Mark 7:1-23: Turning Tradition Inside Out

(1) Bible Study Questions

Discuss: What are some examples of religious obligations people bear that find their origin in human tradition? Do you think people can use religion or rituals in an attempt to avoid having to obey God? If so, how?

1. Why do you think that the Pharisees are asking Jesus about ritual washing? (v. 5; cf. 3:6)

2. Where did the Pharisees get the idea of ritual washing from? (vv. 3, 5, 8, 9, 13) What was the purpose of the washing? (vv. 5, 15)

Note: ‘Washing’—The Old Testament commanded priests to ritually wash as part of their ministry before the LORD in the tabernacle, but God did not command the practices of the elders that we read about here.

3. How were the religious leaders of Jesus’ day using religion to avoid their obedience to God? (vv. 8-9)

Note: ‘Corban’—a gift devoted to God (v. 11). The pharisaic practice was to allow benefactors to devote money or property to the temple treasury while still keeping it for their lifetime. The property then, conveniently, could not be given to the parents in their old age (R T France, Matthew: TNTC, 243). As Christians, our obligation is clear (1 Tim 5:8). Pray that we do better than the Pharisees!

4. How would you describe Jesus' answer to their question? (v. 6)

5. What had become the Pharisees’ authority for these religious practices? What effect did this have on their commitment to the Scriptures?

6. In terms of ‘honouring their fathers and mothers’, how had the Pharisees engaged in hypocrisy in the tradition that they had established or adopted?

7. What was Jesus' authority for belief and behaviour? Do you think anything else is necessary living to obey God?

Discuss: “People are basically decent and good. Sometimes they get led astray or make mistakes, but generally people are good.”

8. Who does Jesus speak this parable to? (v. 15)

9. What is it about the religion of the Pharisees that might have led the people to think differently about the source of evil? (cf. v. 3)

10. Why do you think that Jesus is so sharp in his rebuke of his disciples? (v. 18)

11. What is the consequence of the fact that “nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean”? (v. 19; cf. Acts 10:10-16; 1 Tim 4:3-7)

12. Where does Jesus say the source of uncleanness is? (v. 21)

13. What do you notice about the symptoms of heart disease? (v. 22)

Note: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9). The ‘heart’ encapsulates the mind, will, and emotions and comes nearest to meaning the ‘whole person’ of all the New Testament anthropological terms (New Bible Dictionary, 465).

14. If the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart, what do you think is the solution? (cf. Heb 10:15-18)

(2) Sermon Script

Introduction

Are you someone who likes to wash your car? On Saturday mornings sometimes, do you wake up and think, “What a fine morning. The sun is shining, the birds are singing. I think I’ll park the car up on the lawn, get out the Armourall, the shammy, even a bit of wax, and give the car a good wash.”

I’ve had that experience a handful of times in my life. Incidentally, it is frequently straight after we’ve just got a new car. It looked so good after all the professional detailing. It seems so easy just to take a few days dust off an essentially clean car.

But what about the situation when you take the clean car for a drive, and it has some disturbing tendencies. So off goes the washed car to the mechanic, and as he hovers underneath your shiny car, he shakes his head, and says, “I’m sorry,” and then as he starts speaking a strange language for quite a while as he lists the problems with the car. You can only make out a few words: something about a “head gasket” and “burning oil”. But you certainly understand his final words, “Really, it would be cheaper to just get a new car.”

“But I just washed this car! Look at it. I’ve buffed it. I’ve vacuumed the upholstery. I’ve got this nice car deodorant for it. I’ve even dusted off the fluffy dice!”

Washing the car will not fix it. The problem is not the dirt on the outside, but it’s the engine on the inside. There are some things that washing with water cannot fix.

Well, in our passage today, Jesus here is the straight talking mechanic. For he too has met people who loved to make sure that the outside was clean, but unfortunately, they were unable to see the real problem.

Shock, Horror, Scandal (vv. 1-5)

Jesus is in Galilee and some ‘Pharisees’ and ‘teachers of the law’ had come from Jerusalem. The ‘Pharisees’ were not priests; they were what we would call ‘religious hard-liners’. They were one of the strictest sects of the Jewish religion. The ‘teachers of the law’ were like the university professors that taught the Jewish religion. They are the religious experts from head office, and they have come to checking out how this controversial new teacher from rural Galilee does things. Unfortunately, the visitors are not impressed with what they see.

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered round Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with unclean—that is, ceremonially unwashed hands (NIV)

The disciples of Jesus eat their sandwiches without washing their hands. Big deal! What’s all this about? Is this the ‘hygiene gestapo’, who goes round at lunchtime checking whether tradesmen’s fingernails are dirty before they eat their meat pies?

No, these men aren’t employed by the health department, for the Pharisees are reflecting a practice that was generally accepted among the Jews. The practice was that before they ate, they would wash their hands. It wasn’t like surgeons washing up to the elbows in their seven minute scrub before they operate. It was probably just a handful of water—literally, it was a handful of water, ‘with fist’. It was a ceremony, a symbolic act, like when I was an altar boy at mass, and we used to pour a tiny bit of water on the priest’s finger tips before he blessed the host. It had little or no hygienic value. It was a ritual. And Mark also tells us that this symbolic wash was not only used on hands, but also on cups and other utensils.

Now, an important question to ask about any ceremony or symbolic act is “What does it symbolize?” A symbol should symbolize something. We are not told directly what the washing symbolized. But Jesus’ response tells us what the symbol was about. It was about cleaning a person who had contact with the outside world. That’s what the Jewish washing rituals after the market place was all about. Everybody went to the marketplace: sinful people, gentiles, Roman soldiers, tax collectors, prostitutes, bleeding women, people with discharges, all the ritually unclean and morally defiled. The symbolism said that, in the outside world, there were ceremonially unclean people and things, and these people or things might make someone ceremonially unclean.

What is this whole system saying? It says that the enemy is outside, the problem is outside. On the inside, you are clean. If you were left alone, you would be clean. And if those nasty things and people weren’t out there in the marketplace, you would be clean. But because of them, because of all those unclean things and people out there, you need to have a ceremonial wash. And once you clean the outside, you are OK again.

Now, this ceremonial washing was a ‘tradition of the elders’. Do you see that in verse 3, that the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were “Holding to the tradition of the elders.” So these practices are in some sense old practices, to some extent, anyway. That doesn’t mean they are the oldest, nor the best. It simply means that they are older than the person doing them.

But in verses 9 and 13, Jesus calls these ritual washings, “your own traditions.” So the Pharisees and teachers of the law have made some of these practices, these traditions, which they had received, their own.

Now, in the Old Testament, the priests were required to wash their hands and feet before entering the temple (Exod 30:19). And they had to have a bath if they touched something unclean (Lev 22:1-6). And if someone or something unclean through a discharge touched a person, they would also be unclean, and they too would have to wash (Lev 15:11).

But the Pharisees also went beyond the Old Testament requirements in a very deliberate way. For the Pharisees held to both the Old Testament law and their oral tradition. Apparently, the Rabbis’ claimed that Moses had received two laws on Mount Sinai. The first was the written law, the Old Testament laws that we have in our Bibles, and the second was an oral law, called the Mishnah. This second oral law was eventually written down. It was distinct from the Old Testament, and it was said to preserve an unbroken chain of authorized tradition originating from Moses. And this oral law was seen as a fence around the Old Testament. The Old Testament alone was unable to govern daily life. What was also required was this oral law, which ensured that the Old Testament laws were kept.

So the Pharisees frame their question to Jesus not just in terms of ritual washing but in terms of the authority of this oral law, the traditions of the elders. Verse 5:

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands.” (NIV)

Now, there are two reasons people ask questions. The first is to get an answer. The second is to challenge the person they are asking. I think we’ve got the second, here. Implicitly, Jesus is ignoring the traditions of men. So the Pharisees’ challenge Jesus using a question.

Rebuked by Jesus: You Hypocrites (vv. 6-13)

And so Jesus escalates the situation. He comes back hard with a stinging rebuke. Verses 6 to 7:

Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites, as it is written: “These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.” (NIV)

In response, Jesus takes up two issues with the Pharisees. Both are related.

First, Jesus uses the ‘H’ word. He calls them ‘hypocrites’, that most stinging of barbs that can be thrown at a diligent and scrupulous religious person. “You hypocrites!” The word ‘hypocrite’ is taken from the world of Greek theatre. A hypocrite was an actor on stage who wore a mask, hiding what they were really like, so that they might appear to look like someone else.

Now, the Pharisees were busy doing all kinds of religious things very carefully. They obeyed all manner of laws and commands and regulations. But Jesus is saying to them, “There is a heart problem with your worship. Your words suggest that you worship God, but your hearts are not right with God. Outside, everything looks OK, but inside, there is a problem. Your heart attitude is wrong. ”These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" (NIV).

Here is the first criticism Jesus makes, that of ‘hypocrisy’. Jesus, with his piercing eye, sees through the religious leadership, who have engaged in the systematic separation of the outward appearance from the inward reality.

And in the same way, Jesus sees through our hypocrisy also. It is easy to point out another’s hypocrisy, but it is much harder to see our own, and even if we’ve seen it, to change it. Friends, we are the ones in danger of hypocrisy, because in our society, we are in some way ‘the religious ones’. Hypocrisy starts at church.

Dear friends, how are you on the inside? How is it going with your heart? Are you far from God on the inside? How are you going loving the Lord your God with all your heart? For God does not look to appearances, but to the heart, and to motives. And when Jesus returns, he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts (1 Cor 4:4). At that time each will receive his praise from God. But we must remember this, that the sacrifices that God accepts are a humble spirit: a humble and contrite heart, God will not despise.

And the second issue Jesus raised is related to this. The Jewish religious leaders show their attitude to God by who they obey. They obey men’s rules, not God’s. Verse 7, “their teachings are but rules taught by men.” Again, verse 8, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.” Again, in verse 9, Jesus gets bitingly sarcastic, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!” (NIV)

The way we worship God must be set by God himself. And Jesus is saying here that the Pharisees had let go of one, God’s commands, to hold on to the other, human traditions. It’s perverse, isn’t it, that the oral law, the thing thought to be a fence to the written law and preventing people from tampering with it, was actually distorting the law? It is similar to what we observe when people accept two sources of final authority— scripture and tradition—that people will inevitably let go of scripture and hold on to their tradition.

Jesus gives one example in verses 9 to 13 of their practices, making it clear that this was not just an isolated case. In the last part of verse 13, Jesus says, “You do many things like that.” Jesus’ example is ‘corban’. This was a bit like making bequests for religious purposes in a will. The warnings of my teachers when I was studying law told me that wills bring out both the best and worst in people. Incidentally, make sure you have a will. In the 1662 Prayer Book, it says in the order for the visitation of the sick that “men should often be reminded to settle their affairs while they are in health.” But the execution of a will might bring out the worst in people. You might have heard stories of people being written out of wills, “You won’t get a cent, I’m giving it all to the dogs home!”

Well, it seems that ‘corban’ functioned a bit like this. In its standard form, ‘corban’ was a promise to give goods for the use of the temple after the promisor died. So the goods would be given to the temple, but a sinful and dishonourable son might then do something like this: he might then declare his property ‘corban’. This dedicated his property to God. But the promisor was allowed to use it until his death, and only then it would go to the temple. This was the way that the needy parents were excluded by the practice.[1]

The parents in this way were not honoured, not helped, not provided for, because the deceased’s estate had been vowed to the religious leaders as ‘corban’, and to all this, the Pharisees were party, because they enforced the vow. Jesus says that the Pharisees “no longer let him do anything for his mother and father”.

God's Word or Human Tradition?

The Bible says, “You must honour mother and father. If you curse your mother and father, you deserve to be executed.” But the tradition lets the sinful son say to mother and father, “Corban to you! You won’t get a cent.” And thus the word of God is nullified by the tradition. This is just one example of the process for the Pharisees, and they themselves are just one group that does it.

How is it that denominations and churches can at once hold on to the bible and do things inconsistent with the bible? One of the reasons is this, that “We’ve always done it this way. Look at the long list of people who for years have done it. Who do you think you are, challenging our sacred tradition?” It is good to remember that they Articles of the Anglican church demand that we assess man-made tradition or custom with Scripture. Article 6 says:

Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation, so that whatever is not read in it, nor can be proved by it, is not to be required of any person to be believed as an article of faith, or to be thought necessary for salvation.

Article 20 emphasizes the same thing:

It is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s word written.

“But we’ve always done it this way. Anglicans always do it this way. St Thomas’ does this! MBM just does it this way! That’s what tradition is, a habit that just continues and continues. having a life of its own, by use and habit gaining an authority of a sort.

It reminds me of the story of a family who always used to cut the Sunday roast in half before putting it in the oven. Why? Well, the reason because “That’s the way that mum used to cook it.” But why did mum cook it that way? That was because the oven was too small. It doesn’t matter that the small war-time oven is long gone: the tradition has a life of its own that continues long after the rationale has disappeared.

But Jesus also wants to deal with the broader issue of ceremonial uncleanness. For the traditions not only nullify the word of God, but they also rest on a misunderstanding. So Jesus will turn their tradition inside out. Verses 14 to 15:

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this: Nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.” (NIV)

Here is tradition turned inside out. The ritual washings and the food laws were all based on this idea. Uncleanness is outside me. I am clean on the inside. But Jesus is saying, “It is the stuff that comes out of you that makes you unclean. That is, things from the inside coming out, is what makes you unclean.”

Now, verse 17 tells us that the disciples didn’t understand Jesus. No surprises there: it was a parable, a riddle to them. And so they go to Jesus for an explanation, which is what parables are designed to do. So Jesus unmistakably spells out what he means. Verse 18, “Are you so dull?” Are you so thick? Do you still not get it? It’s encouraging isn’t it, that the disciples were so slow to understand, and they even had Jesus with them?

So Jesus spells it out. Food doesn’t make a person unclean. Food cannot make a person unclean, because it is the heart that makes a person unclean. And food doesn’t go anywhere near the heart. Food goes into the belly, then out into the toilet. That is actually what Jesus says, even though the modern translations are embarrassed to use the word. This was Jesus at his plain speaking best. Food cannot and does not make a person clean or unclean. And so Jesus himself is saying, “All food is clean.”

Everything is created by God, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. (NIV)

But here is something bigger than just the tradition of the elders. It also affects the Old Testament food laws. Jesus is saying that these laws in Leviticus are no longer applicable. We can therefore enjoy calamari rings, lobster, crabs, and prawns. We can eat ham sandwiches or a pork roll for lunch. We can enjoy bacon and eggs with a clear conscience. We can even eat rabbit stew. All food is clean (Rom 14:20). Whether it is coffee, or beer, or octopus, or crocodile: blood sausage or brains or lambs fry—all food is clean. But there is something that is unclean. There is something that defiles a person. Verses 20 to 23:

Jesus went on, “What comes out of a man is what makes him unclean. For from within, out of men’s hearts, comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man unclean.” (NIV) The heart of the problem is the problem of the human heart. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can understand it? " It has been so since Genesis 3. Genesis 6:5 is one of the saddest verses in the bible.

The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. (NIV)

There is a traitor in the camp. There is an enemy inside: your heart, and my heart, looking to betray us. There is the source of our uncleanness.

We don’t need to go beyond the first item on Jesus’ list. We could talk about each one: theft, murder, sexual immorality, envy, greed, malice, slander. But they all start with ‘evil thoughts’, bad thinking, sinful-hearted attitudes and beliefs. We may not have acted on all of them. We may not even have wanted them. But they are there, resident in our hearts, and it seems that some of them at least will be there till the day we die. And as you grow to know the Lord more and more, he will show you them, more and more.

Conclusion

Friends, a great change happens in us when we become a Christ. We receive a new nature, a new heart, and a new Spirit. We have new thoughts, new desires, a new purpose and attitude in life. But still, we must never deny this fact, that the heart of man is deceitful and wicked beyond cure. As Paul says in Romans 7, “When we want to do good, evil is right there with me.” Even when we love God’s law, there is another law at work in our bodies, waging war against the law of our mind (Rom 7:21-23). “Nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh”, in my sinful nature, in my sinful heart. Circumstances may squeeze it out. Pressure may bring it to the surface, like squeezing a toothpaste tube. Unlooked for temptations may coax these things from us. Anger may cause it to erupt. But this we must say, that evil was always there, and will continue to be there, until the day when God makes all things new.

So friends, little religious ceremonies cannot save us. Little ceremonies that effectively say, “I am a good person and evil comes from outside me.” No, we need to face the resident evil inside. We may be ashamed of what we find there, but never surprised. That is why we need nothing less than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We need a double cure, in Toplady’s words. We have a bad record and a bad heart. We need forgiveness and change. We need Jesus death on the cross for us, and the Holy Spirit in us.

Let’s pray.

[1] Edwards, Mark: Pillar, 210.

(3) English Translation