Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-november-13-2023
Matthew 15:1-20
Clean and Unclean
1Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ 5 But you say that if anyone says to their father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely rules taught by men.’”
10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not make them ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”
13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”
16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a person ‘unclean.’ 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a person ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make them ‘unclean.’”
The conversation in our passage for today starts out on the topic of hand-washing, but it’s not really about good hygiene. In the Hebrew culture of Jesus’ day, this hand-washing was a religious ritual for observant Jews. In the Hebrew tradition, there was a close connection between ‘purity’ and ‘righteousness.’ So these religious rituals were meant to keep believers ritually pure – to protect them from the ritual impurity that came from touching blood or a dead body or a person with certain diseases like leprosy.
But when Jesus and his disciples were criticized for failing to perform the hand-washing ritual, Jesus responded by pointing out that the Hebrew religious leaders were pretty selective about keeping the traditional laws. They were strict about hand-washing, but casual about bending the laws when it was in their own interest. The example Jesus gives is that the religious leaders were allowing some well-to-do Jews to neglect their elderly parents so they could give more of their money to the temple or the synagogue. So some old people were living in poverty while the temple priests were prosperous and well-fed.
Here’s what Jesus was talking about: According to the historians, the temple leadership was allowing people to set up what we would call a “charitable remainder trust.” People could keep their money to use while they were alive, but have it all given to the temple or the synagogue when they died. So these rich people could enjoy their wealth without being obligated to do anything to help their parents. If their starving parents came begging, some Jews were apparently saying, “Sorry, I can’t help you. All my money is promised to the temple.”
Jesus’ point is obvious: It’s hard to imagine that God would accept this kind of behavior as righteous or ‘pure.’ But it seems that the religious leadership was allowing it, and maybe even encouraging it. So not surprisingly, Jesus didn’t have much patience with lectures about purity from people who were allowing such an obvious violation of the commandment to honor your father and your mother.
Then Jesus goes on to make a larger point – that real impurity doesn’t come upon us from the outside. The impurity that matters to God comes from within us. We make ourselves impure by doing and saying things that are displeasing to God. Clearly sexual immorality is one of those things, but Jesus also includes evil thoughts, murder, theft, false testimony and slander. (And of course, false testimony and slander are the main ingredients of gossip. And gossip is practically the official sport in lots of churches.)
It seems to me that in this passage, Jesus re-defines what it means to be religious. Or maybe even rejects the idea of being religious altogether. The Hebrew leadership taught people to observe a whole bunch of practices and rituals that were supposed to help them to be pure and righteous. But those rituals and practices were meant to remind people to love their neighbors – to extend compassion and care to others. The rituals themselves couldn’t make people pure or righteous.
Acting pure and religious wasn’t the mark of a truly godly person, and it’s not the mark of a true follower of Jesus. I feel pretty safe in saying that our master would be fine with his disciples eating with dirty hands, if they got those hands dirty helping the needy. On the other hand, he seems less impressed by people who perform religious rituals, but who are really focused on serving their own interests.
Let’s pray. Lord, protect us from thinking that religious rituals and practices – or any form of religiosity – will make us pure and righteous in your eyes. Move us by your Spirit to serve others in Jesus’ name, as he did when he walked among us. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 79 and 80; Nehemiah 9:1-25; and Revelation 15:1-20. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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