. So a wicked heart is revealed by the words coming out of the mouth.
And hear, what comes out of the mouth defiles the person. It’s circular, but in an absolutely tragic way. From a defiled heart comes defiled words. Defiled words then defile the heart.
What is the result? Wicked heart and wicked words, leading to greater wickedness, greater defilement.
Anyone here ever said an unkind word? A word of judgment or condemnation? A word of anger or even hate? … you’re all terrible and awful. Defiled! Oh no, now there’s one for me.
What is the solution, the path out of that wickedness?
There is none, save the blood of Jesus. He transforms our heart, and thus our words, breaking the cycle of unrighteousness and making us holy and righteous.
He fulfills the words of the prophet, to bring an end to this cycle of unrighteousness, to do soul surgery, and make us clean:
24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
(Can I say sprinkle in a Baptist church??? Ezekiel did it!)
It is the Spirit within you… causing you to walk in his statutes, causing you to be careful to obey.
Then, speak out of that, live out of that righteousness, love out of the love with which He first loved us, leaning into the work of the Spirit.
Again and again, the disciples having learned this, tell us to “put off” these things, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander…
And instead let our words and actions pour from the Holy Spirit. Those actions, those fruit, look and sound like this: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.
Let us repent of every act of judgment and condemnation built man’s tradition.
Let us hold all traditions, all our religion, up with open hands… desiring that it be a pleasing act of Love and Worship… and never a tool for pride, superiority, condemnation.
Let us submit wholly and completely to the transformative righteousness of Jesus. That it would lead us into all righteousness. A heart that loves God and loves others, that obeys the Commandments of God because they are written on our hearts and expressed in power in us by the Holy Spirit living in us.
We can’t just clean it up through an act of will or try-hard. We submit to the death and resurrection of Christ, and in Him we live. We submit to the transformative work of the Holy Spirit. It is an active and ongoing surrender, choosing to live by the Spirit and not the flesh.
Lord, we bring ourselves, defiled as we may be in word and heart… and ask that you wash us clean, white as snow. Take the heart of stone from us, and give us your heart… full of grace and truth, compassion and righteousness. May we surrender every tradition, every act, every interpretation, even every belief and conviction… all submitted under your Lordship. Spirit lead us in the Righteousness of Christ, to Love God wholly, to Love Others truly and sacrificially, to Worship You Always.
And don’t forget to wash your hands!
