4. Impious Piety Series

Check out the book "The Upside Down Kingdom" by Donald Kraybill

https://www.amazon.com/Upside-Down-Distinguished-Professor-Emeritus-Kraybill/dp/1513802496/ref=sr_1_2?crid=226Z0R7BQKLQ3&keywords=donald+kraybill&qid=1669518981&s=instant-video&sprefix=donald+kraybill%2Cinstant-video%2C182&sr=1-2-catcorr

Impious Piety

-We’re in week number 6 of our series called the Upside Down Kingdom and I’ve got to tell you something.

-This has been one of the most challenging series that I’ve ever preached through.

-We’ve been looking at some of the toughest teachings of Jesus and we’ve seen over and over how upside down they are.

-The people in the days of Jesus didn’t like what he said.

-They didn’t like what he claimed.

*They had nationalist ideas about Israel and he wasn’t interested.

*They had notions about how the Messiah would be and he didn’t fit them.

*They had certain things they wanted to hear and he never said them.

*He was exactly opposite and upside down from anything they’d ever heard or seen.

*And, he would not be how they wanted him to be because he’s not some preacher for hire, he’s the Lord of All.

-A 2000 years later we have the same struggles with Jesus.

-We’ve got these ideas about Jesus and in these upside down kingdom teachings Jesus rocks our world.

-Years ago a pastor took on a new ministry in a midwest church.

-He was surprised on his first Sunday at the rather elaborate communion ceremony.

-There was a table in the front that had communion trays on it.

-And there was a lacey cloth that was draped over the communion.

-At just the right moment in the service two men would come forward and lift off this cloth and fold it.

-And then the ushers would come and pass those communion trays around. He was thinking, what’s with the lacey cloth?

-But he didn’t want to make waves so he just asked around.

-No one knew why they did that. It’s what they’d always done.

-He kept asking and no one could explain.

-They finally found the oldest person in the church, a 90 year old lady in a nursing home.

-She said, back in the old days we didn’t have air conditioning.

-So in the summer we’d leave the windows and doors open.

-But then the flies would come in.

-And so we put that table cloth on the communion to keep the flies off. And it somehow morphed into a ceremonial tradition.

-Today we’re going to be in Matthew 15:1-20.

-And we’re looking at an instance where Jesus got sideways with the religious leaders about their traditions.

-I’m going to read the text to you and then we’ll work through it

Matthew 15:1 Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked him,

2 “Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.”

3 Jesus replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God?

4 For instance, God says, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’

5 But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’

6 In this way, you say they don’t need to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,

8 ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’”

10 Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “Listen,” he said, “and try to understand. 11 It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth.”

12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?”

13 Jesus replied, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, 14 so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”

15 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Explain to us the parable that says people aren’t defiled by what they eat.”

16 “Don’t you understand yet?” Jesus asked. 17 “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.

18 But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you.

19 For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander.

20 These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you.”

-Now, there are some dynamics that are playing out here that you might not immediately catch.