Uprooting Barriers Pt. 1
Last year this time the CDC gave us practices that were intended to promote public health and save lives, however, if we’re honest, many of us have turned them into new ways to judge each other, further creating an us and a them. We were told to maintain six feet distance from each other, wear a mask and do something that we should have already been doing; washing our hands. Now I’ve got to confess that I often found myself looking down on others if they weren’t keeping six feet physical distance, wearing a mask or washing their hands, until I had a few times where, in my rush to get the kids ready and go outside for a walk, I’d realize I’d forgotten to bring my mask. I’d stay clear of anybody I saw and those that did see me at a distance, I’d think were judging me as badly as I would judge others that didn’t have a mask on. Though I’ve always maintained the importance of wearing a mask, I’ve since started to see others with a little more compassion, for often I’d hear them say in the moment that they forgot their mask just like I had.
It’s amazing how far we can find ourselves going when it comes to pre-judging others. And for a group of self-made “religious police”, the journey would be as far as from Jerusalem to Capernaum in Galilee, near Gentile territory. These Pharisees and scribes came all that way to question Jesus about why His disciples ate “bread” with unwashed hands, not out of concern for their hygiene or public health, like CDC guidelines, but out of concern for maintaining their own ceremonial traditions. However, what they failed to learn, by this point, is that you never want to come for Jesus, for His response came like a swift, 21st century clap back. His response was also like a typical 1st century rabbi, answering their question with another question, which exposed their breaking of God’s commandments for the sake of maintaining their traditions. He cites the example of their creating a religious loop hole that gave children an out from obeying God’s command to honor their parents through financial support as long as they stated that the funds were dedicated to God. Thus they invalidated the word of God in order to uphold their tradition, while at the same time trying to appear devoted to Him. Jesus calls them out as hypocrites, quotes Isaiah 29:13 as applying to them as worshipping in vain with hearts far from God, because they teach their human traditions as if they were the commandments of God. Then He turns to the crowd, in the presence of the Pharisees and scribes, and tells them that it’s not what enters the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth that defiles the person. Then in response to the disciples expressing concern about the Pharisees being offended by this statement, Jesus says, “Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted.” Matthew 15:13b NASB. Jesus is clearly not phased by offending the Pharisees, whom He called blind guides, however the disciple’s concern over them being offended reveals just how much influence they’re thinking and practices still had over them. And these constitute barriers to the Good News of the Kingdom that Jesus says must be uprooted!
This makes me wonder, when Jesus looks out over His church in the world today, does He see attitudes, thinking and practices in us that need to be uprooted? What barriers to the Good News of the Kingdom does Jesus reveal must be uprooted? Well, with humble and introspective hearts, let’s see what He shows us beginning in verse 15…
You can’t help but notice how frustrated Jesus sounds. Yet Peter’s question highlights, again, just how deep the thinking and traditions of the Pharisees run and how difficult it will be to unlearn. For you see the tradition of the elders regarding washing of hands had nothing to do with health and hygiene, but had everything to do with what and who they considered ceremonially clean or ceremonially defiled. They’re tradition defined defilement as coming in contact with unclean things or persons, particularly if you came in contact with the “unclean” Gentiles in the market place. Therefore they used this tradition to appear holy while trying to cloak the unholy bigotry festering in their heart. So I get Jesus’ frustration, because this same kind of foolishness, that the Father never planted, still happens in the church today. You see, a barrier to the Gospel that Jesus reveals must be uprooted is...
THE HYPOCRISY OF HUMAN TRADITIONS.
It’s like the experience of a colleague of mine from California who’s married to an Indian American. The opportunity came for him to take his wife with him to India to do a preaching series. She welcomed the idea because she’d finally get a chance to visit the home of her roots and see family. When the time came for him to preach the Gospel to a large crowd, he got so hot he decided to loosen his tie and eventually take off the jacket of the dark suit he had on. You could hear the gasp in the audience as he put down the jacket and then returned to preaching. A little later when he asked the local leaders about this reaction, they told him that when the missionaries came during colonial times to evangelize that area they also prescribed their Western European traditions as though they defined Christianity. Therefore, many of the local people equated wearing a dark suite and tie with what was acceptable to God for a Christian gathering, no matter how hot the sun was. This so startled the preacher, who also happened to be of European descent, that he felt compelled to give everyone permission, the next time he preached, to remove their hot jackets, because he saw this was a tradition that needed to be uprooted! He testified that many were relieved to have this tradition removed since they had been burning up in the hot sun. It reminds me of a time my mother came to visit my family and we all got in an elevator one Sabbath to go to our van to go to the worship service. We met one of my neighbors in the elevator, to whom my mother extended an invitation to come to our worship service. He politely declined because he said he didn’t have the formal attire to wear and wouldn’t feel comfortable standing out like that. You can’t tell me that this didn’t constitute a barrier to the Gospel that Jesus says is time to be uprooted!
You see these barriers tend to create an us and a them; those who are in and those who are out. And this is exactly what the Pharisees had done with the tradition of washing hands. They could now say that those who hadn’t washed their hands weren’t acceptable to God, especially because they came in contact with those “unclean” Gentiles in the market place. Now contrary to popular belief, by uprooting this tradition, Jesus was not undoing the principles of clean hygiene or the distinction between clean and unclean animals taught in the Torah, which were intended for our optimal health and flourishing. He’s not giving license for us to pollute our body temples with foods that aren’t good for our health. This tradition of the elders didn’t have those things in mind. The Pharisees added this tradition, which was not a command of Yahweh, to create a further distinction between them and those they deemed were ceremonially unclean, who was in and who was out, especially when it came to interaction with non-Jews. This is fully demonstrated in the experience of Peter & Cornelius in Acts chapter 10.
Yet what was most upsetting to Jesus about this practice was that it used a pretended form of spirituality to cloak the ugliness of bigotry and prejudice lurking in their hearts, thus making it appear that God was in agreement with them! That’s why in verses 19-20, Jesus says plainly that it’s actually the evil in our hearts, expressed through our mouths, that defile the person’s soul and not eating foods with unwashed hands, that is eventually expelled from the body. In saying this, Jesus was actually exposing the hypocrisy and the evil in the hearts of the Pharisees who were present there in the midst of the crowd! Jesus was saying enough is enough! This barrier needs to be uprooted!
We have a tendency to make issues and testing truths out things that God has not commanded in Scripture, many of which are traditions rooted in Western colonialism. We will point to this history and the traditions in the Roman papacy and decry them, while hypocritically holding on to some of our own traditions that find their root in the same system! As a matter of fact, some of us, in practice, are still in need of coming out of the system of prophetic Babylon! We have put preferences of culture, instruments, worship expression, attire, gender and the difference of generational experiences in place of the Gospel saturated word of the living God! He calls us to repent of this dead formalism. Jesus says enough is enough with these barriers that prevent people from receiving the Good News of the Kingdom that their hearts are actually thirsting for! He is uprooting that which the Father has not planted!