Think On These Things

Texts: Matthew 15:1-20 and Phil 4:8 – 9

Matthew 15:1-20
Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat." He answered them, "And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, "Honor your father and your mother,' and, "Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.' But you say that whoever tells father or mother, "Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,' then that person need not honor the father. So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said: "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' " Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles." Then the disciples approached and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?" He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit." But Peter said to him, "Explain this parable to us." Then he said, "Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile."

As I think about the question that Jesus asks, “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition,” I wonder, why is it that our traditions can become more influential in our lives than the commandment of God? How is it that we can become so easily distracted by the expectations and norms of our culture and forget the deeper values of God? Is it easier to find a loophole? To what purpose? How does taking support from your parents and giving it to God (whatever that means) benefit the child in question?

Speaking of being a child, I can’t help but remember that sometimes when I was given a task by my mom I would balk at doing it. I would cry or make excuses to get out of whatever the chore was. In response my mom would yell and insist. Eventually I would do what I was supposed to do, but we would both be wrecks by the end of it. I look back and wonder why I did that. I didn’t do it much, but when I did, the whole rest of the day was bad. One time my mom said to me, “If you had just done what I asked when I asked you’d be finished by now and out doing what you really want to do. But here we are, still arguing. Why are you wasting your time?” I’m not saying that this was the end to my procrastination, but it helped bring me around.

I think sometimes we waste our time finding loopholes and looking for reasons to get out of things like loving people, giving each other the benefit of the doubt, honoring God, and finding things worthy of praise. But to what end? Why is it tempting to make sure that everyone around us honor the traditions of our systems and norms rather than we ourselves honoring the deeper values of God? Why is it more difficult to think about what Philippians 4:8 recommends we think about; whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable? Do we look for failure rather than excellence? Do we look for what we can condemn rather than what we can praise?

I don’t think we are bad and evil people. I don’t chalk any of this up to some phantom original sin. But it does seem to me that it is surprisingly easy to drift into these bad habits.

It’s true that some things that happen in life and in the world are terrible. I’m not suggesting that we hide our heads in the sand and pretend that everything is alright. It isn’t that every moment we should have something positive to say. It’s about where we begin our thought process and the ruminations of our hearts. What is our launching pad? Do we look for the way to get out of something or the fault in the story or activity? Or do we look for the excellence and want to see what is praiseworthy?

This passage challenges me to think about the intersections between our imminent existence and our transcendent existence. Washing hands doesn’t benefit us spiritually and the food we eat passes through our bodies, but the intentions of our hearts and the words that come out of our mouths can heal or harm us. How we move through space, the choices we make, our thoughts and the ruminations of our hearts are intertwined with our spiritual aspects and have spiritual outcomes as well as earthly outcomes.

I wonder what it means to think of our mouths as one of the liminal spaces between the imminent and the transcendent. Proverbs 18:20 and 21 instructs “From the fruit of the mouth one's stomach is satisfied; the yield of the lips brings satisfaction. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”

James 3:1-10 instructs us even more fully:
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.

Wow. Who knew that our mouths had the potential to be so dastardly? But not just our mouths have this potential. Our fingers do as well, especially the way written communication has grown. It seems to me that our fingers have the same potential to be the rudder of the ship of our lives.

James, it seems, is at odds a bit with Jesus and Paul. James put the responsibility on our wills and our actions. Jesus and Paul indicate that the root of the concern is where our minds and hearts go. This is much harder to control. Can we control the ruminations of our hearts and the way our minds process? If we realize where our hearts and minds are drifting then we can have some control, but even the Dali Lama can’t meditate all the time.

This is deep work. It is what I think Paul was talking about in Romans when he wrote, “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect. When I think about mind transformation for the purpose of keeping the deeper values of God, I think about a scene from The Matrix. It’s the one where Neo is fighting the agents and for the first time he sees them as code rather than as their illusion of solidness.



It isn’t until our minds and hearts are transformed that we can truly pilot the rudder of our ship, our communication devices of tongue and fingers. Jesus said, “For the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God.” Our religious traditions and cultural expectations can nullify the word of God. I find the hope of transformation in the words of Philippians 4:8 and 9;
“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”

By these meditations I believe we can begin to more clearly see the code that underlies the distractions. We won’t be struggling against the traditions or expectations that distract us, but rather we will be more able to flow in the commandments of God.