Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition. For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents. And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.”

Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand. It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.”

Then Jesus went into a house to get away from the crowd, and his disciples asked him what he meant by the parable he had just used. “Don’t you understand either?” he asked. “Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.)

And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.” (New Living Translation)

There is nothing inherently wrong with tradition. Ideally, traditions are helpful ways of remembering and maintaining the values that are important to us.

Yet, what can happen over time is that the tradition itself can become equal to the value we hold to; and eventually, the tradition can become more important than the value it is supposed to remind us of.

In the worst case scenario, the tradition is kept, and the value is forgotten and lost. Whenever that happens, traditions easily become weaponized to protect our interests while harming others. And that is a phenomenon Jesus wanted nothing to do with.

So, Christ affirmed and upheld the essential purpose of the Torah (scriptural law) as the foundation of morality to live justly and righteously in the world. Keeping Torah, therefore, is a matter of inner motives, and intents of the heart, rather than external compliance to ritualized traditions.

Unfortunately, the outward form had supplanted the inward disposition of the heart. Purity then became a matter of observable rituals, and defilement a matter of failing to do the ritual properly. And the original values behind the rituals were lost – which caused souls to become lost, and other people victimized by religious traditions.

Whether one is ritually clean or unclean is not ultimately determined by material objects; it is, instead, determined by the state of the heart.

In other words, no outward ritual can ever really make a person clean or unclean, pure or impure, spotless or polluted. Inner transformation is what scrubs a person clean and makes them pure.

Ritual traditions, and even scriptural law itself, is unable to effect a transformative change.

Torah can require purity, cleanness, and moral uprightness; but it cannot affect a metamorphosis. We need something other than traditions, rituals, and laws to bring true and sustainable transformation of life.

I say that it is time to hear and observe Jesus. Millions of people throughout history, and up to the present time, have found in Christ (and not in Christian rituals, traditions, church codes, nor in a political Christendom) the answer and the key to what life is really all about.

Again, there is not a problem with our human traditions per se, but with traditions replacing Torah and the word of God.

Jesus gave an example of just such a contradiction between religious tradition and divine law: According to tradition, if a person makes a vow concerning their property and/or possessions as a gift to God at the temple, then those assets cannot be used to support that person’s parents in their old age.

Christ pointed out that this clearly contradicts the command to honor your father and mother. Ironically, the very tradition that was supposed to purify became the means to contamination – because the tradition forbids the person from obeying the command of God.

In a word picture that everyone could understand, Jesus explained that impurity and defilement have to do with what passes through the heart, not the bowels.

People obey or disobey the Ten Commandments due to the state of their heart, and not whether they keep every detail of traditional washing of the hands and body.

People lack virtue not because they fail to do human traditions; but because of what is in their hearts.

This is why Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, gets to the heart of why people break commands. For example:

• The outward act of murder is a result of the inward anger of nurturing bitterness in the heart. (Matthew 5:21-22)
• The physical act of adultery is the culmination of dozens of mental adulteries which originated in the heart. (Matthew 5:27-28)

Everything that harms and hurts is sourced in the heart, and not in failing to keep a tradition.

Furthermore, the Gospel writer Mark, added the very interesting parenthetical comment that in speaking this way, Jesus meant to declare that all foods are clean; there is nothing eaten that can make us impure.

That may not seem remarkable to most people, but to Jews this statement is cataclysmic and revolutionary. Levitical law details the separating of clean and unclean food, for the purpose of distinguishing the Israelites from all the other surrounding nations. (Leviticus 11:43-44; 20:24-26)

Holding to food laws, and traditional hand washings when it comes to eating, are a way of preserving religious identity and national identity. Jesus had no intention of doing away with Jewish identity, but he very much intended to do away with maintaining practices that keep strict separation from other people.

In other words, Christ was opening the way for ministry to Gentiles. He wanted to bring connection where there was deep division. He wanted the world to know God.

This gets at the “heart” of true religion. Distinctiveness as God’s people does not necessarily nor ultimately come by observing particular traditions; it comes primarily through purity of heart.

And the means of bringing purity of any kind, comes through love. Love always makes a way and finds connections. Love is the sine qua non mark of God.

Traditions infused with love, point people to God, and let them know that they belong.

But traditions for tradition’s sake, repel people, and communicate to them that they don’t belong, and should go away and not pollute the pure ones.

This approach of Jesus toward the religious leaders raises for me several probing questions:

1. What is the true state of your heart?
2. Are you aware of your own heart’s dark shadows?
3. In what sort of direction is your heart inclined to speak and act?
4. Does encouragement or criticism typically arise from your heart?
5. Is love the compass of your heart, or does bitterness give you direction?
6. Will you acknowledge your need of a savior? Will you ask for help?

Blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: Make us quick to listen, and slow to speak, so that the Word implanted in our hearts may take root to nourish all of our living. And may the the Word within us overflow into speech and action which blesses the world. Amen.