Read Matthew 15
This chapter begins with the COVID-19
police coming to see Jesus. The
Pharisees and some Teachers of the Law had come from Jerusalem to the region of
Galilee to see what Jesus was up to that was causing all of the stir in the
land.
What did they see? The disciples of Jesus did not wash their
hands before they ate. It’s not that
they did not wash them for 20 seconds with hot soapy water. It wasn’t that they didn’t sing a verse of
their favorite song while they washed their hands. They ate without washing their hands.
I made a pit stop at Hutches in
Clinton a couple weeks ago. I walked
past the sink area and picked out a urinal.
There is a male behavioral code for such selection if someone is there
before you, but I was the only participant in that area and didn’t have to go
through those calculations. As I began to do what I came for, the guy at the
sink started counting down from 20. There was a privacy petition between where
I was standing and the sinks so I couldn’t see him, but I was thinking that I
would be really upset if there was a “Boom” at the end of this countdown.
There was no explosion. The guy was just doing his due diligence for
washing his hands and making sure everyone else knew that. I was the only other person in the men’s
room, so his countdown was surely for my benefit. If I would have had a stamp
and a pad, I could have marked him COVID compliant.
I liked this hand-washing stuff better
when the recommendation was to sing a song as you washed them. We were in Oklahoma City near the beginning
of the panicked pandemic and I was washing my hands in the retailer’s restroom
and thought Stairway to Heaven would be a good song. That sucker really ramps up towards the end.
I’m not allowed in Kohl’s anymore.
What has preceded has been for the
purpose of analogy. This is a bona fide
rabbit trail. Today the mantra is wash
you hands and don’t touch your face.
When I was young, I was told to wash my face and hands. I think
some of us old-timers were ahead of the game.
The disciples didn’t wash their hands
before they ate. That was surely 15 yards
and loss of down.
By this point, the Pharisees had
become a little bolder. Now instead of
just talking among themselves or questioning the disciples, they confronted
Jesus directly.
“Why do your disciples break the
tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
Normally, Jesus didn’t play this game, but
this was an exception. He said, “Back at
ya! Why do you supersede the law from
God with your traditions? The law says
to honor your father and your mother but you tell people that if they give to
you what they would have used to take care of their parents, it’s all good.”
Here is the executive summary—hypocrites! You a bunch of hypocrites and the prophet Isaiah
told us about you long ago.
These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.
Jesus then switched his target
audience from the religious hypocrites to the crowd that had been gathered and
wanted to hear what Jesus had to say.
Jesus said: “What goes into someone’s
mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what
defiles them.”
Now that’s some good news right there,
especially with all of the Thanksgiving and Christmas special meals and snacks
and cookies. What you eat doesn’t defile
you. It can add 20 pounds to your end of
the year figure, but it doesn’t defile you.
The disciples came to Jesus and said
something that was just so 2020. The
Pharisees were offended by what you said.
They were offended.
Now, let’s be fair. For most of their lives, the disciples were
taught to listen to, honor, obey, and respect the Pharisees. They were the smart guys who knew what God’s
law said. Now Jesus has called them
snakes and hypocrites, and within this chapter, he will call them blind.
Jesus told his disciples to cut ties
with these religious hypocrites. If you
follow them, you are the tail end of the blind leading the blind. Leave them!
They don’t know the way and apparently, were not interested in knowing
the One
who is the way, the truth, and the life.
Back to this handwashing stuff and
what we eat. Peter asked Jesus to
explain how what we eat or washing or not washing our hands before we eat
impacts our relationship with God.
Visualize Jesus giving Peter “the look”
before responding. Jesus answered Peter
saying, “Are you so dull?” This was an
insurance commercial parable. It’s so
easy to understand, even a fisherman can do it.
Apparently not!
Jesus delved into a brief physiology
lesson and discussed the GI tract. Food
in. Food digested. Waste out.
We all know the process.
Paul would later remind us that our
bodies are a temple for God. The Holy
Spirit dwells within them. We should
keep them pure and holy and set apart for service to the Lord. Jesus did not contradict this.
Jesus said there is a basic human
process by which material is metabolized and energy produced and waste
expelled. That really does not have much
to do with having right relationship with God.
If you are careless in your intake,
you could get a messed up GI tract, dysentery, or Montezuma’s revenge, but the
condition of your heart determines whether what comes out of your mouth is good
or evil. What’s in your heart is a
preexisting condition.
Good or evil is not a gastrointestinal
byproduct. Jesus is talking about the
condition of our hearts, and Jesus noted that all of humankind
has been tainted by sin. Evil is
what is likely to come out of our hearts.
King
David cried out to the Lord in psalm to create in him a clean heart. David realized that even a man after
God’s own heart had sin at work in his own heart. Only God could create in him a clean heart.
Jesus is not telling us to stop all of
this handwashing that is supposed to be one of our modern-day cure-alls. He is telling us to clean
ourselves from the inside and work outwards.
What we eat is important. What we do is important. In fact, diet and exercise are as biblical as
you can get. Our sustenance is every
word that proceeds from the mouth of God and our exercise plan is to put
the words
of Jesus into practice. Diet and
exercise will get us where washing your hands won’t.
God’s word works from the inside
out. This discipleship stuff works from
the inside out. Our love works from the
inside out. Obedience to God works from
the inside out. Producing good fruit
works from the inside out. Everything that we do to bring
glory to God works from the inside out.
Perfunctory practices produce pedestrian
platitudes but nothing that brings glory to God. The Pharisees get a bigger
dose of chastising in a few more chapters.
For now, understand that God is at work on us from the inside.
In my GI tract examples, I left out
something important. Not only do we have intake and digestion and elimination,
we have production. What we consume
produces energy that often produces matter.
When I was younger that matter showed up more in my biceps. These days it’s likely to find my waistline.
You know the old saying, “You are what
you eat?” In many ways that’s true. Everything gets broken down at a molecular level
but it still becomes us in mass or energy.
So, our intake is important. When we internalize his word, it becomes
us. We become more like the One who gave
us his word. What comes out of us is
more like the One who set us apart for his purpose than the world that does not
know him.
Keep washing your hands, not because
of some tradition but because that’s what your mother taught you to do and you
want to honor your father and mother. It’s
also the trend these days,
If you have to count, don’t do it out
loud, at least if I’m in earshot.
It’s not about washing our hands. Let’s
frame our lesson in the context of Isaiah.
These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.
Let us honor God with our lips and our
hearts. Let there be no dissonance or
duplicity.
Let us worship him in spirit
and in truth and abide in his teachings.
Let word and deed be harmonious.
Let us digest every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God and let it become us.
Let us put the words of our Master into practice. Nobody wants to hear diet and exercise at the
end of the year, but diet and exercise are important.
People have been beating up 2020 on a
regular basis, but what if 2020 was the year we decided to live from the inside
out. What if instead of trying to follow
rules, especially when people are watching, we let God rule in our hearts?
What if 2020 was the year that God
ruled completely in our hearts and in our lives and in our love for one another? If that’s not where you are today, you don’t
have much year left.
No comments:
Post a Comment