Choose Your Battles

Reflection on Mark 7:1-23

The central teaching of this passage is that the keeping of traditions and customs, although important, are not as important as following the commands of God. Pharisees were watching Jesus and his disciples with a critical spirit. They noticed that some of Jesus’ disciples were eating without washing their hands, which was against the tradition of the elders, and bad hygiene. So, they called Jesus on it. But Jesus knew their hearts, and rather than defending his disciples, he zeroed in on the hearts of the Pharisees, the heart of the matter, and challenged them in their spiritual pride.
In challenging the Pharisees, he is not saying the traditions are meaningless and should be discarded. He did not say to the Pharisees, “So what if they didn’t wash their hands? They don’t have to. That’s a meaningless tradition.” To be fair, the disciples were in the wrong. They should have washed their hands before they ate. They were probably hungry and when the food came around they started eating. Washing their hands just slipped their minds. Obviously, washing their hands would have been the right and good thing to do. Traditions and customs are often based on good common sense and good order. Traditions and customs are important for living a good and ordered life. It’s just that the minor infraction of the disciples was not so severe that they deserved judgment by the Pharisees. They were in no position to say anything over a relatively small, quibbling matter.
The fault of the Pharisees was their hypocrisy. Their hypocrisy was that they were big on the small things, and less concerned about the more important things, like obedience to the commands of God. To be fair with the Pharisees, they served a very important role for the Jews in Jesus’ day, having inherited a tradition and set of customs that were thousands of years old. Traditions and customs become antiquated and somewhat irrelevant if not taught and modified in changing times. The Pharisees helped keep traditions and customs relevant and reasonable. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is helpful. It was certainly helpful for the Jews so that they could maintain their traditions, their cultural identity, their way of life, even as times changed.
The problem was that traditions and customs became the main thing rather than faithfulness to the commandments of God. This was the ongoing battle Jesus fought with the Pharisees all the way through the gospel. The Pharisees erred on the side of strict obedience to the tradition, even if that meant not adhering to the commands of God. No healing on the Sabbath. No touching of a leper or a dead body. No eating with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus broke all these traditions so that he could heal the sick, raise the dead, and redeem sinners. The Pharisees had the traditions and customs down. Yet their hearts were far from God. As Jesus said, he linked the prophecy of Isaiah with these Pharisees, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” On the outside, the Pharisees looked good, pure, holy. Yet, on the inside, their hearts were unclean. A whitewashed tomb is still a tomb. It may look good on the outside, but inside it is full of stinking, decaying flesh.
To criticize or judge people concerning how well they follow customs or traditions reveals an unclean heart. The uncleanness of the hearts of the Pharisees was revealed by the fact that they were criticizing the disciples over their failure to adhere to tradition or custom. How does picking on the disciples over a relatively small thing like hand washing further love? How does pointing this out assist the disciples in being healed of their sin sick soul? If a person is fighting a war, is it that important whether they brushed their teeth that morning? Yes, the soldier should have brushed his teeth. But in the context of fighting a war, that is a bit obnoxious to make a big deal over. Perhaps one who makes a big deal over small things reveals a person that is trying to avoid the more important issues, or trying to avoid dealing with their own inner sickness.
This is the bigger issue, a clean heart. It is from the heart that we can obey the commands of God or go a different way. A heart that is being cleansed from the stain of sin is critical to live a life that is pleasing to God. God knows the intentions of our hearts, and it is those intentions that we will be judged on. Good intentions come from a good heart. Bad intentions come from a diseased heart. We are all in the process of having our hearts healed from the disease of sin. Thus, our intentions are a mixture of good and bad. Our hearts are divided. Our goal is to be healed. Our goal is to have an undivided heart. Our goal is to always have good intentions. Jesus Christ our savior is our healer, and by the Holy Spirit over time, and with sincere repentance and surrendering our wills to God’s will, we will be healed.
Being clean on the outside is important, but such outward purity proceeds naturally from a purified heart. Our bodies are made in the image of God. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. We have been fearfully and wonderfully made. When God made us, He declared us to be very good. For that reason we should be mindful of how we treat our bodies. We need to be good stewards of our bodies, to eat right, get the right amount of sleep, exercise, good hygiene, and all of that. We should care about our appearance. But this concern ought to come naturally from a heart that is being cleansed. It is not out of vanity that we take care of our bodies. It is out of obedience to God’s command and an understanding of how precious we are to God, not only mind, soul, but also body. We are taught to love our neighbors as ourselves. Part of loving ourselves is to care for ourselves. We love ourselves because God loves us and commands us to love ourselves. So, loving ourselves because God loves us, we take care of our bodies, our outward appearance.
To be externally pure while retaining an impure heart is a grave sin. This is a common source of delusion. The delusion is to be concerned about how one looks, and how others see them. They are concerned about outer appearance. They look good. But what’s going on inside them? Is there vanity? Is there pride? Is there anger, bitterness, resentment? Is there lust for power, for acceptance, for material things? Is there a judging spirit? Some may think that if they look the part of a good Christian, that is sufficient. But how sincere are they? What happens when the storms of life come? Is there any substance behind the person who looks good? The point that Jesus is making is that outward purity and adherence to customs and traditions flow from a heart that is being cleansed. Outward purity without a corresponding purifying of heart is hypocrisy.
Again, our greatest responsibility is to fulfill the commandments of God, summed up by loving God, neighbor, and self, which is fundamentally a matter of the heart. External traditions and customs assist in the fulfilling of God’s commandments, not ends in themselves. The way we do things as Christians, the traditions and customs that have been handed down to us, are ways that have emerged from a community of people who are seeking to live the Christian life. They are practical ways of ordering life that assists us in living the Christian life. Traditions and customs are sort of like the tableau, the “rules of the road” so to speak. By tending to traditions and customs, we are helped in living a Christian life. It’s just important to be mindful, however, that traditions and customs are not ends in themselves. They are resources to assist us in obeying God’s commandments to love, to love God, to love our neighbors, to love our families, to love our enemies, to love our friends, to love the stranger, to love ourselves.