THE HEART OF RELIGION—Mark 7:1-23
If you would ask 100 people, maybe on a street corner of a university or in your neighborhood, “What do you think about religion?” What would you hear?
Some people would politely say, “It’s not bad to be religious, if you are into that.” Some might be glad to tell how much they love their church.
Some might say they are “spiritual but not religious.” They don’t see a need for worship or joining the church, and they find biblical teaching too confining.
Some might point to hypocrisy, moral failure, or character flaws in religious people, or even share their experience with toxic religion. Religion does not always produce better people!
What did Jesus say about religion?
JESUS SAID RELIGION CAN BE HARMFUL!
-RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS can be counterfeit and empty,
Read Mark 7:1-8.
This is not like your mother telling you to wash your hands before you eat.
The “tradition of the elders” prescribed a ritual for washing before eating. Literally, Mark explained that devout Jews “wash with the fist,” in a prescribed ceremony.
The origin of that tradition was a pious interpretation of the Old Testament. The priests were required to wash their hands and feet before entering the tabernacle, because the tabernacle was holy, set apart for God. Some pious Jews asked, “Shouldn’t all of life be holy?” Of course! So before every meal, they prayed (like some people do today). Before they came to God in prayer, they always washed. It was a reminder that God is holy, and all of life is holy.
Eventually, the tradition took on a life of its own. Pious Jews prayed, “Blessed be Thou O Lord, King of the universe, who sanctified us by thy laws and commanded us to wash the hands.” Yet God had never commanded them to wash the hands; the tradition had taken on a life of its own.
Traditions can become sacred.
***A pastor went to preach in an unfamiliar church one Sunday. The church repeated the Apostles Creed every week, and when the people stood for the creed, they all turned to face the back wall! The pastor thought it strange, but he said nothing until after the service, when he asked one of the elders, “Why did the people face the back wall during the creed?” The elder explained that a dear lady of the church had embroidered a beautiful tapestry of the creed, which was hung on the back wall. To aid in reciting the creed and to honor the dear saint, the congregation turned toward the tapestry as they confessed their faith together. Unfortunately, when the tapestry was taken down for cleaning 14 years earlier, it fell apart. By then, however, the tradition of turning to recite the creed had been established.**
A relatively harmless tradition, we might think, except for anyone who might visit the church and feel like an outsider. Traditions are not harmless if they keep people away from God.
Jesus said in verse 8, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
***A 2004 story from United Press International tells of the beginning of the yearly fox hunt in Ootacamund, India. Every week for 10 months, a group of men gather to uphold a tradition established in England in the 1400s. The original reason for the hunt was that the foxes would get in to kill the chickens or sheep. As the tradition grew, dogs were used, and then the hunters decided they would all wear red coats with green collars. By 1835, English soldiers in Ootacamund were hunting—not foxes, since there were none—but deer, wild boar, an occasional tiger, and jackals. The last jackal was killed in 1977, but every week, horsemen gather to stoke their bravery for the hunt with drinks and breakfast. The greatest danger is no longer foxes, but overweight, overprivileged men who drink in the mornings and ride off with guns.**
I wonder how many people look at the rituals and traditions of churches in similar ways. For too many people, church is little more than listening to music, sitting through prayers and a sermon, shaking a few hands, and going home. The traditions originally were about coming into the presence of a holy God, responding to his word being read and preached, loving fellow believers, and going out as the light of the world.
Traditions can replace a true encounter with God, producing (as Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:5) “a form godliness, but denying its power.” They can inoculate people, especially children and teens, against a life-changing encounter with God.
-RELIGIOUS RULES can be manipulated for evil purposes.
Read Mark 7:9-13.
Maybe you were raised with lot of rules, or maybe not. Research has shown that rules are important in religious development, especially in the middle elementary years. They continue to be helpful throughout life, but rules don’t ultimately stop bad behavior.
One of God’s rules is the Fifth Commandment, “Honor your father and mother.” Since there was no Social Security in that time, an obvious application of the commandment would be to financially take care of parents in old age, if able to do so.
Clever Jews found a way around the commandment, however. They piously said, “All of our money belongs to God.” By a vow known as “Corban,” they put all of their possessions into a trust, a little like a charitable remainder trust today, which they could use for their own benefit, but not to benefit others. Technically, they had no money for their parents.
Rules can be manipulated. They don’t cover every situation, and we might even say, “There is no rule against it,” when we know something is not right. In the courtroom of our minds, we say, “It wasn’t exactly a lie,” or “It is not like I pulled out a gun to rob the company when I left early from work.”
People are good at rationalizing, saying things like, “I need to discipline my child, so it is OK if I lose my temper,” or, “My parents want me to get good grades, and I have to cheat on this test to do that.”
Most of us pick and choose which rules are most important—even which sins matter most. Our “really bad” sins are usually the ones we don’t struggle with as much.
If rules can be manipulated and traditions can be empty, is religion worthless?
JESUS GETS TO THE HEART OF RELIGION.
Read Mark 7:14-23.
The HEART of religion is the attitude of the HUMAN HEART! The heart represents the deepest human thoughts and desires, as we might say, “His heart is not in it,” or “She has a lot of heart.”
Jesus said in Luke 6:45, “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up IN HIS HEART, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up IN HIS HEART. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
If the heart of religion is the attitude of the human heart, many Americans will say, “That’s what I have always believed. Forget God and religion; just follow your heart.”
One problem, and the OT prophet Jeremiah nails it: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) If you follow your heart, you might end up in a dark place.
In fact, Jesus pointed out that when people follow their hearts, a lot of bad stuff happens: “…from within, OUT OF A PERSON’S HEART, evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.” (Mark 7:21-22) That’s quite a list, but we have to agree with him, don’t we!
If the heart of religion is in the human heart, human hearts need to be changed.
The OT prophet Ezekiel wrote during one of the darkest periods of Jewish history. God’s chosen people were in exile because of their sin and rejection of God. Religious traditions and laws had failed them, because their hearts were fouled by sin and human weakness. In the darkness of the exile, God gave Ezekiel a surprising promise of transformation and hope: “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 11:19-20)
How could that happen? The human heart is wicked, as we see on the news every day. Only God can change the human heart, and Ezekiel 36:26-27 tells how: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I WILL PUT MY SPIRIT IN YOU and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
In the OT, the Holy Spirit came upon people only in special times, without deeply transforming them. When the Spirit of God came upon Samson, he was physically strong for a time, but still morally weak. When the Spirit came upon King Saul, he prophesied, but he still made poor decisions.
When Jesus was baptized by John, the Holy Spirit came upon him as a dove, never to depart. His heart was perfectly aligned with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, and he lived a perfect life because the thoughts, words, and deeds that flowed out of his heart were pure and godly. Only Jesus had a perfect heart.
Yet Jesus said something remarkable to his disciples, and to us, in John 7:38-39, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”
When we accept Jesus into our hearts, his Spirit—the Holy Spirit—purifies our hearts. He purifies our minds, our desires, our will, our values, and our priorities. That is the heart of religion.
IS RELIGION CONFINED TO THE HEART?
Humans are not just “heart” or “soul” or “an inner self.” We have bodies, we live in a physical world, and we interact with people. We can’t isolate our hearts from how we live in the world.
Just as our heart controls our actions, our actions influence our heart. Our inner life and our outer life feed on each other.
Godly religion consists of outer practices that connect our heart to our life in the world. TRADITIONS and RULES can be helpful when our heart is right.
-Our TRADITIONS are HABITS OF THE HEART.
Habits mold mind, emotion, will, and attitude toward life.
Although Jesus condemned empty traditions, he practiced religious habits. He prayed 5 times a day: before each meal, as well as morning and night. In his younger days, he studied and memorized the Scriptures that he often quoted.
Jesus worshipped in the synagogue every Sabbath. Luke 4:16 tells us that, “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.”
Jesus observed the yearly Jewish festivals, traveling to Jerusalem (as the gospel of John makes clear), and celebrating the Passover with his disciples.
Habits of the heart connected the heart of Jesus with his life in the world. Spiritual habits do the same for us; they provide opportunities for the Holy Spirit to work in us and on us.
A daily “quiet time” of Bible reading and prayer keeps us focused. Weekly worship declares, to us and to the world, that God comes first.
Commitments to serve keep our hearts focused on others. Weekly or monthly giving reminds us that our money belongs to God. Joining a small group reminds us that people matter to God and to us.
Making sacrifices, fasting, or extravagant acts of love mold our hearts to the heart of God.
We do these things, not just because we are told, “Good Christians do that,” but from a heartfelt desire to be conformed to the image of Christ.
-Our RULES are DECISIONS OF THE HEART
We might be guided by the church, especially parents and wise Christians, but if our rules are not rooted in our hearts, they will not be effective; we will find ways around them.
To guide our hearts, we turn to the Bible, where the laws of God reveal the heart of God. Guided by the Holy Spirit, we develop a personal value system, which is shaped by rules. Our values guide our path through life, and the rules we embrace help us choose a smooth road with warning signs and guardrails along the way. Moral boundaries help keep us on the path our heart desires.
Rules are like the rumble strips that thump our tires when we stray onto the shoulder of the road, flashing warnings when we might not recognize sin: “You are lying…stealing…lusting…envying…gossiping.” When we recognize sin, we can confess it to God, repent, and ask for help.
Rules are like the lane markers on the road, guiding us in the twists and turns of life. They point the way to the life our heart desires. We might have rules like:
No crude language or gossip, but words of kindness and encouragement.
Healthy relationships, with wholesome boundaries
Root out materialism by living simply and being thankful every day.
Eat healthy foods, and take care of body and mind.
Rules help keep us on the path our heart desires.
The heart is the heart of religion. As Proverbs 4:23 says, “Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
Our hearts can be deceitful, however, and we need God’s help to transform our hearts. God promised in Ezekiel 36:26-27, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I WILL PUT MY SPIRIT IN YOU and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
Jesus brought the fulfillment of that promise, as he said in John 7:38, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John goes on to explain, “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”
Perhaps today you recognize that your heart and life need transformation. You can confess your sins to God, and receive forgiveness in Christ. You can invite the Holy Spirit to cleanse and renew your heart, pointing out how your life needs to change. You can make decisions this week about the habits and boundaries that will direct you in a way of righteousness and joy.
Jesus opens the way to the life God has for those who love him.
