Week 3: Tuesday

Devotional

'Germs and Jesus!' shouted the seven-year-old son of a friend of mine. 'Germs and Jesus! You keep telling me they're import- ant and I can't see either of them!'

A fascinating response to a pressing parental problem. We tell our children about Jesus. We also, at a different level, explain to them that they must wash their hands because there are things called 'germs' which we can't see but which do nasty things if we don't wash them off.
Jews in the ancient world didn't know what we know about germs (they didn't know what we know about Jesus, if it comes to that) but they knew how important it was to wash before meals. Physical purity, with its echoes of national purity (always important for a small and embattled nation), had been elevated to an art form, with careful rules precisely formulated and exactly observed, at least by those who chose to do so. There was a considerable spectrum in Judaism at the time of Jesus, from those who were eager to find and follow the ancient legal traditions more precisely to those who didn't bother too much, either because they weren't pious or, perhaps, because they weren't well off and couldn't afford the time for all the extra fuss.

The Pharisees were a popular pressure group devoted to keeping one another up to the mark of the strict rules, and doing their best, as far as they could, to apply them to other Jews as well. Physical purity made as much sense then as it does now, and without modern soap and other aids to cleanliness there was a lot of practical wisdom, as well as traditional religion, about the rules. But, as often happens in such systems, rules led to more rules, regulations to more regulations, and the original purpose was always in danger of being lost underneath.

So when the Pharisees challenged Jesus about the fact that his disciples weren't keeping the purity traditions in the proper way, Jesus reacted with a counter-charge of his own. What happens when traditions, however venerable, cut across what scripture itself said? He gave as his example a piece of special pleading. You could, in his day, make a formal declaration that the money that could have been used to support your parents was instead 'given to God' — thus neatly getting out of the open-ended, and often sad and messy, business of looking after the elderly. Scripture has been overthrown, as Isaiah said would happen, by human tradition.

This passage has been seized upon down the years by people eager to make a similar point in relation to the growth of various kinds of tradition within the church. And it has to be admitted that all segments of the church (including, paradoxically, the streams of Protestantism that have protested about other people's 'traditions') are quite capable of producing traditions which manage to get around what scripture actually says. Tradition matters because, so we believe, God hasn't stopped working in the lives of his people by his Spirit. We have learned a lot over the last two thousand years which shouldn't just be thrown away. But there is always the chance, in every branch of the church, that the traditions will take on a life of their own and distort or deny some key bit of scripture. This passage should remind us of that danger. Lent is a good time for the church to examine itself on this question.

Jesus then took the occasion to develop his own vision of purity. He didn't say physical cleanness didn't matter. What he did say was that inner purity was far more important. Follow- ing deep strains of thought in scripture itself, he warned that the human heart is the source of the greatest pollution, and that nothing in human tradition can purify it. The implication is clear: Jesus is offering a cure for the polluted heart.

That was the real bone of contention between Jesus and the Pharisees. They were supporting a system which, at its best, was pointing forward to God's great desire to find a purified people for himself. Jesus was claiming that God was now doing this, through him.

They were setting up signposts; he claimed to offer the reality which made the signposts redundant. Here is the lesson for us: following Jesus, allowing him to cleanse us through and through, puts us in direct continuity with the ancient scriptures, and enables us to discern the good and the less good in human traditions.

TODAY
Gracious Lord, teach us so to love you that we may find ourselves transformed by your holiness; and save us from human traditions that would imprison us in our own inventions.

Matthew 15

1 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ 5 But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father. 6 So, for the sake of your tradition, you nullify the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:

8 ‘This people honors me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me,
    teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ ”

10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” 12 Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” 13 He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” 15 But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” 16 Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.

29 After Jesus had left that place, he passed along the Sea of Galilee, and he went up the mountain, where he sat down. 30 Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the maimed, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them, 31 so that the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

32 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for the crowd because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat, and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.” 33 The disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?” 34 Jesus asked them, “How many loaves have you?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.” 35 Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, 36 he took the seven loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 37 And all of them ate and were filled, and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 38 Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 After sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.