Inside Out, not Outside In
Read Matthew 15:1-20
“Why do your disciples break the traditions of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat” (15:2). It wasn’t as simple as washing up before dinner. The “traditions” have been preserved in the Mishnah, which devotes an entire chapter to washing hands. It deals with how much water must be used, the condition of the water, the vessel from which it is poured, first and second rinsings, how an unwashed hand can render a washed hand unclean, and on and on. Read the twelve-page tractrate for yourself at http://halakhah.com/pdf/taharoth/_Yadayim.pdf. You’ll be thankful for the light load and easy yoke of Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t so much answer them as bring a counterattack. He asks why they use their “traditions” concerning vows to wiggle out of 5th Commandment obligations, and he condemns them as the hypocrites Isaiah described (Isaiah 29:13).
The people and Jesus’ disciples get a more straightforward answer. What counts is not outward, formal compliance, but a transformed and renewed heart. What condemns is not failure to perform religious rituals, but the sins (typified by “evilo thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander,” 15:19) that naturally flow from a sinful heart.
Jesus came to save his people from their sins (1:21). Outside-in approaches don’t really get at the root. He means to change us from the inside-out. Being one of Jesus’ people means commitment to a lifelong process of letting him do just that.