A Study of Matthew: Rituals, Religion, & Relationship
Notes
Transcript
Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,
“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.”
He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’
But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,”
he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.
You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
“ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand:
it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”
He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.
Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.”
And he said, “Are you also still without understanding?
Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?
But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”
What does it look like to be a Christian?
What does it look like to be a Christian?
How do you recognize someone as a Christian?
You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
This is what Jesus said. So what does it mean?
If you are a Christian, you will do the right things. You will dress a certain way. There are certain things you won’t do. Certain things you won’t wear. Things you won’t say.
The problem is when we often get into the habit of turning things into tradition. Did you know that, up until the mid-1960s, the Catholic church did all their services in Latin? People went to Mass, doing all the right rituals, not understanding a single word the priest said. WHY? Because it was tradition. That’s how we do things. It’s how we have done them for the last 1500 years. Latin is the holy language of the Catholic church.
In today’s passage, the disciples are coming to Jesus because the pharisees have been hassling them. Why are they being hassled? Because they did not wash their hands before eating.
Now, I get it. There is nothing more gross than watching someone sit down to the dinner table with filthy hands. I believe that anyone who prepares a meal has the right to insist that anyone planning to sit at their table get cleaned up first.
HOWEVER, we usually don’t question the condition of a person’s soul based on the cleanliness of their hands! But that’s just what the pharisees were doing. Why? Because they weren’t concerned with hygiene; they saw this washing as a religious ritual that was necessary to be right with God. You come into our synagogues teaching about being prepared to enter God’s kingdom, but you don’t do the rituals that are how we become right with God.
We have talked about these religious leaders before. They were experts on how to look good. They knew all the rules of religious behavior. They knew all the loopholes to the rules, so that they could do what they wanted without technically breaking the rules, thus staying “right” with God.
These priests have even convinced young people that it is better to give big offerings to the “church” rather than financially support their older parents.
Jesus responds to the pharisees by quoting Isaiah 29:13
And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
Why would Jesus say this?
We human beings are so good at creating systems. We like formulas, a consistent pattern of cause and effect. We want to apply it to our spiritual walk as well.
We know how to come to Christ: it’s by saying a prayer asking Jesus to come into our heart. We know how a Christian should behave. We get baptized. We give in the offering. We know all the right things to say and do. There are lots of people out there who go through the motions of playing Christian. They faithfully attend church. They read their Bibles. They might even go on mission trips. But do these things make a person a Christian.
Conversely, there are people out there who, at first glance, look NOTHING like what we think a Christian should look like. People covered in tattoos and piercings. Drug addicts, alcoholics, foul-mouthed, troublemakers. People that have no place in our church. Right?
We humans are quick to judge by the externals. This person must be right with God. That person is a lost cause. As much as we claim that salvation is through the unmerited favor of Jesus Christ who died for us, we still tend to have a list of what else a person must do to be saved.
Jesus wants us to look deeper than the externals. He tells the disciples
Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?
But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”
We live in a community that thinks being a good Christian is to attend church regularly--provided there aren’t any sporting events to prevent them. They think that a mission trip is going to do some building project somewhere. And I am not judging who is or is not a Christian in this town. But I can say that I have met a bunch of very religious people who do not know the joy of an intimate relationship with Jesus. When I talk about that kind of relationship, they don’t even know what I am talking about.
What this means for us is twofold.
First, we have to make sure that what we have as Christians is not merely outward appearances of culturally accepted goodness. We need to make sure we are living according to God’s standards rather than the world’s. You can be a good person and still be lost. God doesn’t just want our behavior, he wants our hearts. We need to be transformed from the inside out, so that what people see in us is the heart of God himself.
Second, we need to look past the outward appearances of people to see their hearts. There are folks out there who are searching for answers. They are waiting for someone to stop judging them and share the good news of salvation through Jesus. There are baby Christians who still look like the world. They need someone to come alongside them and help them in their discipleship journey. They need someone who will tell them more than, “cut your hair, change the way you dress, quit using that language.” There are folks out there just like the ones in the photos, who happen to be people who recently came to Christ. They need someone who will teach them about upholding the testimony of what Jesus has done in their lives, about not being who they used to be. They need someone who will help them move forward, and who will show them grace when they fall back.
But in order to do this, we need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit to help us discern the genuine move of God from the counterfeit. We need the Holy Spirit to know recognize a true follower of Jesus vs what Jesus called a “white washed tomb.” We need the Holy Spirit to help us see past the surface to see what lies beneath. Someone who may be publically screaming against God, but who may, deep inside, be desperate to know that God actually loves them.
We also need the Holy Spirit to help us see ourselves honestly. We need him to expose the areas of our hearts that are still unsubmitted to him. We need the Holy Spirit to empower us to be bold in our witness.
As Pentecostals, we need to be known as more than just people who speak in tongues. We need to be known as people filled with the Spirit of God and bearing the fruit of that spirit in our daily lives. As people of the Spirit, we will be known, not by how religious we are, but by how well we love God and love people.
I don’t want to just look like a Christian, I want to be a Christian. I’m not content to just go through the motions of religion. I don’t need man’s acknowledgement; I just want to hear my Father say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
