Eat Without Washing Your Hands

June 15

Read: Mark 7:1-13

Eat Without Washing Your Hands

“This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” - Prophecy of Isaiah (Is 29:31)

It is possible to worship God in vain. What is one of the ways that this happens to us as the people of God? We begin to “teach as doctrines the commandments of men”. It is quite possible that we, as Gods people, have become entangled in a bunch of pseudo-doctrines that are not truly from God at all. This leads to us “honoring with our lips, but having hearts that are far from God.” This is what happens here in Mark 7.

The Pharisees and Scribes press back against Jesus asking him why his disciples do not follow the same traditions of washing that they do. It was the commonly accepted norm among the people of God that you washed your hands ceremonially before you ate food. The thing that the Pharisees were describing was not really about getting dirt of your hands as much as it was about their ideas of what was “ceremonially clean and holy”. The disciple’s rhythms with Jesus made them appear “defiled” according to the “traditions of the elders”.

When they accuse Jesus’ disciples his response is to call them “hypocrites”. In what way were these men hypocrites? Well, they pretended to be about the Lord, when really they were about their system… they worshipped the system while pretending to worship God. It is scary the way that this can happen. Slowly, and over a decent amount of time, the people of God can be duped into trading relationship with the Lord for the worship of systems and traditions. Sometimes we worship the Bible instead of the author of it… we know the “book” but we don’t know HIM. Sometimes we worship our theological arguments…or “apologetics”; we may be more devoted to our denomination than we are to the Lord. Just yesterday, my friends Travis, Ed, and I spent some time discussing this very idea- the ways that God deconstructs some of our ideas of how he works. Take for instance his blessing and endorsement of Jacob although he is a liar; or David being called a “man after God’s own heart” while also having murdered someone and committed adultery; or the parable’s of Jesus that challenge our ideas of how the Kingdom of God functions. (cf. The parable if the shrewd steward, Luke 16:1-13) The point being that sometimes we create tidy systems or traditions that we say are driven by the Lord and his direction, but in the end they are really our own… things that we have made for ourselves. They seem nice on the outside, but the truth is they alienate our HEARTS from God.

This is not to say there is no system. There is indeed a right system… a right way of living and acting. Jesus does not deny the idea that there is a way which God outlines for his people to live. When we are living out this genuine life, it actually draws our heart NEAR to God and our worship becomes TRUE and PURPOSEFUL… it is not in “vain”. The words of our lips will align with the status of our heart. This is what Jesus is calling us to, and this is what he fights against in the Pharisees and Scribes here. Jesus picks one of the “traditions” of the elders that seems super-spiritual and demonstrates how it actually works AGAINST what the Lord had said. In this instance it is the idea of “Corban” - a tradition of radically handing over to God all of your life…both possessions and time. (v.11-12) Jesus calls out the way that this is the OPPOSITE of what God commands when it comes to caring for your parents. (v.13) As “spiritual” as Corban may have sounded (“you honor me with your lips”) it was actually despicable. This was not an isolated instance, but Jesus himself declares: “And many such things you do.” (v.13) MANY. There were MANY ways that this had seeped into the life of God’s people… pseudo-spirituality not commanded or directed by the Lord but devised by men and their “traditions”… handed down from generation to generation.

So what is OUR “Corban”? Are we worshiping in vain? Are our hearts close to the Lord… or far away? Are the “traditions of our elders” rooted in God’s commands or are they more our constructs? NOT ALL TRADITION IS BAD… SOME OF IT IS ROOTED IN GOD’S DIRECTION. Our job is to listen to Jesus as he leads us in this way. There is a very good chance that walking with Jesus and clinging to the scriptures (as a tool that leads our hearts closer and deeper into relationship with the Lord) will lead us into come “confrontation” with those who love the traditions more than the Lord. You will “ruffle some feathers”. Your life will not fit into a tidy little equation or “box”. your formulas will be disrupted by the Lord himself. He is the one who wants your words, heart, and worship to align with him… he makes us AUTHENTIC… the opposite of hypocrites! It can be uncomfortable for the Lord to reveal to us these truths. It was not fun or easy for the Pharisees and Scribes to hear these words… but it was true and necessary. So what Christian Folklore are you clinging to? Maybe you need to “eat without washing your hands”! Love you guys. - JDP