NOTES for Mat 15:1-20
1 Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, |
2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. |
3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? |
4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. |
5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; |
6 And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. |
7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, |
8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. |
9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. |
10 And he called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand: |
11 Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. |
12 Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying? |
13 But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. |
14 Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. |
15 Then answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable. |
16 And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding? |
17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? |
18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. |
19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: |
20 These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. |
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The accusation of breaking tradition comes from those for whom adherence to tradition has become an end in itself. Two positions collide; the dispute is over who actually keeps the law: the one who fulfills the external prescriptions, the necessary packaging of the law, or the one who keeps the essence of the law, even if from the outside it appears that the literal fulfillment of the prescriptions is being violated. But there is another problem: many pious rules are invented by people; they are not necessarily from God. How often the human obscures what has been given from above, and so we begin to substitute our ideas about God's will for His will itself!
Meanwhile, the Lord does not need the "correct" fulfillment of pious norms when it is indifferent to the true state of the soul. In guarding against ritual defilement from outside, and more broadly against any outside negative influence, it is too easy to lose sight of the evil within us that defiles us. But what nests inside us can prove to be a more explosive mixture than negative influences from outside. After all, we are the ones who accept or reject them.
If this approach causes someone to stumble, then such people have mistaken ideas about spiritual life. Christ's words about uprooting the plant not planted by the heavenly Father sound stern. But they contain a serious warning: if we see that a person has agreed to give in to temptation and has turned away from the Lord's ways, is it not because at first he rejected His will in the depths of his inner world?
Readings for 11 September 2025
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