WHEN RELIGION GOES SOUR

WHEN RELIGION GOES SOUR Matthew 15:1-20 January 22, 2006 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction Everyone who has had the unpleasant experience of pouring a glass of milk and discovering it had soured knows what a disconcerting image it is. Instead of the pure white liquid you expect, this putrid looking concoction plops down into your glass. First there is this watery liquid, whitish, but almost transparent. Also spilling out and splashing sour buttermilk goo are these hideous lumps of coagulated fat, yellowish or off-white in color, misshapen and gross. The sight of it takes away any appetite you might have had, especially for milk. Sour milk is grotesque, because in the process of souring the fat molecules separated from the liquid and collected into clumps, leaving the anemic, watery stuff, and it wasn’t at all what you expected to find. By the way, the same process is used to make cheese products, though it is sped up by chemicals. So, think of that next time you bite into your cheddar! Religion can go sour, too. When it does, elements of religious life that ought to look good together mutate and become repugnant, the precise opposite of what God intended for the life of faith. As we encounter the words of Jesus in our text this morning (we’ll be using the Revised Video New International Version), watch for the obvious distortions of sour religion. Just before we view it, though, a quick word about the Jewish laws that will be referred to. The Jews of Jesus’ day revered two teachings: the law of Moses and the “traditions of the elders.” These traditions were rules of behavior, later gathered into the “Mishnah”, that the elders of Israel believed “built a wall around the Law” to protect it. In other words, the precise ways for the Jews to obey the Law in a variety of circumstances were covered. As Jesus points out, the line between the actual law and the traditional interpretation became blurred, and the traditions, created by men, became more familiar and more important than the Law they were supposed to honor. One of the areas of tradition was that of ceremonial cleansing. An entire tractate, the Yadaim, more than a thousand pages described how the hands must be ceremonially cleansed before and after meals. If you didn’t do it just right you would be guilty of “gross carnal defilement,” and it would lead to poverty or some calamity. If you ate bread without the ceremonial cleansing, the elders said, the bread would be as excrement to you. ***Simple demonstration of the ritual cleansing*** First, fingers together pointing up, water running down Then, fingers pointing down, water drips off fingertips The precise nature of this cleansing procedure was important. You had to use certain water that was kept in protected vases for this purpose. First you held both hands out with fingers together pointing upwards and poured the water over the fingers, letting the water run down, dripping off the wrists. Then, because that water had been defiled by the uncleanness of the hands, you turned your hands with your fingers downward and poured water over the wrists, letting the water drip off the fingertips. Of course, you also needed to use the prescribed amount of water each time, which amounted to about one and one half egg shells full. The strictest of Jews would perform this cleansing ritual before and after every meal, and even between courses. We need to also understand that the ritual cleansing had nothing to do with physical hygiene. It was assumed you had already washed your hands clean of dirt and grime. This was an additional, ceremonial cleansing. It was not a scriptural commandment, not a part of the Law proper, but one of the traditions of the elders. Jesus called it a tradition of men. With that background, let’s VIEW THE VIDEO, Matthew 15:1-20. AGENTS THAT SOUR RELIGION Certain elements of the traditions of the elders served to “sour the milk” of real faith, real religion that is pleasing to God. One of the souring agents of religion is . . . 1. When the Traditions of Men Eclipse the Word of God The 5th commandment is to Honor your father and mother. A key part of that part of Law was care for elderly parents. But the traditions of the elders allowed a person to declare a portion of one’s riches as “Corban”, devoted to God, to protect it from creditors (a tax shelter for future charitable giving). So, under this provision, some were abdicating their responsibilities, saying, I can’t afford to help my parents, because all I have is Corban! Any time a law makes its appearance, sinful people start immediately to think of ways to outsmart it, avoid it or overcome its requirement of them. Set a speed limit and they buy radar detectors. Levy a tax and they hire a legal expert to find a loophole. My ’77 Ford pickup is never going to pass the emissions control test I am required to go through, and I don’t want to have to pay for repairs, so I’m looking for ways to get around the test—legally, of course. But the law was established to help contain contaminates in the atmosphere. The effect of the tradition of Corban, Jesus says, is that it nullifies the Law (verse 6), because that person’s parents are anything but honored by the child who really can afford to help them, and they are forced onto community welfare rolls. In effect, the person finds a loophole in the law by preferring the tradition to the Law. The Pharisees, the authors and defenders of the traditions, were chief offenders. And Jesus basically says to them, You’re worried about my disciples not washing their hands properly, which is based on a tradition of men, and you’re breaking the law of God?! You might have clean hands, but you forgot to keep clean hearts—far more important! The church of Jesus Christ can easily get side-tracked from their pure devotion to the Lord when the incidental traditions of church life become more important than the weightier matters of our faith. One church had a disagreement over the timing of the second coming of Christ. They failed to give one another freedom in the interpretation of scripture, their argument intensified, the church split and a Hatfields-and-McCoys-style feud continued for years. The very clear commandment of Christ, priority number one, is to Love one another as I have loved you, but often Christian people worry more about things that are based on selfish preferences that we magnify into something of great importance and it hampers our honoring and preferring one another. While the church wrangled over petty things not clearly commanded in the Word, the witness of the Lord’s Church in that community was decimated. This thoughtless ritual devotion to non-essential doctrine eclipsed the very clear will of the Lord to be loving witnesses for Him. Our expectations, petty preferences and hurt feelings, can lead us to forget about our obligation to love each other, and the law of Christ is abrogated by our traditions. Often, we find ourselves so comfortable in the way we’ve always been or the way we’ve always done things that it gets in the way of the important matters of obedience to Christ. When I get bent out of shape about how someone else does things, or who I have to share the communion table with, or why things are changing in “my church”, and I let it negatively affect my love toward others, then I am wrong. Our personal loveless prejudice for ceremonial orthodoxy, traditional consistency or personal comfort can blind us to the weightier matters of faith. Never let the small, insignificant things get in the way of the important things like obeying God and loving others. Any form of “tradition” is wrong as soon as it distracts us from unswerving, loving obedience to the perfect law of God. I need to add here another word of instruction that I feel must be shared in this context. We who are in Christ must never demand of another believer anything that is not explicitly demanded of him by the Lord. To do so is to establish a tradition of man. This is destructive in every way. It misrepresents the clearly presented Word of God, it places an unnecessary and harmful legalistic burden on our brother—one that God never intended. And it tempts all of us to get sidetracked from the pure, unadulterated Word of God. True religion goes sour when the traditions of men eclipse God’s Word. 2. When hypocrisy masks an evil heart Jesus quotes Isaiah 29 in judgment of the Pharisees: These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. (verse 8) I hope and pray I will never hear those words spoken in judgment of me as a Christian. I hope and pray they will never be spoken in judgment of you, either. These religious leaders were so caught up in worry about ceremonial uncleanness that they missed the whole point of their own sin. The original concern about ceremonial cleansing apparently did have to do with being defiled by eating with unclean hands. Jesus says, Don’t worry about what goes into the mouth and into the digestive tract and then is expelled from the body; the real concern isn’t the stomach—it’s the heart. The most important concern is what comes out of the mouth, because it demonstrates what is in the heart. Elsewhere He said, Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. [webmasters note: Matthew 12:34] What you say—and not what you eat—ultimately will reflect what you really are in your heart. The Pharisees made a show of being concerned about pure religion, but can there be anything more irreligious than talking religiously when your heart is far from God? When lips and heart don’t match, there is hypocrisy. Jesus had little patience with “Sunday-go-to-meetin’” religion when the person’s other behaviors show no evidence of a right relationship with God. True religion is just as evident (even more so) Monday morning on the job as Sunday morning in church. Hear the words of God through His prophet Isaiah: When you come to meet with me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me…I cannot bear your evil assemblies…they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. When you come to meet with me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me…I cannot bear your evil assemblies…they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash yourselves and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! (Isaiah 1:12-17) God is deeply offended when lips and life don’t match, when what you do belies what you profess. He will not countenance such dissonance in our lives! He calls hypocrites to genuine repentance and change. Get your heart right with me. Repent and start new as a forgiven person. Let me empower you for righteous living. You see, we can fool others—at least for awhile—but we can never fool God. He sees our hearts. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. (Isaiah 1:18) These things sour true religion: When the traditions of men eclipse the Word of God, when hypocrisy masks an evil heart, and 3. When externalism replaces pure devotion to God One of the great tragedies of sour religion. When a person values traditions over scripture, and settles for hypocrisy instead of a pure heart, his religion degenerates into externalism. What is externalism? It is what naturally happens when a person knows, deep down, that his life is a mess and that his unconfessed sin keeps him distant from God. In his pride he refuses to repent and come to God in creaturely humility for the forgiveness and cleansing only Christ can give him. But he still feels this need to be righteous in his behavior, at least before others, if not before God who knows better. He thinks to himself, I can do this religion thing—I’ll just do the right religious activities, make the right noises—I can at least LOOK religious. I’m bound to feel better about myself. And at least those around me will like me as a religionist. Even if I’m not right before God I can fit in with other religious people. And he reasons to himself that putting on a behavioral fa?de might actually cover up what is bad inside. This is precisely what troubled Jesus so much about the Pharisees and the way they were perpetuating shallow, external religion. He later said to them, You hypocrites! You’re like whitewashed tombs—which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. [webmasters note: Matthew 23:27] This kind of religion sickens the Lord. You know, it really does seem easier to try to please God by avoiding a few sins or obeying a few well-defined rules. It feels simpler than all that messy stuff of repentance, self-disclosure and a real relationship with God. We’re always tempted to opt for externalistic religion—you know, Just tell me what I can and can’t do, and let me get on with my life. But it doesn’t work. It never does work. You can’t placate the omniscient God with cosmetic religion! You can’t fix a shattered heart with a band aid. You must come to Him completely real and thoroughly exposed. Do you know the real reason why cosmetic religion saddens the Lord? It’s not just that hypocritical, superficial religion can never fool God; and it’s not just that such shallow religion forces us to settle for something infinitely inferior to real relationship with Him. Here’s what saddens the lord about play-acting religion: when we play at religion, we are miserable and can’t escape our misery; we remain unhealed and in bondage! And that is precisely what Jesus came and died to fix! He wants to heal us of the effects of our sin. But if we continue to hide from Him behind veneer religion, and feverishly trying to do some good things that outweigh the bad, pretending to make ourselves okay, then He can’t get to our heart to heal it. That is the real tragedy of sour religion—not that we present an inconsistent witness to a watching world—and that is true. It’s not just that we distort the truth of His Word, twisting it into a manual of behaviors FOR God, instead of a description of a relationship WITH God—as bad as that is. No, the real tragedy is that when we fake it, God can’t heal us. Picture yourself as a teenager grounded from the family car. Mom and dad are out with friends for the evening and will be gone a couple hours. You grab the spare keys and take the car, pick up a few buddies and go for tacos. The next morning dad confronts you. He’s ready to forgive you, though you’ll be grounded longer, but you busy yourself with the great cover-up of lies, and you don’t hear his willingness to forgive you. Hey dad, I don’t even know where the spare keys are, I was here doing homework. Hey, dad, need me to mow the grass for you? He lovingly says, No, son, I’d rather get to the bottom of this relational thing here. Then, when you’re forgiven, you’ll feel much better about mowing the grass for me. If you side-step the painful but redemptive process of repentance, you’ll go out there and work yourself silly trying to please me. Then, when you’re all done, you’ll know that our relationship still isn’t right. I don’t want that for you. I want you whole, happy, forgiven, clean. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. [webmasters note: Isaiah 1:18-20]   [Back to Top]