Two missionaries were on their way through the jungle when they were captured by a group of cannibals. The two missionaries, Harrison and Thompson, were brought to the village with much fanfare where they were presented to the chief. The village chief stepped forward and said in perfect English, “Welcome to our village. Now that you have been captured, let me explain what will happen next: First we will skin you, and make canoes out of your skins – then we will roast you and eat you. However, we being a civilized people, offer you one last request.” Turning to Thompson the chief asked, “What will you final request be?”. The crowed went quiet. After a time, Thompson looked up and said, “For my final request, I ask for a knife”. “KNIFE!”, Shouted the chief. “KNIFE!”, Shouted back the villagers, and the search was on. Finally, a large warrior held up a knife and shouted, “KNIFE!” As he ran forward the whole village erupted shouting, “KNIFE, KNIFE, KNIFE, KNIFE,!” The warrior presented the knife to the chief who presented the knife to Thompson who took the knife and did himself in.
Harrison was shocked – this is not the kind of behavior they had learned in Seminary. The village again became quiet, and all eyes were now upon Harrison. “What will you final request be?” asked the village chief. “A fork”, said Harrison. “A fork?”, repeated back the chief. “Yes, a fork” assured Harrison. ”FORK!”, Shouted the chief. “FORK!”, Shouted back the villagers, and the search was on. It was quite difficult to find a fork in this remote village, but finally, a large warrior held up a fork and shouted, “FORK!” As he ran forward the whole village erupted shouting, “FORK, FORK, FORK, FORK,!” The warrior presented the fork to the chief who presented the fork to Thompson, “Here is your final request, a fork”, said the village chief.
Harrison took the fork from the chief and began to poke himself all over saying, “Your not going to make a canoe out of me!”
We all have a unique diet. What one person sees as delectable, another person is just horrified at even the thought of such a thing on their plate. My mother loved parsnips, we had them for dinner at every possible opportunity, in every possible way you could imagine. I strongly believed as a child, and even to this day, that parsnips are the most horrible, vile, vegetable known to humanity and if I never had to choke down another one of those things again, my life will be sweet.
Every once in awhile you run into folks to are very dedicated to their diet, they are almost fanatical about not only what they eat, but the philosophy behind what they eat. What they eat, why they eat almost becomes a way of life. Sometimes you walk away with the impression that these kind of folks believe they are better people because of the diet they adhere to.
Can what we eat make us better people? Even more, can the reason behind what I eat make me more open to life…perhaps more spiritual? And I think in the larger picture of things, it is more about the things that I do than just what I eat. Do the different tasks that I do during the week, the way I do these things, can these tasks make me more spiritual?
Jesus is addressing these issues for us in our Scripture today. Jesus wants us to consider this, this morning: What is it that REALLY makes me a spiritual person? Have you ever considered that? What is it that really makes me a spiritual person?
Our passage starts today, at the beginning of Mark, chapter 7, with the Pharisees being aghast when they see some of the disciples eat food that was not washed, with hands that were not washed.
Is this about the disciples not being tidy? Is this about ancient peoples being ignorant about sanitation? Is this about the religious authorities getting the willies when they witness disgusting table manners?….No, this is about why we do the things we do. This is about the philosophy that lurks behind each of our actions throughout the day, both conscious and unconscious. This is about why you do what you do.
Jesus and the Pharisees disagree on many things, but one thing they do agree on is this: Not only what we do in life matters, but why we do it also matters very much.
First let’s be clear about this: This discussion between Jesus and the Pharisees has nothing to do with hygiene. The people of the ancient Middle East had no concept of bacteria, germs or viruses. Though they bathed, they had not developed the concept of sanitation as we understand it today. The discussion here between the Pharisees and Jesus is about ritual cleanliness…..What was that? Ritual cleanliness. This is a very difficult concept for us as Americans to wrap our heads around because we don’t practice anything like this in our culture. But we need to understand ritual cleanliness to grasp what Jesus is trying to teach us today.
To practice ritual cleanliness one has to know about ritual defilement. If you were ritually defiled, you had to go through a purification ritual to become clean again. For Israelis different things could cause them to become ritually impure. For example, they became unclean if they touched a dead body or touched an animal carcass. There were a whole host of ways to become ritually defiled – and if this happened one of the ways to become clean was through ritual washing.
Ritual washing has its roots in Ex. 30:19-20, “Aaron and his sons are to wash their hands and feet with water from it. 20 Whenever they enter the Tent of Meeting, they shall wash with water so that they will not die” The priests were to ritually wash before entering the tent of meeting to symbolically show that they were clean before God. This wasn’t about washing the dirt off. It was a sign of humility before God and a symbol of purity in the presence of God.
This passage provided the foundation of widespread ritual washing. The concept of ritual washing started here and by Jesus’ day applied to everyday folks and everyday items. Notice that this passage from Exodus only applies to levitical priests. How did this ritual washing move from just the priests to everyone? The Pharisees were seeking to surpass the levitical priests in righteousness and were strong proponents of the priesthood of all believers – in the sense that they considered all priestly regulations obligatory to all people, not in the sense that all people are equal. The intention is to demonstrate that all of Israel is devoted to God. That is a wonderful thought. We read in about this kind of holiness in Lev. 20:26, “You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.”
The Pharisees felt that all bread eaten should be eaten as if it were priestly food, because everything in life should be dedicated to God – so the washing. Additionally, we see that according to Old Testament law, only certain foods were considered ritually clean, and being ritually clean, Hebrews were allowed to eat them. Today when we see kosher food in the supermarket, we see food that’s meets this criteria of ritual cleanliness. Like Hebrew International hot dogs. The word kosher is, in fact, the Hebrew word for clean.
All this ritual cleanliness one of the ways that the Hebrews identified their uniqueness and separateness from the pagan cultures around them. To be ritually clean was to be a Hebrew. It helped them not blend into the pagan culture around them. But the Pharisees went beyond the food laws and the washing commands prescribed in the Old Testament, and this is where we get to the heart of the matter. The Pharisees washed almost everything, this is the overall meaning of verse 4. They washed their hands and many items to make them ritually clean. This washing, understand, was the act of placing about a palm full of water over the hands or on an object – there was no scrubbing involved.
Splish splash, clean. Splish splash, clean.
See, the Pharisees felt that strict discipline of human conduct led to the acknowledgment of God as sovereign. They felt that one should do the right thing, even when one’s motives were wrong, because eventually the person will learn the right thing, by doing the right thing and their motives will become then become righteous, because they were doing the right thing. This philosophy extended to the purity of all things in life. If we practice purity repeatedly, eventually we will become pure by this practice of purity….now this may sound familiar to you. Perhaps you have been living this way in your zeal to please God: “If I do the right thing, if I do good things, if I do godly things, eventually, even though I am not a pure soul, I will become a pure soul, because I perform acts of kindness, goodness and righteousness. In other words – If I do good things with bad motives, eventually I will do good things with good motives. If I act good for long enough, it will no longer be an act, it will be real.”
Jesus thinks this whole philosophy is just nonsense. He calls the Pharisees hypocrites there in verse 6 and he continues saying “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 7 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’ 8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”
What Jesus means is this: The Pharisees had created what was called the oral law. It was an interpretation of the Scriptures that was supposed to instruct the people on exactly how to live what was taught in the Scriptures. But in reality it was a tampering of the law which then became a distortion of the Word. This is why Jesus says in verses 8 and 9 that they are holding on to the traditions of men. Jesus labels it YOUR tradition, meaning it was devoid of God’s word. (verse 9)
Jesus sees their actions as a lie as they have not surrendered themselves to God. The Pharisees claim that they are righteous because they act righteous. Jesus, who knows their hearts because he is God, says in effect, “I don’t care how righteous you act, if your heart is not clean, no amount of acting will change anything”.
The theological foundations for this act of ritual washing are traced back to the time of Moses. This is why Jesus cites Moses in verse 10. They trace their argument back to Moses, so Jesus traces his argument back to Moses. Jesus uses a very serious example as it deals with the death penalty. Jesus addresses the issue of Corban. Now what I am about to explain will not make any sense, which is exacty what Jesus’ point is.
The basic concept of Corban was to place a ban on something to reserve it for sacred use and withdrawing it from profane us by another. In other words, I take an item, let’s say a large sum of money, make a vow and set it aside as holy unto God, and restrict its use from a specified person, let’s say my father. It would be then called Corban. Since it was set aside for God, my father being the person specified, could not use the money. What is odd is that the money would not be necessarily given to God, it was just withdrawn from use. So the result is: I can use the money for myself, but my father cannot.
The Pharisees justify this crazy act by using Num. 30:2, “When a man makes a vow to the LORD or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.” I know this doesn’t make any sense – Jesus didn’t think it made any sense either. What is worse is that if a person then changed their mind and use the monsy to help their father, the Pharisees would stop them, for an oath is and oath and nothing can change what was already done. What has happened here is that the Pharisees are using one biblical command to negate another biblical command. But Jesus rejects the practice of using one biblical command to negate another biblical command.
Jesus shows that their interpretation in effect cancels the intent of the command. This is a typical result of myopic obedience to ritual – a reversal of the original intention. An example for us today is the prayer of Jabez found in 1Chr. 4:10, “Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, ‘Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.’ And God granted his request.” There are people who have taken this prayer out of its original context and made it a empty ritual that they recite everyday, almost as if it were some kind of formula for success – Listen closely to this: Their interpretation and implementation of the prayer cancel the intention of the prayer making the prayer useless and bring about an empty spirituality. In plain English: The are practicing nonsense.
Now Jesus speaks as plainly as he can and goes right to the heart of the matter in verse 15 saying, “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’’
Have you experienced the people with a self righteous diet plan? In my experience it is usually, but not always, a self proclaimed vegetarian. Years ago Katie and I had a little dinner get together at our house. We had some Christian friends over, and a friend brought a date with him, a woman we had never met before. Well, as we sat down for dinner that evening this woman proclaimed in a loud irritated voice, “I can’t eat this! I’m a vegetarian! What have you made for me to eat?” The message was loud and clear, I am superior to you philosophically because of what I eat.
Her superiority was as very hungry superiority, that remained a hungry superiority for the rest of the night.
Now let me say upfront that it is not against Scripture to be a vegetarian, we see that Daniel was, at least for a time, a vegetarian. But let me also say that Scripture does not encourage being a vegetarian either – in fact, Jesus himself was not a vegetarian. Being a vegetarian is not going to make you spiritually clean anymore than ritual washing is going to make you clean. It is either here nor there in the scheme of spiritual things.
But let me also warn you about motives, why we do the things we do. Many people are vegetarians because they are convinced that it is a healthy lifestyle – good for them.
But other people are vegetarians because they believe that all life whatever it is, is equal and coexistent. This kind of thinking is NOT biblical, nor is it Christian. It has its roots in Hinduism. The bible teaches that humans are superior to animals. This whole philosophy of not eating any animal life form becomes up surd when we get down to the microbiological level of things. We ingest all kinds of life forms everyday…..ugh, I don’t want to even think about it. Why we do the things we do. Are they biblical….or are they something else?
So, can what I eat make me spiritual? Can it enhance my spirituality? Can it make me more open to God? No. Jesus shows that in the ultimate sense food and heart have nothing to do with one another. 19 For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”). Biblically, we do not have food restrictions placed upon us as Christians.
Eating the right food cannot make me spiritual – I think to most of us, that is beyond obvious, but in the same way, doing the right stuff will not make me spiritual either. Jesus is hitting us at our motivations here, and there are some Christians who can’t believe what Jesus is teaching here. He’s saying that doing all the right stuff isn’t going to make you a spiritual person. He’s saying that if you think doing good things is eventually going to make you good – you have it all backwards. Good things come from a good heart, period. If you have an impure heart, no amount of good actions or good intentions will change it.
Food doesn’t make us spiritual, doing things, even good things, doesn’t make us spiritual, then what makes us spiritual? Relationship. A relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. The closer that relationship, the more spiritual you become. So simple, and yet so hard for us to do.
Understand that Jesus isn’t knocking doing good things, and Jesus isn’t knocking living a righteous lifestyle – Jesus is telling us to not put the cart before the horse. Many times we want to get out and do good things because that is what Christians do. So we want to go and do good things and get to know God later. Jesus tells us this: Get to know me first; Get to know me well, first. Then out of your heart, which I will purify, good things, good actions, godly actions, will come out. For out of a clean heart comes clean actions.
