Introductory

One more time, when the Pharisees try to get to Jesus, He turns the tables, and He shows them who the true hypocrites really are . . .

I. When Traditions Upstage God’s Law

The orthodox Jews revere two sets of teaching: the law of Moses, and the collection of interpretations of the law handed down from generation to generation, called the “traditions of the elders”. A collection of these traditions was finally made about AD 200 and has been known since then as the MISHNAH. Before then, and during the time of Jesus’ life on earth, it was simply called the “oral tradition”. One of the jobs of the rabbis, according to the Talmud, was to “build a wall around the Law” in order to protect it. So the rabbis through the ages made a long series of “judgments” about what was the right way to carry out the Law. In essence these were rules of behavior that good Jews should obey. The problem, as Jesus points out, is that sooner or later the distinction between the actual command of God and the traditional interpretation becomes blurred, and the tradition becomes more familiar and important than the intent of the law it was supposed to interpret and protect.

One of these areas of traditional rule-keeping was that of ceremonial cleansing. One entire tractate, the Yadaim, which consisted of reams of material, had to do with the HANDS, specifying how the hands must be ceremonially cleansed before and after meals. The very specific rules of this ritual were to be followed to the letter or else the person who are was guilty of gross carnal defilement and would lead inevitably to poverty or some worse calamity. If you ate bread without ceremonially cleansing your hands, it would make the bread you ate as if it were excrement.

The precise nature of this cleansing procedure was important. You had to use certain water that was kept in protected vases for this purpose. First you held both hands out with fingers together pointing upwards and poured the water over the fingers, letting the water run down, dripping off the wrists. Then, because that water had been defiled by the uncleanness of the hands, you turned your hands with your fingers downward and poured water over the wrists, letting the water drip off the fingertips. Of course, you also needed to use the prescribed amount of water each time, which amounted to about one and one half egg shells full. The strictest of Jews would perform this cleansing ritual before and after every meal, and even between courses.

We need to understand, this had nothing to do with physical hygiene--it was assumed that dirt and grime were already washed off your hands with ordinary water. This was an additional, ritualistic, ceremonial cleansing. It was not a scriptural commandment, but one of the “traditions of the elders” (vss. 3, 5). Of course, Jesus called it a tradition of “men” (vs. 8).

When the disciples of Jesus ate lunch without going through the traditional cleansing, the Pharisees and teachers of the Law were appalled. So they asked Jesus, apparently thinking they had Him cornered, “Why don’t your guys live according to the tradition of the elders? They didn’t do the cleansing thing before they ate!” Jesus responds, not by answering their question, but by showing them their priorities were wrong. They were making tradition more important than scripture in their lives. He basically says to them that their devotion to God and their worship is useless to God, because they are more interested in their traditions than in the intent of the Law of God.

The Jewish leaders thought they were preserving something important in the ancient traditions, but Jesus said the only thing they were preserving was the hypocritical spirit of those whom Isaiah was criticizing. Notice, there really is nothing wrong with the traditions themselves. But, they were only outward symbols of spiritual realities, and the religious leaders had elevated them to a place of unwarranted importance. The scripture never assigns any spiritual value or blessing to these ritualistic cleansings. The moral principle that was originally supposed to be illustrated in the hand-washing ritual was that a person should stay pure and holy before the Lord, symbolized by the ceremonial cleansing of the hands. Jesus says, “You guys got your hands clean, but you forgot to cleanse your hearts--and that’s the only really important thing!” Throughout the history of religion, man-made rules have always made the mistake of attaching significance and spiritual benefit to ceremonies and ritual activities.

What is really important and mandatory in your relationship with God? Bottom line, what does God really want from you? Could you be pleasing to Him if you didn’t do a lot of the things Christians do? Charles Spurgeon once asked his congregation, “If there were no Sunday morning service at eleven, how many of you would be Christians?” What is absolutely essential to a right relationship with the Lord? It’s loving Him with all your heart, mind and strength, isn’t it? But, like the Pharisees, it is so easy in the church to lean on the ceremonial to the exclusion of the spiritual, to cling to the form of religion instead of the truth. So people get all upset if you don’t use the King James Version of the Bible (no, for them, not even the New King James will do); you can’t use chairs in the sanctuary, you’ve got to have pews (that’s the way the 1st century church did it!); you’ve got to have stained glass and a steeple on the church building; you’re supposed to pray in Elizabethan English; women don’t take the offering, only men do--this is a New Testament church! What do you mean, small groups in homes? Why don’t we just meet in the building like Peter and Paul did? I’m not the evangelist around here--let the minister tell them how to get saved--that’s the way it’s always been (besides, what do we pay the guy for anyway?

John Parker, in the book Roll Call, tells the story that for more than twenty years, for no apparent reason, an attendant stood at the foot of the stairway leading to the House of Commons. At last someone checked and discovered that the job had been held in the attendant’s family for three generations. It seems that years before the attendant’s great grandfather was stationed there and given the task of warning people not to use the steps because they had just been painted and the paint was still wet--A British newsman said, “The paint dried up, but not the job.” We must always be careful that what we consider sacred is really the truth of God and not some temporary way of doing things. We cannot afford to let ourselves be married to tradition and treat it as importantly as we treat the Word of God and loving Him and serving Him.

Attending Celebration on Sunday morning, tithing exactly 10%, going to cell, giving your time to teach children, being involved in outreach programs, taking the Lord’s Supper at little tables, bowing your head when you pray, praying before meals (praying before meals at church!), not buying a lottery ticket, voting for only Christian candidates, not raising your hands as you worship -- raising your hands as you worship--, going to an “R”-rated movie . . . which of these is tradition and which is commandment from the Lord? It can get confusing, can’t it?

There are some evangelical believers who are certain that you can’t really be a Christian unless you are a Republican! Or, if you have any other belief about the end times besides pre-tribulationism you are suspect in your faith. Some say if you drink anything stronger than wine you can’t be a follower of Christ. There is a breadth of doctrinal disagreement about a lot of things that frankly are not that important. I don’t have to make you agree with me about what I think of the millennium or dancing or gambling or whether or not to spank children & what age to stop or homeschooling or spiritual gifts or Y2K or anything less important than the clear, unmuddied teaching of scripture. People often ask a Pastor, “What does your church believe?” That’s a hard one to answer. We believe a lot of things, and every one of us believes just a little differently about them. I tell people, here’s what I teach, and I hand them a copy of the 1975 Lausanne Covenant--a doctrinal agreement of 100’s of evangelical denominational leaders who came together to work together to get the world evangelized.

Nothing is easier than for a congregation to fall into the trap of making its traditions into inviolable commandments of God, while at the same time casually disregarding the weightier matters of God’s will. Let’s not legislate ourselves into a legalistic adherence to anything other than the clear teaching of scripture. Someone once said, “The last act of a dying organization is
to get out a new and enlarged edition of the rule book.” Rule books finish off churches. Traditions that are treated as canonized law strangle Christians to death. You see, the real Pharisaical problem is when you take your provincial, extra-biblical way of doing things and insist that others do it like you do it, when, to the Lord, it doesn’t matter--just get it done! Someone once accosted Dwight Moody and said, “I don’t like the way you do evangelism!” Moody asked the man how many souls he had won to Christ that year, to which the man said, “I don’t know, I don’t think any!” Moody: “I’ve seen
thousands come to Christ--I like the way I do evangelism a whole lot better than the way you don’t!” God’s scriptural principles and commandments are designed to liberate. Jesus calls it religious hypocrisy when tradition upstages the Commands of God. It is also hypocrisy when

II. Lips are separated from hearts

Everybody dislikes hypocrisy. And apparently God does, too. Jesus quotes Isaiah to make his point - whenever a person substitutes lip service for heart commitment he is a hypocrite just like these scribes and Pharisees Jesus is railing against. He goes for the jugular now. He accuses the religious leaders of breaking the actual law of God while trying to uphold the traditions of men. He says, “You’re so worried about this little ritual of hand-washing, but you allow for the deliberate disobedience of the Law of Moses.” The oral tradition allowed for a person to declare some or all of his wealth “CORBAN” which meant it was “devoted to God, consecrated”. In that way the person could keep a creditor from getting something valuable from him. But the intent of the law was not to keep the treasures from creditors to whom the person rightfully owed it--it was to be a means of worshipping the Lord with a promised offering.

The oral tradition of the Pharisees also allowed that a person could declare his riches CORBAN and avoid taking care of his parents if they were in need. Grandma and Grandpa have to enter the poorest run-down nursing home in town unless you cough up a few grand of your savings to help them out. “Sorry--it’s CORBAN!” What’s worse is, the traditions also permitted a way out of the CORBAN promise later when the parents died, so that what was kept from the parents because it was dedicated to the Lord, was now taken back for personal use. Did you ever take back a promise as a kid because “I had my fingers crossed!”

Jesus ties into the Pharisees because the traditions they protected actually worked against the commandments of God, like “Honor your father and mother”. Then he stresses the point in verse 13, “And you do many things like that!” In effect he says, “Don’t jump my disciples about breaking one of your inconsequential traditions, when you make it a habit of breaking the laws of God through those traditions!” You say you are serving the Lord, but your lives don’t show it! Jesus’ desire was to bring heart and lips together, uniting ceremony with faith. He had no respect for “Sunday go to meetin’” religion. Worship is that state of heart and lip that is as evident on Monday morning on the job as it is Sunday morning.

Mark Twain was always offending his wife by his rather picturesque public language. Once she decided to use the old “if-you-can’t-beat-’em, join-’em” approach. so she memorized a whole string of curse words and one day she let him have them, hoping to show him how terrible it was to talk like that. She failed. He just laughed and told her, “You know the words, my dear, but you haven’t got the tune.” In our walk for Christ the words we speak must be in sink with the tune in our hearts. In fact, Jesus says, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.

While the religious leaders were all caught up in worrying about the ceremonial uncleanness of the food one would eat with unclean hands, and how it might defile them, Jesus says, “Don’t worry about what goes into the mouth and into the digestive tract and is then expelled from the body; the real concern isn’t the stomach--it’s the heart. And whenever unclean things come out of the heart, it is only proof that the heart is not right.” “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

What you say must, and ultimately will, reflect what you are in your heart. Can there be anything more irreligious than the hypocrite who keeps speaking religious stuff, but whose heart is far from God? Jesus severely judges any religion as hypocrisy where the lips and the heart are separated.

III. Hypocrisy is letting religious externalism replace right relationship

I suppose the greatest problem the traditionalists had was what always happens when you start defending a position that is anything less than the will of God. You end up in a religion of outward behaviors. You begin to say to yourself, “I know, deep down, that I am rotten and not very holy--I’m sure I’m not acceptable to God. But, if I find the right religion--you know where I can perform the right activities, make the right noises--I can at least LOOK religious. If I can’t please God, I can always fool the people around me.” Here is religion at its worst--putting on a behavioral facade to cover up what is bad inside. This is precisely what troubled the Lord so much - “You hypocrites! You’re like whitewashed tombs - all painted on the outside, but dead bones inside!” This kind of religion sickens the Lord. Isaiah 1 - “Who asked you to come and worship me in pomp and ceremony? You’re full of sin and hypocrisy--get out of my sanctuary!”

Who are those who are in fellowship with the Lord--those who wear decent clothes, don’t go to movies or bars, don’t eat pork or drink alcohol or smoke or any number of things we have set up beyond the sacred page to determine holiness? Listen, it’s a lot easier to try to please God by avoiding a couple of things or obeying just a couple of clearly defined rules. “Just tell me what I can and can’t do.” But Jesus won’t let us get away with this kind of legalistic approach to relating to Him. True religion is in the heart--do you have a heart for God? Never mind for now the ragged behaviors--God can take care of those better than we can--do you love Him with all your heart and soul? You can ceremonially wash your hands all day long and be religiously very dirty. But if your heart is right, that’s what really matters.

You know the real reason why cosmetic religion saddens the Lord? It’s not just that it’s hypocritical and people are trying to fool the Lord who knows everything; and it’s not just that his people are settling for a far inferior brand of religion that just pleases other people but can never please the Lord. Here’s what saddens the Lord about play-acting religion -- When we play at religion, we’re miserable, we’re unhealed, we’re still in bondage! And this is just what Jesus came and died to fix! He wants to heal us of the ill effects of our sins, but we’re so busy hiding our sins with veneer religion, feverishly doing some good things, pretending we’re making ourselves OK, that the Lord can’t get to our problems. That, friends, is the real tragedy
of hypocrisy. not that we present an inconsistent lack of integrity to the watching world--bad as that is. Not that we distort the truth by twisting it into a set of behaviors FOR God, instead of a description of a relationship WITH Him. No, it’s that, when we fake it, God can’t heal us.

Picture yourself as a child who’s been told not to eat the cookies. You eat them and dad walks in and catches you. Now, he’s ready to forgive you, but your too busy doing the great cover-up to hear his heart. “What? No, I didn’t eat anything! See, no crumbs! Hey, dad, need me to mow the grass for you?” He lovingly says, “Not really, I’d rather get to the bottom of this relational thing here; then, when you’re forgive, you’ll feel much better about mowing the grass for me. If you side-step the painful process of repentance and forgiveness, you’ll go out there and work yourself trying to please me, and, when you’re all done, you’ll know that our relationship is still not right.”

I’m afraid this hypocritical religion has got us a lot more than we often realize. As I understand the Word of God, here’s how you know if you’re caught up in this kind of hypocrisy, this legalistic, works-oriented, cosmetic kind of religion. Ask yourself these questions:

1. When you’re serving the Lord, are you always tired, resentful--or are you full of joy and thankful for the privilege?

2. When you do your religious activities, are so you worried about whether it will be good enough for Him that you’re pre-occupied more with the form than with your relationship with Him?

3. Has your heart wept with repentance lately?

4. Is worship a delightful opportunity for you or an obligation?

5. Does the chance to help a brother or sister in need make you sigh or sing?

6. Are you burned out or built up?

7. Do you find yourself involved in little white lies as you tell others how you are doing in the Lord?

8. Do what you think and what you say match?

9. Does God seem to you more of a Father or a judge?

10. In your personal stewardship, do you love to give lavishly to the Lord or are you desperately trying to give enough?

11. When you pray do you know you are connecting with the Lord or do you HOPE you are getting through?

12. Is sharing your faith with someone an obligation or opportunity?

13. Do you know you are right with the Lord right now?

In closing let’s look briefly at that passage in Isaiah 1 we touched on earlier. Just after God pronounces judgment on the people for their pretentious religion, he says (18-20):

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

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