Clean Hands and a Pure Heart

“Breaking with Tradition”

(Matthew 15:1-20, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 4, 2007)

Matthew 15:1-20 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ² "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat." ³ He answered them, "And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? ⁴ For God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' ⁵ But you say, 'If anyone tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God, ⁶ he need not honor his father.' So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. ⁷ You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ⁸ "'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; ⁹ in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'" ¹⁰ And he called the people to him and said to them, "Hear and understand: ¹¹ it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person." ¹² Then the disciples came and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?" ¹³ He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. ¹⁴ Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit." ¹⁵ But Peter said to him, "Explain the parable to us." ¹⁶ And he said, "Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone."

Introduction – The Positive Power of Tradition

I was recently given a tour of the village of Katwijk in the Netherlands by a pastor of a Dutch church. Since I had previously heard many things about the increasingly secular environment in Holland, I was surprised to find out that in the villages life is not that way. At least in Katwijk there are established traditions and customs that define a certain way of life that Christian families have been following faithfully for hundreds of years. There it is very normal for young people to receive weekly training in their faith throughout their teenage years. I mention this to point out that not all religious traditions are bad. We all order much of our lives based on what we consider to be customary practices. There can be positive aspects of good religious traditions that we would be wrong to minimize.

But there are limits… (1-3)

Nonetheless, it should be clear from the passage before us this morning that there are limits to the idea that we can safely follow the traditions of men. What if the tradition violates the Word of God? Which will you prefer? That one should be obvious. We need to follow God. But often the decisions that we have are more difficult and subtle. Sometimes our customs don’t so much contradict the Word of God as simply crowd it out. We give ourselves over to our own ways, and we just don’t seem to have the time or money to do the things that the Word of God calls us to. The effect ends up being the same. Eventually we are only doing our tradition and not God’s law.

A group of people can have such detailed customs about cleanliness, for instance, that it takes over the whole of their understanding of what it means to be faithful to God. Apparently this describes the life of many Pharisees in Jesus day. They had a whole section of their religious writings that had built up over time just on the topic of ceremonial washing. The Pharisees were not thinking about cleanliness the way that you and I do today. These were religious ceremonies involving sprinkling holy water to make you right with God in your daily life.

Honor your father and your mother (4-6)

The reason this topic comes up is that the Pharisees and scribes were drawing attention to the fact that Jesus’ disciples were apparently not doing these washings. Jesus answers this attack boldly. He does not give in to their understanding of spiritual life even for a moment. Their focus on washing their hands for ceremonial cleanliness made them feel more righteous than others, but their hearts were not clean.

This heart defilement showed up in their practice of setting aside their wealth for a religious offering in such a way that they ignored their responsibilities to their elderly parents who were in need of aid. Here is how this tradition worked. If you had some wealth, you could set it aside as “dedicated” to the Lord. Then if someone asked you for help you could tell them that there was nothing that you could do for them, since your wealth was already dedicated to God. You could even retain control of your wealth, and just claim that it was ceremonially dedicated to the Lord. In this way, Jesus said, you use the traditions of men to violate God’s law. God said in the Ten Commandments that you must honor your father and mother, but now you have a custom that allows you to dedicate your property to the Lord, and to ignore your obligation to care for your parents.

Why did Jesus even bring this up? The Pharisees’ question about washings was just another way of violating the most important commandment of God. When God sends His messenger, especially His Son, we should listen to Him. But what if we don’t want to do this? Could we find a righteous-sounding reason for rejecting this miracle-working Messenger of God? The tradition of hand-washing seemed to be the answer. It provided the appearance of a righteous critique against Jesus and His followers, so that the scribes and Pharisees could have a supposed godly reason for rejecting Jesus, and working against Him. Why should they listen to them, and why should they have any respect for Jesus? His disciples were not even following the ceremonial washing traditions of the elders.

Though the scribes and Pharisees were convinced that they were in the right on this point about washing, their behavior was scandalous. Their religious self-righteousness had blinded them to their own immorality. Take the example of how they were dedicating their property to God to avoid taking care of their parents. Any unbeliever could have seen the true dirty story behind their clean religion if he knew their situation at all. Even the Gentiles would have known in their conscience that children should have enough respect and love for their parents to help them in their time of need. Anyone could feel in their hearts that this was a disreputable practice that was very selfish and very wrong.

Hypocrisy (7-9)

What makes all of thus so repulsive is the hypocrisy of it. The word hypocrisy comes from the world of Greek theatre. It has to do with playing a part. The religious hypocrite plays the part of someone who is devoted to God. The words they speak of pure devotion to God can be heard on their lips, but the heart, which God knows, is far from the Lord. Prophets like Isaiah spoke strongly against this kind of hypocrisy. Jesus quotes from Isaiah 29, a chapter where God speaks against Jerusalem. In Matthew 15, Jesus is not bringing a new idea, but the same message of God against the hypocrisy of His people. This was a message that He had given for centuries.

We in the church today are not strangers to this kind of false behavior. We love to have the moral high ground against an opponent who has annoyed us. We love to win a trick by playing some religious trump card. Unfortunately, though we may seem to have victory in our self-righteousness and we may even get what we want, we then face the consequences of what we thought was one of our greater moments, and something within us does not feel all that right. The Pharisees thought that they were clever in finding a way to avoid honoring their parents, but one day the parents you were supposed to honor are gone. You have your money, but you don’t have them, and you wish you had helped them when they needed you. Best to be generous now, because the people that you need to bless may not always be there. Then you will have to deal not only with the loss of them and your own shame.

Defiled (10-11, 15-20)

When our children were young we took a portion of this story and made it into a song for them. From the King James Version, “There is nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him. But the things that come out of him, those are they that defile the man.” I wanted them to know that our faith was more than outward rules. But for children to learn that, they need something more than a song. What lessons are you teaching by your life? Are you more concerned about outward appearances or about inner spiritual defilement and immorality that proceeds from uncleanness? Your biggest problem is not unclean hands. The bigger issue is that which originates in a defiled heart and then comes out of a defiled mouth and is expressed in a defiled life. How can we clean this up?

You be the judge. Which defiles a person more, neglect of some outward ceremonial duty or a covetous heart full of murder, adultery, stealing, and lying? God actually demands a heart without any defilement at all. How can we ever face Him when we have violated His law so deeply? God does have a way for a person to be spiritually clean of this defilement for anyone who will repent and believe His Son. The answer comes in the one man who not only had clean hands but also had a completely pure heart, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God’s answer for you. This is what we are insisting on in the church throughout the centuries, that we have a God-given Savior who has taken away all our guilt and shame.

Offended (12-14)

The biggest irony of this passage is that the solution to Pharisaic uncleanness of heart was the One who was speaking to them and exposing their hypocrisy – the One who would soon die for sinners. Instead of receiving Him, they were offended by Him.

For my own part, I want to testify that I will not be offended by Jesus, even when His words convict me of sin. I will hear His words, and see my own sin as the real offense. I will choose the Light of the World, rather than the cleanest-looking traditions that proceed from the hearts of hypocrites. I will see take the perfectly pure hand of the Man who is the Light of the World, rather than follow the ways of the blind who insist on claiming that they can really lead the blind. Be clean in the depths of your heart through Him, and walk in the way that He leads.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What might be the significance of the fact that these scribes and Pharisees came from Jerusalem?

2. What do you think was the real concern of this delegation?

3. Is Jesus bringing up a completely unrelated matter by talking about honoring parents?

4. How can we make the best use of godly tradition? What are the limits of even the best traditions?