Matthew 15

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Matthew 15:1-2, Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked,  “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

In today’s Scripture, we are talking about handwashing and cleanliness but it has nothing to do with germs.  In fact, germ theory didn’t really become a notable thing until the 1800s.  So what was the hand-washing ritual discussed in the first half of Matthew 15?

To go deeper, we need to talk a little about 1st century Jewish life.  Certain groups of Jews, such as the Pharisees and the scribes, affirmed two types of law.  There was the written law (the first five books of the Bible) and the oral law (the traditions of the elders/rabbis).  Basically, the written law didn’t have specific details so the rabbis, over the years, filled in those details with oral traditions.

In today’s chapter, there were Pharisees from Jerusalem who sought out Jesus.  We don’t know why these Pharisees had traveled some 80 miles from Jerusalem (a long trip in those days) but there is some speculation that they had come to check out this Jesus character, this man who was healing, teaching, and saying things that were questionable in their eyes. They were suspicious. Remember the Pharisees were a strict sect of Judaism that believed in following the law in the fullest sense.  There were different standards for following the law for different groups of people (i.e. a day laborer would not be expected to follow the law in the same way that a scribe could do so.)  But certainly, it would have been expected that a rabbi and his followers would follow both the oral and written law.

The Pharisees noticed that Jesus’ disciples were not going through the ceremonial hand-washing rituals that were required before they ate.  They asked Jesus about this.  This was a dig, it was more like, why aren’t you properly teaching your disciples?  Jesus has this interesting reply, he quotes Scripture from the prophet Isaiah: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me...”

On the surface, there wasn’t anything wrong with what the Pharisees were trying to do.  They had purity laws which they thought were very important in following God.  But Jesus could see past their words, past their ritual, and into their hearts.  He saw their insincerity, hollowness, and hypocrisy; it was all a facade.  Thus, he sees this as a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.  Just as in the times of Isaiah, the Pharisees were giving lip service to following God but their hearts were far from him.  They were concerned about the Sabbath being followed to the tee but they would cheat people in the marketplace.  They were concerned about following specifics of the handwashing but they weren’t at all concerned about the widow and the orphan.  Something was truly skewed here.  They were all about piety but they had neglected compassion, justice, and love.

But this issue goes even deeper. Being unclean and being defiled was a big deal in 1st century Judaism. If you couldn’t be clean (and let’s be real, a lot of regular people worked jobs or had lives that meant they couldn’t meet all the various regulations to stay clean).  If you were unclean for whatever reason, then you were ostracized from the temple.  You were basically shunned from religious life.  So Jesus is making a huge point here.  Jesus is saying, “You are shunning people, you are telling them they are unclean, you are ostracizing them from the community, based on the rituals they have done or haven’t done to be clean.  But what you are missing is this: the things that really matter, the things that pose the greatest danger, are not external.  They aren’t hand-washing.  They aren’t meticulously keeping Sabbath.  The things that matter most to God are internal.”  What Jesus is saying to them is that God cares most about the heart. 

I think we will all should admit that, at times, the church has looked a lot like these Pharisees.  We’ve been all about religious activity and less about trying to be like Jesus.  We’ve been about the external and not the internal.  We’ve cared about appearances.  We are putting up this great religious front but then being horribly judgmental, angry, or bitter.  Friends, God could care less about your religious busyness.  He wants your heart.  He doesn’t care about our ceremonial handwashing --- he cares about if we are treating others with the love of Christ.  And if we aren’t, then all the ceremony, all the church stuff, it’s kind of a farce. Why?  Because God looks on our hearts. 

Let’s pray…Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  More of you and less of me, Jesus.  Amen.