And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, `Honor your father and your mother,' and, `Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: `Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." 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." After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him `unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.") He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him `unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come 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."
In a Nutshell
Jesus was fired up. God gives His law to us so we can live happily with all His good gifts. Jesus was fired up at the religious leaders for fooling around with God’s law. We need God’s law to clean us from the inside out, because when evil comes it starts deep-down.
Questions
This is a difficult passage. Read it a few times and think about what Jesus said. One minute He talks about respect for parents; the next about cleanliness and evil hearts. Is there a connection? What is it?
Do you know what hypocrisy is? That's saying you love God's law but you are not obeying Him. That’s what made Jesus cross. The religious leaders were hypocrites. They devised ways to avoid their duties.
Take the law about parents; it is plain enough. We are to honour our parents, our father and our mother, for life. God gives children to their parents; God gives parents to their children. And as we grow up we realise that there are lots of things to do, and there are lots of rules. At times things can get confused. God's law can helps unravel the mess, to put things in the right order. But if we aren’t listening to God's law we skirt around it and put other things first.
That was why Jesus was so upset by the Pharisees. They encouraged people to find ways of avoiding God's law.
Parents are to care for their children but the law of God
reminds us that there is something even more basic than that. Not everyone has
children but everyone has parents. That’s why the law says we should honour
them. It is for all of us, and it is not just for when we are young. It doesn’t
go away when we "grow-up". Think about it. The law says: Exodus 20:12 Honour your father and your mother that your
days may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
Honouring parents is a life-long process. It’s basic. It’s as if it is part of our skeleton. But is this what we have learned from our parents? Think carefully. Our parents may try to teach it to us but there's a problem, isn’t there? Just because they tried to teach it to us doesn’t mean that we learned it. Ask mum and dad: how did they learn it? Was it from their parents? Just because their parents taught it does not mean that they learned it.
Think about it this way. Many people seem to think God's law says: You better do what your parents tell you or else you'll cop it! A lot of people think about God's law like that - when you start thinking like that you begin to think you are a member of God's special police force telling people how to live and making their lives miserable. But God’s word for us is not just a long list of "don'ts". “Don't be a hypocrite! Don't think your rules make you clean! Don't think your traditions can save you!” “Don't! Don't! Don't!” Jesus got upset because God's law was being taught as if God can only say one word: “No!” Instead Jesus opened the bible book of Isaiah and taught them what the prophet had said. He explained why we so easily and so often fool ourselves. Negative thinking about God's law means we lose respect for ourselves and our parents.
Parents are a special gift from God to us, just as we children are a special gift from God to our parents. God calls parents and children to listen to His law together. Parents teach God's law to their children but this doesn’t mean that they stop listening when they are explaining it. Mum and dad may read Hunches to you. But are they listening to the story at the same time? I hope so. God wants our happiness and His law about loving our parents is given to us so that things can "go well" with us - as parents and children obey it together.
The Kingdom of God is about living life to the full (John 10:10). The real miracle was not in the bread, and it was not even Jesus coming on the water. Such experiences were important for the disciples' faith and ours. But the real miracle is that God is with us, God seeks His dwelling with us. And when God tells us to honour our parents it is because that is the way He prepares us to receive what He is giving to us. Jesus came to win our friendship. God our Father wants us to walk with Him like Moses did!
So, Jesus’ message meant we learn to forgive and learn to give. Then we see all we need falling into our laps – like a plateful to get your teeth into; pressed down, shaken together, running over, all there, all you could hope for. Mark understood it and wrote it down for us, just like a good storyteller (Matthew 13:51-52). He wrote down Jesus' warnings to help us avoid being hypocrites. So now when we read it, or when we listen to it, and all the other stories, it is like getting treasure out and sharing it around - the old stuff, and all the new stuff. There's more to this story. We'll get to some of it next time.