The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.) [Mark 7: 1-4 NIV]
The Pharisees were horrified that Jesus' disciples did not wash their hands before dinner. Now, of course, it is good advice to wash your hands before you eat a meal. But that is not the point of this passage. This is not about hygiene - this is more about religious ritual. Hygiene has become a major issue in the last two years since the Covid 19 pandemic. There are posters displayed on public places encouraging people to wash their hands thoroughly bearing in mind that the virus can be transmitted by touching. So we have become more aware of the need for regular hand washing.
In order to grasp the significance of this incident, we need to get a better understanding of the Pharisees and their outlook on life. The Pharisees were very surprised to see that Jesus did not insist that his disciples went through the prescribed ritual ceremonial washing before the meal. The Pharisees were into ritual in a big way and their life was spent following a whole series of rules and regulations. This was one of them. They even went for a bath before a meal – just in case they had become defiled when they were in the market – they might have accidentally come into contact with a Gentile (a person who was not a Jew). They performed a deep clean before every meal. They took so long to get ready for dinner that it took up a large part of the day They had to ceremonially perform a cleaning of the couches they were going to lie on for the dinner. They spent ages washing every pot and all the dishes and plates and cups. They wanted everyone to know that they were not going to get any defilement. They were much better than the ordinary people – the great unwashed.
They thought that all this was necessary to please God. They taught that you had to follow a multitude of rules to be clean enough for God. They thought that all this washing would get rid of any sin and would purify them from defilement. They were very wrong and Jesus pointed out the big mistake that they were making.
The Pharisees wanted everyone to know that they were religious. They thought that religion was about the outside of the person. But what about the inside - Jesus was teaching that it is the inside which matters. Jesus did not pull any punches. Here is his answer to the Pharisees.
Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.
This helps us to grasp the significance of this passage. Here we have a religious sect who were highly respected because of their external piety. They seemed to do all the right things and they did not do all the wrong things such as eating with defiled hands and mixing with Gentile sinners. But the big point that is so simple and yet so many people fail to understand. It is not about the externals - the way we dress, the rules we keep such as observing the Sabbath day or a whole army of man-made rules. It is about our inner spiritual condition. They were greedy and wicked on the inside but that did not matter as far as they were concerned - as long as they appeared to be religious. This is a powerful lesson for us today - are we obsessed with what people think about us. Are we fixated on keeping a set of rules which make us seem to be good-living? Or are we dealing with the inside? We cannot begin to cleanse the inside - but God can do that and this is the most important matter which we need to tackle in our lives.
This blog is not condemning good hygiene but it is emphasising the need to look after the bit that we often forget - the Bible talks about this as the heart. We will see what that means in the next blog.
Clean hands very important Robert