We all know the comfort that tradition can bring us.
Family traditions over the holidays, birthdays
Church traditions - singing hymns, Candlelight Christmas eve services,
The way we have always done it.
For years after Pat and I were first married - Bowed and/or genuflect - before sitting in the pew.
I am reminded of a story of a pastor who had resigned from his church after 35 years. He was loved by his church and community. Eventually the church called a younger pastor to replace him in hopes of great things taking place for the church. The younger pastor had a great desire excel in all the expectations and to please the church each day.
However, after a few months the young pastor sensed that something was not right in the church and call an informal meeting with some of the leaders. He told them that he felt something was wrong and that he was not meeting their expectations as pastor. After a few awkward moments of silence on the older leaders spoke up and said, “Preacher, I hate to say it, but you are doing the Communion service wrong. You are leaving something out of it that is very important to all of us!” The young preacher’s eyes filled with water and with a trembling voice he asked, “Can you please tell me what I am leaving out of the Communion service?” The older leader spoke up again and said, “For the past 35 years our beloved pastor would walk over to the radiator in the sanctuary, tap it three times, and then would commence with the Lord’s Supper. You are leaving out the radiator!” The young pastor thanked the older leaders for their time to meet with him, they prayed together and that concluded the meeting.
Now to find out the real story! The young pastor immediately went home an called the retired pastor to see if the story was true. Much to the surprise of the new pastor, the older pastor told him the story was true and why he did it. He said, “I always touched the radiator because the leather soles on my shoes would build up static electricity, so I would tap the top of the radiator to discharge the buildup so I wouldn’t shock them.”
Traditions can be so good and wonderful. However, we also know there is a bad side to traditions too. If they become gospel to us. If our traditions get in the way of us truly knowing God.
Well. we are going to see today that Jesus speaks to the power of tradition and how religious people, if they are not careful, can allow traditions to become Law in their lives. Even more important than God.
PRAYER
Background: Well, as we saw last week, the disciples have had a really wild and amazing couple of days! Last week we saw that Jesus was walking on the water and ended up allowing Peter to come to Him out standing in the wind and wave swept lake. After a brief interaction between the two, they ended up back in the boat where our weary, drenched, and exhausted disciples could do no more in their own strength and finally did what any of us would have done, they acknowledged who Jesus truly is as the Son of God, the Messiah, the promised one, the Savior of all, and they worshipped Him!
We don’t know what their worship looked like. Obviously, no worship band, no lyrics up on a screen. Just heartfelt, soul shattering acts of adoration and praise. We can only imagine what that time of worship was like. But it had to be momentous and life changing!
Now, Matthew next records that they have arrived at the other side of the lake in a place called Gennesaret.
PRAY
Matthew 14:34-15:20
34 When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret. 35 And when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought all their sick to him 36 and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.
They climb out of the boat and are immediately recognized. And, as was usual in this part of Jesus’ earthly ministry, the next thing we see is everyone bringing their sick to Him.
Interestingly, the text shows us that they had great faith in this place. Vese 26 tells us they, “begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.”
They didn’t require any words, no special actions, just let the sick touch the edge of your cloak. The result? It worked! Everyone who just touched the edge of His cloak was healed! Not a few, not a couple, not the majority, everyone!
It is in this context that we come to chapter 15 of this Gospel. Here we find the religious elite, once again coming to Jesus and sharing their concerns about Him and His disciples properly doing religion. they have painstakingly constructed a system for everyone to follow. A system they hoped would both help them feel right with God.
The religious leaders are concerned with proper religious actions according to the laws and rules they have constructed over the centuries. These rules are how they keep score. It is how they know whether or not they are living rightly before God. These rules and regulations (what they refer to as “The Law” comforts them and helps them know if they are living rightly with God or not.
People right with God follow the rules. People who are sinners and NOT right with God fail to follow the rules.
So, the religious elites come to Jesus and question Him with something that has really been bothering them. This supposed rabbi and His disciples aren’t following the rules and therefore they are doing what is right before God. Therefore, all the crowds and all the people shouldn’t be enamored with this man and His motley crew of disciples. People needed to “wake up!” and see that these guys were NOT right with God and the Laws of God!
ILL. Makes me think back to how, as children, we would play a game of “make believe” with other children and one child would inevitably make themselves the self-appointed leader and the other children would eventually get tired of their bossy-ness and wouldn’t want to play anymore. How dare they question the leader? I’m the boss here!
So, these religious leaders who are frustrated and angry about the popularity of this nobody from nowhere and His merry band of misfits come and confront them. Afterall, if they are so right with God and righteous, why aren’t they keeping the Law!?!?!
There is Obvious Danger When Tradition Becomes “Law”.
The religious leaders came asking about the tradition of ceremonial hand washing. (Chapt. 15)
1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
The tradition of ceremonial hand washing helped Jews remember to give God thanks.
Ceremonial hand washing was a basic, primary school level concept of proper living for a Jew. It was what was taught during children’s church. It was kid’s stuff. From an early age a child would watch their mother and father go through the motions of the ritual before eating. It symbolized a cleansing. It was a good tradition. It was helpful for them to feel near and right with God.
The value of ceremonial rinsing was held so high that one rabbi insisted that “whosoever has his abode in the land of Israel and eats his common food with rinsed hands may rest assured that he shall obtain eternal life.” Another rabbi taught that it would be better to walk four miles out of the way to get water than to eat with unwashed hands. A certain rabbi who was imprisoned and given a small ration of water used it to wash his hands before eating rather than to drink, claiming he would rather die than transgress the tradition.
Water jars were kept ready to be used before every meal. The minimum amount of water to be used was enough to fill one and a half egg shells. The water was first poured on both hands, held with the fingers pointed upward; and it must run down the arm as far as the wrist and drop off from the wrist, for the water was now itself unclean, having touched the unclean hands. And if it ran down the fingers again it would render them unclean. The process was repeated with hands held in the downward direction, the fingers pointing down. And finally each hand was cleansed by being rubbed with the fist of the other. A strict Jew would do this before every meal and between every course in every meal.
TRANS: Well, these leaders were to be applauded for their tenacity and concern for pleasing God by their actions. However, their efforts had become an actual distraction to their relationship with their creator. They had allowed their tradition to become more important than truly knowing God. They saw their religious traditions as their salvation. Doing all these things made them right with God.
Today we would call that works salvation.
To help them see this and to help His disciples there that day (and us all these centuries later), Jesus did what He often did, He answered their question with a question.
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’
Jesus wants us to see that outward tradition cannot make us right with God.
We see here that Jesus goes to the heart of the issue. He looks past the “Law” to the spirit of the Law. The heart of the Law. Why God put the Law in place originally.
First, we should notice that Jesus did not deny that His disciples had disregarded the rabbinical traditions. And He later is going to explain to all the people (v.11) and then, more specifically, to His disciples (vv. 17-18) why this tradition was worthless and a waste of time.
Jesus doesn’t answer their question, instead, He asked a much more important, a much deeper question, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?
Jesus points out that just as they had brought forward that His disciples had chosen to disregard a particular tradition that they had made into a Law, they too were very accomplished at doing the very same thing when they deemed circumstances necessitated it.
He first points to the Law in the 5th commandment: ‘Honor your father and mother. (Ex. 20:12) as an example of their breaking the commandments of God. Jesus also reminded them of God’s penalty for breaking the commandment: ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ (Ex. 21.17)
Bound up in honoring father and mother is the tradition and responsibility to show them respect and love and to help meet their needs.
However, the religious leaders had come up with a new tradition they followed that they felt trumped this commandment.
5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
These experts on ‘all things related to God and His Laws, that they felt made a person “right” with God had intentionally decided to ignore the 5th commandment.
When the tradition says, “devoted to God” that meant it eventually ended up in the bank accounts and 401K’s of the religious elites as those who were responsible to oversee and manage all things “devoted to God”.
According to the Biblical text, if a child made a vow that all his or her possessions were devoted to God, then they were, in essence, “off the hook” regarding caring for their parents' needs.
Putting tradition above Scripture results in hypocrisy.
Well, Jesus is obviously angry at this blatant disregard of God’s intent for His people to rightly and properly take care of their aging parents, Jesus lets them have it by quoting Isaiah 29:13.
7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 8 “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.”
The key here is that hypocrites, those who are fake and look one way and say one thing and then turn around and do and say the opposite, depending on their audience, have been known since the beginning of time. That was why they had an entire system of vows and oaths to try to force people to be honest and not hypocritical. Do you remember what Jesus said back in the sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5? (I know it was a long time ago - so here, I’ll refresh your memory.
Matthew 5:34-37 (NIV) - 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
God knew there would be hypocrites and He proclaimed it through His prophets. People say one thing but their hearts aren’t in it.
Hypocrisy results in vain worship.(9)
The second thing is to note that when people only are acting and playing at their love for God as hypocrites, look at verse 9 - They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.”
You can go into a lot of churches these days and they barely open the Bible or study Scripture to hear God speak. Instead there are just nice talks and lectures that entertain, and scratch what “itching ears” are hungering for.
This isn’t to say there is no value in these lectures and talks. There are often very good and helpful thoughts and ideas given that can improve your life. And there is a place for these concepts and guides for living a better life. But, we should never allow such talks and lectures to replace the Word of God. We must always strive to understand what God and His Word have to say about such things.
The bottom line is, we must be students of the Word and seek with all our strength to not only hear what people may think about a topic. But more importantly, “what does God think about this topic?” And does what is being presented as truth really aligned with Scripture?
Remember the group of believers in the Bible that Had the Apostle Paul stop by on his missionary journeys and preach to them? They were in Berea and this is what the Scriptures have to say about them:
Acts 17:10-11 (NIV) As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
We must be like the Bereans!
TRANS: So, Jesus does His best to point out that manmade tradition, while not necessarily evil and sinful, can become sinful and evil if it rises to a level higher than God’s Word.
Now, over in Mark’s Gospel He writes that, in overturning this superficial, unscriptural tradition of hand washing, Jesus “declared all foods clean” Mark 7:19 (NIV) - For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.
And Matthew goes on to record Jesus’ teaching on this tradition of washing hands and eating food by calling the crowds to Him and speaking more deeply about this subject.
10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
Jesus wants them all to recognize that God is more concerned with the heart than with the outward acts of what a person eats. The entire Law given back in Leviticus was never intended as a means of salvation and rightness with God. It was there to help guide people to more keenly know God in all aspects of their lives.
That is why scripture says in, 1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV) - So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
That is our true worship. Giving glory to God! NOT our effectiveness and discipline in keeping a long list of rules and traditions that aren’t really backed by scripture.
TRANS: Now, interestingly, Jesus next speaks to the issue of being offensive to the religious elites.
II. It is Important to Speak The Truth in Love. (12-14)
12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
We see here that the truth of God’s Word is so much more important than false teaching and false teachers.
Like Jesus, we don’t need to worry ourselves about offending people with the truth.
Yet we do so often, don’t we? How often do we hold our tongue when someone speaks some modern day psycho babble attempt at truth? We fail to speak up because we don’t want to offend someone. (Sometimes it’s because I don’t want to be bothered with the debate that will follow!)
Jesus didn’t hesitate to speak the truth. This is of utmost importance. We must speak the truth whether it hurts feelings or not. To not speak the truth is NOT loving.
We must, however, make sure we do what we can to do so out of love and not to bash someone over the head.
Ephesians 4:14-15 (NIV) - Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
But then, we must know that even when we try to do so in love, there will be times when people refuse to listen to Biblical truth and would prefer to hold onto their tradition or wrong thinking about a topic.
Jesus says that, in such cases, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
In other words, we speak the truth in love and then move on. God will sort it all out as the Scriptures teach us.
TRANS: Now, lastly for today, Peter comes to Jesus and wants Him to explain the parable to them.
III. Righteousness With God is, First and Foremost, A Heart Issue. (15-20)
15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”
The parable that Peter wanted Jesus to explain refers to the illustration of verse 11. It was not so much that the disciples did not understand what Jesus meant as that they found it hard to accept—just like the crowd and the scribes and Pharisees. We see this even years after Pentecost, when Peter was not able to fully accept the idea that all foods were clean (Acts 10:14).
In Acts 10:14 we find Peter has been up on the roof and has a dream of a sheet coming down full of all sorts of “unclean” animals and the Lord says for Peter to rise up, Peter, Kill and Eat. And Peter responds, 14 “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
So, Jesus responds to Peter’s question by saying, 16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them.
And while our text may seem a bit harsh - “Are you really that dull?” The idea in the original Greek has more of the idea of sadness that His disciples still didn’t get it after all they had seen and observed. They still didn’t understand.
So, Jesus explains further using the idea of traditions surrounding food and dietary restrictions.
17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
The key here is that God has been from the beginning and still to this day and forever, wanting our hearts surrendered to Him.
Jesus points out this truth by speaking to simple, obvious biology. We know what happens with the process of digestion. We understand it pretty early in life.
Take Aways:
Traditions aren’t necessarily bad. They can be wonderful! As we have seen. Praying the rosary, prayers before a meal, the Lords Supper - all can be extremely helpful to remember Jesus and draw near to Him.
They help us remember, and allow us to possibly avoid the same mistakes again and again. They can bring comfort.
However, they can become a snare and a prison to us if we aren’t careful. So what are we to do.
Recognize that it is ok to question tradition.
We shouldn’t feel threatened when our traditions are questioned. Traditions have a place in our lives. But we also must realize there is nothing wrong with questioning them and checking to see if they are in keeping with Scripture. A family tradition of cheering for their favorite football team, or to celebrate Christmas by opening presents on Christmas eve rather than Christmas morning is NOT a sin. (It’s wrong of course, but it’s not a sin!)
The tradition of having new followers of Jesus recite the sinner's prayer as a way to express their hearts being turned over to God is not a bad thing, even though it isn’t specifically required in Scripture. It is a great tradition to help navigate the salvation experience.
Be willing to explore other traditions.
It isn’t a sin to experience other traditions. As long as they don’t become more important than knowing God and His Word. I remember going to different churches and even a couple Jewish synagogues with Pat. Catholic services in Latin. It is good to explore how others worship God. Again, as long as it isn’t contrary to Biblical truth. Traditions are part of culture and they can be instructive and even fun - (when we were in Nepal we learned to sit on the floor and eat with our fingers. It was different, but it was fun!
Work to strengthen your heart towards God.
Ultimately, we are part of a new covenant. The Old Covenant was all about the Law. It was God’s way of helping His people to know Him, honor Him, remember Him and come near to Him.
But, the Old Covenant went off the rails, “so to speak” when mankind began making the traditions and rules into Laws that became god’s unto themselves. And the way to salvation.
The Bible speaks about this in,
2 Corinthians 3:6 (NLT) - He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.
We are living sacrifices.
Romans 12:1-2 (NIV) - 12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
