While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. Luke 11:37-41.
Superficial religion measures spirituality based on externals. It would have seemed gracious for the Pharisee to be this hospitable. Many of the Pharisees simply spent all their time challenging Jesus and undermining his credibility. It is honorable that this Pharisee would take the risk, in light of the prevailing hostility of the general Pharisaical attitude toward Christ, to have him into his home. This looks great right up to the point that Jesus did not go through the normal ritualistic process of washing his hands before the meal. The Pharisee is “astonished” that Jesus would not conform to the normal religious protocols and his reaction becomes obvious to everyone including Jesus. This is where things start to unravel. Jesus does not waste the moment and goes right after this Pharisee. The salient point is there is a huge difference between genuine spirituality and hypocrisy. The basic distinction – outward conformity to a set of religious rules and traditions is not the standard because they ignore the true motivations of the heart (v. 39).
Genuine religion measures spirituality based on internals. I am using the term “religion” in the best possible light – (James 1:26) and Jesus immediately confronts the problem. The Pharisees, the guardians of “true” religion, measure spirituality based on external conformity to a set of (their) religious rules and expectations. Jesus points out the motivation of the heart is exceedingly more important that outward appearances. He bases this on the fact that God created human beings and gave them physical bodies, but he also created the invisible essence of humanity created in his own image. Clearly, the motives of the heart are far more important to Jesus than keeping a set of traditions and regulations that ultimately cannot change the heart.
Jesus goes on to attack the Pharisees and lawyers who create rules and regulations and are so concerned about outward obedience to the Law and yet do nothing to help move alongside people in their journey. They expect a great deal from others and do little to help. They tell people what to do but do nothing to help people to obey God’s expectations.
There are people who act this way. Everything is about external appearances. It might be the way they grew up. There are a host of people who grew up under the scrutiny of parents who forced their kids to conform to church and religion but did not give much attention to shepherding the heart. Churches can easily get trapped into policies and procedures that control people and do little to help nurture their heart for God.
We have to care more about the heart than conformity to tradition, rules, and regulations. Certainly, community necessitates some boundaries, but the life of community comes from the heart. The key to ministry is the inward condition of the heart. The value of programs needs to be measured by how they transform the heart, not how well the activities went. The same is true for my individual life and walk with Christ. We can easily make the repetition of disciples to be the measure of success, not the impact on the heart.
I heard a podcast the other day entitled, “God wants your desire not your discipline.” The idea is that we often measure our own spiritual success by how many times we read our Bible rather than how reading God’s Word is impacting the desires of our heart. God wants your desire, not your discipline.
Pastor Brad –
