Introduction:
A. Many years ago, the Washington Post carried a story about a man who was working on his farm in Wisconsin, when suddenly something dropped out of the sky into a field near him.
1. The object was blue, frozen, and mysterious.
2. Excitedly, the man chopped off a huge chunk, put it in his freezer, and called the sheriff and some geologists from a nearby college to examine it.
3. For a long time everyone was stumped about what had fallen from the sky.
a. Was it a meteor or was it a piece of a glacier carried by the jet stream?
4. All they could deduce is that it was a hard, blue, and frozen object that smelled terrible when it melted.
5. Finally, someone solved the mystery – this frozen, mysterious, blue mass from outer space was blue “potty fluid” accidentally ejected from an airplane toilet at 36,000 feet and had frozen.
B. If what happened to that man happened to you or me, we’d probably have done the same thing that he did, which was to assume it was something valuable that needed to be preserved and protected.
1. But think for a minute about how many things have dropped into our lives that we feel compelled to preserve and continue.
2. How many of our family or church family customs and traditions fall into this category?
1. We assume it is the right way to do it, or the only way to do it because its our tradition.
2. But if we are not careful, our traditions might keep us preserving smelly, frozen, blue “potty fluid” rather than real treasures.
3. You’ve probably heard the story of the young newly wed who was cooking her first ham and her husband noticed that his young wife cut off about one inch from both ends of ham.
1. The young husband asked his wife why she was cutting off any of the ham, it was a waste. 2. The young wife replied, “Because that’s the way my mom prepared the ham.”
3. He asked, “Why did your mom cut the ends off?”
4. His wife didn’t know, but called her mom to find out why she cut the ends off of the ham.
5. Her mom said, “Because that was the way my mom prepared ham.”
6. So the young wife called her grandmother and asked her the same question.
7. Her grandmother replied, “I cut the ends off so the ham can fit into the baking pan I own.”
4. Some traditions may not be bad, but they also may not be necessary.
C. If you’ve seen the musical, “Fiddler on the Roof,” then you are familiar with the musical’s opening song called “Tradition” that is sung by the older “papa” of the family.
1. The song shows how the whole Jewish community was built on long-standing, unbreakable traditions.
2. The theme of the musical is how these age-old traditions were being uprooted, challenged, and changed by the unrest of that day.
3. The musical portrayed the grief, sorrow, and hardship that are experienced when traditions are upset.
D. In our text for today from the Gospel of Mark, we will see a confrontation occur between tradition and truth, which includes a critically important contrast between inward and outward righteousness.
1. Mark draws a stark contrast between Jesus and the Scribes and Pharisees.
2. These Jewish leaders had missed the point of religion and Jesus wanted to point the way from human religious tradition toward heart-shaped righteousness.
3. The immediate and burning issues of the controversy addressed in today’s passage have long passed us by, but the principles which Jesus laid down continue to guide His followers.
4. These principles are vital to our relationship with God and the whole essence of righteousness.
I. The Traditions
A. Mark wrote: 1 The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him. 2 They observed that some of his disciples were eating bread with unclean—that is, unwashed—hands. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, keeping the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they have washed. And there are many other customs they have received and keep, like the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches.) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders, instead of eating bread with ceremonially unclean hands?” (Mark 7:1-5)
1. This paragraph introduces the power and effect of traditions.
2. Word was spreading about the popularity of Jesus and the Scribes and Pharisees were disturbed about these reports, so they came to Jesus with the specific intention of finding something in the ministry of Jesus that they could use to oppose Him.
3. They found what they were looking for in the failure of Jesus and His disciples to honor their traditional washings.
B. Before we get into the specific washings, let me give you some additional background.
1. Originally, the Law meant 2 things for the Jewish people: (1)the Ten Commandments and (2) the first 5 books of the OT, called the Pentateuch (5 books) and the Torah (the teaching, law).
2. It is true that the Pentateuch contains a number of detailed regulations and instructions, but additionally, a lot of the first 5 books contain history and principles.
3. For a long time, the Jewish people were content to focus on these instructions and principles and to do their best to follow them.
4. But in the 4th and 5th centuries BC, there came into being a class of legal experts in the Law of God known as the Scribes.
a. This group of legal experts was not content to apply the moral principles, but sought to convert those principles into specific laws and regulations.
b. They created thousands and thousands of additional regulations governing every possible action or situation.
5. In passage for today, we see two examples of these Scribal rules and regulations – one had to do with the ritual washing of hands, and the other the ritual washing of dishes.
C. Let me begin by saying that these traditions began with a right motive, which was to please God and avoid violating God’s laws.
1. The Law of Moses does contain instructions about certain washings (you can check out Lev. chapters 11, 15, and 18), but over the years, a body of tradition evolved that spelled out every detail of how to carry out the Law concerning the washing of hands.
2. Verse 4 also mentions the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles and dining couches.
a. The traditions concerning these contained no fewer than 12 prolonged treatises, detailing the kind of vessels that could become unclean and how to cleanse them.
3. Here are a few examples of how precise and petty they were:
a. A 3 legged table could become unclean, but a 2 legged table could not.
b. A plate without a rim could not become unclean, but a plate with a rim could.
D. But eventually, these man-made regulations to help keep from violating God’s laws took on a life of their own and to the Scribes and Pharisees, these rules and regulations were the essence of religion.
1. To observe them was to please God and to break them was to sin.
2. Jesus and these religious leaders had totally different mindsets.
3. The Scribes and Pharisees saw religion as ritual and ceremony, rules and regulations, but Jesus saw religion as relationship: loving God and loving your neighbor.
4. Because Jesus had no use for their man-made regulations that they considered Him a bad man, and eventually killed Him.
E. And so, those Scribes and Pharisees came that day with their magnifying glasses as spies.
1. They came looking at only the little things and not the big things.
2. They didn’t really see Jesus, but only saw the violation of their handwashing codes.
3. They didn’t see the good that Jesus was doing as He taught and healed the people.
4. They were only interested in the minute details of their rituals and were blind to everything except what threatened their tradition.
5. It’s so important to examine ourselves and ask ourselves: “what am I focused on?”
a. Am I looking at the big picture or am I only focused on the little things?
b. Am I looking for the genuine work of God in human lives or just petty deviations from my traditional way of doing things?
F. We can conclude that these Scribes and Pharisees were pure legalists.
1. Legalism is an over-concern for mere law keeping.
2. This over-concern can be expressed by the following:
a. By considering religion a merely legal system rather than a grace/faith system.
b. Legalism is a dependence on “law-keeping” for salvation rather than dependence on Christ for salvation.
c. Unfortunately, legalism usually leads to making “laws” where God hasn’t made any and the laws we create become as important or even more important that God’s laws.
II. The Verdict
A. In verse 5, the Scribes and Pharisees had asked Jesus the direct question: “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition?”
1. It was a fair question that deserved a good answer and Jesus gave them one.
2. Mark wrote: 6 He answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 7 They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands. 8 Abandoning the command of God, you hold on to human tradition. (Mark 7:6-8)
3. When Jesus answered them, He broadened the issue from just a discussion about washings to a complete renouncement of their whole approach of creating human traditions.
4. In this stinging verdict, Jesus accused the Scribes and Pharisees of two sins.
B. First, Jesus said they were guilty of the sin of hypocrisy.
1. Using Isaiah’s words, Jesus said, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”
2. The legalistic Jews of Jesus’ day could have held hatred, jealousy, strife, bitterness and anger in their hearts, but they were considered righteous if they carried out the traditions of the elders.
3. Legalism, both then and now, emphasizes our outward actions while disregarding the heart.
4. On the contrary, the essence of Christianity is not the keeping the law, but the condition of the heart.
a. Please don’t misunderstand me, that doesn’t mean that there are not things for us to do and commands for us to follow.
b. But the fundamental question with regard to righteousness and salvation is “what is the condition of our heart toward God?”
c. If unbelief, anger, jealousy, lust, selfishness, and rebellion dwell in our hearts, then no number of religious rituals will be pleasing to God.
C. The second sin Jesus accused them of was that they had become legalists who made their human traditions as authoritative as God’s Word.
1. Quoting Isaiah, Jesus said: “They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands.” (vs. 7)
2. Those Jewish leaders had made the error of giving as much importance to their interpretations as to what God Himself had commanded.
3. Isaiah and Jesus’ words described so accurately what had happened in their day and what is still happening today.
4. The religious world has many religious groups whose doctrines for the most part are the traditions of men rather than the teachings of God.
5. Tragically, even the body of Christ can experience division rather than unity, when human teachings, traditions and interpretations take precedent over the Word of God.
6. And sadly, many of the conflicts that have torn apart the body of Christ are over trivial or insignificant matters.
7. In Jonathan Swift’s classic novel Gulliver’s Travels, he tells about the bitter war over which end of the egg should be cracked: the big end or the little end?
a. The big-enders and the little-enders fought to the death and to the complete destruction of their country, over such a petty argument.
b. Unfortunately, Christians today can do the same.
c. That’s not to say that there aren’t important truths worth standing for and fighting for, but let’s make sure it really is about God’s Word and truth, and not about our interpretations, preferences and traditions.
D. The verdict on them was that they were hypocrites and legalists.
1. They were hypocrites and legalists because they emphasized the outward action over and above concern about the inward heart.
2. And they were putting their man-made traditions ahead of the Word of God.
3. What would God’s verdict be about you and me?
a. Are we making laws where God didn’t?
b. Are we honoring man-made tradition over the word of God?
c. Do we think that religion is all about what we do and not about what we are in our heart?
III. The Example
A. After giving the verdict, Jesus proceeded to give them a striking example of their problem.
1. Mark wrote: 9 He also said to them, “You have a fine way of invalidating God’s command in order to set up your tradition! 10 For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death. 11 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or mother: Whatever benefit you might have received from me is corban’” (that is, an offering devoted to God), 12 “you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13 You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many other similar things.” (Mark 7:9-13)
2. God’s command was to honor one’s parents which involved supporting them financially if necessary.
3. But the Scribes and Pharisees had created a “yes, but” to get around this responsibility.
a. They said that it is true that God commands that a person honor their parents and support them, “but” if a person dedicates their money to the temple, then they are absolved from supporting their parents.
b. When something was declared as “Corban” (a gift or offering consecrated to God), then it could no longer be used for common purposes.
c. Whatever money that might have been used to provide for aging parents could be dedicated to the temple treasury instead and win favor from God and the religious leaders.
d. God never intended that the good principle of devoting something to the temple should be twisted to dishonor fathers and mothers.
e. But the Scribes and Pharisees took a legitimate Corban regulation and used it in an illegitimate and devious way to defraud parents and enrich themselves, since they had the authority to use the temple treasury.
B. Do you see how that man-made rule nullified or avoided the actual Word of God?
1. We must be careful that our rules and traditions don’t paralyze our service to God and others.
2. Remember how the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, used their religious guidelines and obligations to keep them from helping the man who had been beaten?
3. Jesus attacked a system which put human rules and regulations before the claim of human need.
4. Jesus was quite sure that any regulation which prevented a person from giving help where help was needed was nothing less than a contradiction of God’s commands.
5. This example of Corban was just one example, because Jesus said, “And you do many other similar things.” (Mk. 7:13b)
IV. The Conclusion
A. Jesus concluded this encounter by addressing the real problem which is the heart.
1. Notice how Jesus made sure He had everyone’s attention before He concluded.
2. Mark wrote: 14 Summoning the crowd again, he told them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” 17 When he went into the house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He said to them, “Are you also as lacking in understanding? Don’t you realize that nothing going into a person from the outside can defile him? 19 For it doesn’t go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated” (thus he declared all foods clean). 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, 22 adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a person.” (Mark 7:14-23)
B. Although it may not seem so now, when Jesus spoke these words for the first time, they were absolutely revolutionary.
1. As Jesus corrected the Jewish legal experts about their traditional interpretations of the law, He had shown the complete irrelevance of ritualistic handwashing and had shown how rigid adherence to traditions can lead one to violate God’s command.
2. But then He did something even more startling when He declared that nothing that goes into a person can defile that person.
a. There was no Jewish person at the time of Jesus who would have agreed with that principle and no orthodox Jew who would agree with it today.
b. With this one statement of Jesus in Mark 7, He removed the clean and unclean distinctions that had guided the Jews for thousands of years.
c. With one sweeping pronouncement, Jesus declared the whole thing irrelevant and that uncleanness had nothing to do with what a person takes into their body, but had everything to do with what comes out of a person’s heart.
C. Jesus gave an extensive list of deadly poisons of the heart.
1. There are 13 of them in all: evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.
2. They are truly a terrible list of evils that can defile our hearts and lives.
3. Let’s take time and examine our own hearts and make sure that these things have not made a home in our hearts.
4. If we find these things in our hearts, then we need to ask God to do heart surgery on us.
D. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a short story called “Earth’s Holocaust.”
1. It’s a strange tale about a time when the inhabitants of the earth had become convicted about the accumulation of evil things and had determined to rid themselves of it by a bonfire.
2. All night long, a stranger with cynical smile and haughty air stood watching them bring things they considered evil: pornographic books, implements of war, liquor, tobacco and drugs, then everything was tossed into the fire.
3. Late in the night, the stranger approached and said, “There is one thing these wiseacres (smart alecks or know-it-alls) have forgotten to throw into the fire and without which all the rest of the conflagration is just nothing at all, yes though they burn the earth itself to cinders.”
4. Someone asked, “And what might that be?”
5. The stranger replied, “The human heart.”
E. And so when we think about trying do the right thing or to rid ourselves of the wrong things, then we must always focus on the heart and begin there.
1. Everything starts in and proceeds from the heart or the mind.
2. In the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus was teaching about ethical rights and wrongs, and He talked about the problem of murder and adultery, and you’ll remember that He focused our attention on the heart.
a. He said that murder begins with hatred in the heart, and adultery begins with lust.
b. Therefore, rightness and righteousness isn’t just about not doing the wrong thing, but it is about also not having the wrong thing in our hearts.
3. In Matthew 23, Jesus called the Pharisees religious hypocrites and proceeded to list the areas where they missed the mark, including this: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside of it may also become clean. (Mt. 23:25-26)
4. And on the positive side of things, Paul talked about the right motivation in the heart.
a. Paul explained: 1 If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor. 13:1-3)
b. Doing the right things without having the right heart doesn’t amount to anything.
F. And so the heart is so important and so let’s do the following with regard to our hearts.
1. First, Guard It - Solomon, the wise man who wrote Proverbs admonished us: Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. (Proverbs 4:23)
2. Second, Don’t Trust It - the prophet Jeremiah warned us: The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it? (Jer. 17:9)
a. Who can understand it? God can! Who can cure it? God can.
3. Third, Ask God for a New Heart - God promised: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezek. 36:26)
G. So, how are you doing with regard to the critically important contrasts we explored today?
1. Are you choosing truth over tradition? Or are you still holding on to the blue frozen stuff?
2. Are you focusing on the inside rather than the outside? We don’t want to be white-washed tombs! Amen!
3. It so much easier to deal with the outside once the inside is right with God. Let’s start there!
Resources:
• Truth for Today Commentary: Mark 1-8 and 9-16, Martel Pace, Resources Communications.
• Truth Versus Tradition? Sermon by David Owens
• Internal or External, Sermon by Nate Shinn
