Wednesday, November
8, 2017
Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from
Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked him, “Why
do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial
hand washing before they eat.” Jesus
replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct
commandments of God? For instance, God
says, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks
disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say it is all right for people to say
to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would
have given to you.’ In this way, you say
they don’t need to honor their parents. And
so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you,
for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far
from me. Their worship is a farce, for
they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’” Matthew 15:1-9(NLT)
The
Pharisees were not above pushing the envelope where truth was involved, so long
as their selfishness passed the test of the greater good. But
in this encounter with Jesus the arrogant, nit-picking Pharisees bit off a
little more than they could chew. They
tried to take Jesus to task because the disciples skipped a ceremonial bit of handwashing
tradition. Jesus countered with his own
question about why the Pharisees were in the habit of ignoring the needs of
poor, aging parents. The religious teachers
were carping about physical cleanliness at the table; Jesus told them to wash
their hearts!
The
issue (of course) is taking our comfort zone of man-made traditions and placing
them ahead of the spirit
of God’s way and will. The Pharisees
were masters at this. Jesus simply told
them they were being hypocrites, claiming faithful stewardship of promised
gifts to God, just so they could rationalize their own greed. As Pharisees they were charged with teaching
God’s ways; instead they were using religious-sounding traditions to promote
their own wealth. They dishonored their
parents, and God did not take that lightly.
A member
of the governing board of a church convinced the board to ask the pastor to
resign. They had become bored with the
pastor’s sermons. The pastor responded
to the board at the next meeting that God had called him to this church, and he
did not sense his work was yet finished, so he would not be resigning. The board member quickly replied: Well,
God may have brought you here, but we’re getting shed of you!
Some
stuff that is said
sounds good; not everything holds up on close examination. Sometimes church leaders, pastors, board chairs,
committees and members say things that may express what the majority of a group
thinks, but that does not always mean they’ve found God’s will. Sometimes they’ve only found a way to
rationalize a decision that allows them to remain outside of God’s will, while
still keeping the appearance that they’re spiritual. The real motive, like the Pharisees, is to serve
their own greed or control issues. You
can do that if you’re willing to parade lies as truth. But there is a cost to doing it; the contention
between the governing board and pastor of that church was 30 years ago, and the
building in which that church met is still standing today, but it is used for a
community center now.
For You
Today
It’s
a good thing to examine what we do because of our traditions; while we’re
thinking about this it would be a good time to take a hard look at our motives
and decide on which hills it is worthwhile to die.
