“Jesus called the crowd to Him and said, ‘Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person’” (Mt.15.11).
Everything Jesus said seems radical to us because Jesus is God and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are His ways our ways. Yet it is probably the case that nothing Jesus ever said was as radical in terms of the religion of His day and all human thoughts about religion and true worship as what He told the Pharisees, crowds, and disciples in the first half of Matthew 15.
Jesus had been searching for rest, first on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee and then on the western side in the area of Gennesaret. But He was interrupted by the multitudes of people who were following Him wherever He went and who had now circled the lake again and were pressing Him with renewed demands for healings. While this was going on, some Pharisees and teachers of the law came from Jerusalem to ask about His disciples’ failure to wash their hands before eating. This had nothing to do with whether their hands were free of dirt. It was a matter of the Pharisees’ traditions, their ceremonies. That they came “from Jerusalem” probably indicates they were an official delegation.
Washing one’s hands before meals was not required by the Old Testament, but it had become an important part of the Pharisees’ teaching and was of paramount concern to them since their religion was based primarily on such matters.
What we learn in this story is how radically wrong Jesus insisted their position was. Jesus did not reply by some mild attempt to excuse His disciples: “They didn’t have a chance to wash; we’ve been out hiking; I’m sure they’ll do better next time.” Or by mere discussion: “Let’s talk about such washings; why do you think they’re so important?” Instead, He forcefully attacked the Pharisees for fussing about paltry matters while breaking God’s law in essential matters by their traditions. He said that their entire understanding of religion was wrong, that their hearts were “far from” God, and that their worship of God was “vain.”
Even stronger, when His disciples warned Him that the Pharisees were offended by what He said, Jesus called them “blind guides” leading blind men and plants that God had not planted that would eventually be “pulled up by the roots.” This can only mean that the Pharisees were plantings of Satan and would be destroyed by fire at the last judgment.
By these words Jesus was not only condemning their system, He was condemning the best of human religion, saying that all human efforts to please God are external and vain, and that the only thing that really matters is a radical change of heart, since it is what comes out of the heart that makes a man “unclean” (v.18).
The point of Matthew 15 as a whole is that the kingdom of God is for Gentiles as well as Jews because Christianity rests on an entirely different foundation than did Judaism.
Maranatha!
(mar-uh-nath-uh – “Our Lord Comes”)
Pastor Steve can be reached at PastorSteve@MaranathaBibleChurch.org