Transcript

Matthew 15:15-20 · NOBA @ Noon

Canon Justin Murff: The Gospel of Matthew chapter fifteen verses fifteen through twenty. But Peter said to him, Explain this parable to us. And Jesus said, Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery. Sexual immorality, theft, false witness, and slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. The Gospel of the Lord. Jesus is reclining at table and he's eating with his disciples when suddenly the Pharisees and the scribes begin challenging Jesus because his disciples were eating without first performing the ritual hand washing. And Jesus responds by challenging their sense of tradition. Now, Peter asks for further explanation. And Jesus says to him, Are you are you also still without understanding? Jesus questions this kind of almost with a sense of mild frustration. His disciples, after all, had spent many, many times with him, eating. They have traveled with him, journeyed with him, and yet for some odd reason they still struggled. To grasp the point underlining much of his teaching. Jesus says, Do you not see whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? Yes, this biological observation is pretty straightforward. Food enters in, gets processed in the GI tract, and exits. It doesn't actually touch the spiritual center of a person. See, digestion is morally neutral. But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. And here is the revolutionary teaching that Jesus was trying to make. Defilement isn't about what enters from the outside in, but it's what emerges from the inside out. The heart, the core of our human identity, will and desire, is connected to the mouth as well, and it can be a source of moral corruption. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander, these are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands doesn't defile anyone. The list that Jesus provides represents this catalog of heart generated sins. Notice though how they move from internal and hidden, such as evil thoughts, to external actions like murder and adultery, and then on to the public relational violations, such as bearing false witness and slander. Though the wicked heart produces the thought, the thought produces the action. For Matthew's original audience, many of whom were trying to navigate their own relationship with traditional Jewish purity laws that they had grown up with, this teaching was both liberating and challenging. Liberating because it freed them from the elaborate ritual requirements, but challenging because it located the problem much deeper than they might have preferred, and certainly much more closer to home. Things external can be changed, cleaned, covered over. But internal? Well, that's a different story entirely. The Pharisees had built an entire system around external purity. In fact, it seemed like almost every hundred yards there was a ritual mikvah, a baptismal pool where you could wash yourself clean and be pure again. Wash your hands the right way, avoid the right foods, ⁓ maintain the right boundaries, and you'll be clean before God. But Jesus totally demolishes this framework though, because the problem isn't dirty hands, it's unclean hearts. This has profound implications for how we understand our own spiritual lives. If defilement comes from within, then external religious performance can never truly address our fundamental problem, which is an unclean heart. How does this passage challenge us? Well, first, it exposes the inadequacy of external religious systems. We can construct these elaborate rituals of behavioral modification, but they can leave the heart untouched. We can be scrupulously religious, entirely legalistic, and yet deeply defiled at the same time if our hearts remain unclean. Second, it redirects our attention back to the heart. What we think about when no one is watching, what we desire when no one really knows, what we rehearse in our imagination, and what we do when no one is looking, these are the areas where defilement often lives, grows, and thrives. Third, it calls us to honest self-examination. Jesus' list really does read like a diagnostic tool. Evil thoughts? Well, where does your mind go? False witness? Do I always represent the reality truthfully? But what about slander? Well, how do I speak about others when they're not around? Finally, it points to our need for a genuine heart transformation. And that's something that we can't accomplish in and of ourselves. If the heart is the problem, And we can't wash our own hearts clean, then we need someone who can. We need the great physician to renew our hearts and to make them clean. Today let's examine our heart honestly. What comes out of our mouths when we're tired, frustrated, or surprised? Those unguarded moments can reveal what's truly inside.