Speaking Truth to Power
(Matthew 15: 1-20)
One thing that took me a while to learn about the Houston Police Department was that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. An organization that lives and dies upon maintaining the status quo will do whatever it can to resist change, especially if the change benefits those whom we are sworn to serve. I can’t tell you how many times I would come up with what I thought was a good idea only to have someone say: “We’ve never done it that way”. I mean, we all took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States which meant to protect and serve the people, but then there was what we called the Department Policy Manual which was designed to protect and serve the department. I would go on to learn that never having done it that way before and protecting the institution also applied to many of the other bureaucracies I would come into contact with for the rest of my working life. It didn’t matter if it was when I was an assistant prosecutor, an elected prosecutor, a school board member, a Sunday School teacher, or even now as a pastor. If you think I’m kidding about the pastor thing let me loan you my United Methodist Book of Discipline. There must be a law school out there just for Methodists. These institutions work hard to make us understand who we really protect and serve.
And that’s the battle Jesus was about to engage in that Matthew is recording for us in our gospel reading for this morning. Jesus came to apply God’s Law to the lives of the people, people who needed to be protected and served, but the Pharisees had their own Department Policy Manual in place to protect and maintain their status quo which made it very difficult to truly serve God’s children.
Jesus’ ministry was growing and it was difficult for the religious establishment to ignore what was going on out in the countryside everywhere this country rabbi went. People were walking for miles to see him and hear his message of hope and Saturday attendance in the synagogues was, I imagine, noticeably dropping. So, Matthew begins by telling us that the Pharisees and legal experts, (see I told you they had their own lawyers) came out from Jerusalem to see Jesus and said: Why are your disciples breaking the elders’ rules handed down by us? They don’t ritually purify their hands by washing before they eat. Ironic that they don’t want to talk about his miracles and message. They want to talk about violations of the policy manual. Don’t attack the message, attack the messenger. Seems eerily familiar.
Jesus sees what they’re up to and rather than use tact and reason he bluntly replies: Why do you break the command of God by keeping the rules handed down to you? For God said: “Honor your father and your mother,” and “The person who speaks against father and mother will certainly be put to death.” Ouch! That had to sting but what he says next gets to the heart of the matter. He continues by stating: But you say, “If you tell your father or mother, ‘Everything I’m expected to contribute to you I’m giving to God as a gift,’ then you don’t have to honor your father.” He goes on to point out that this conveniently allows them to ignore God’s law for the sake of the rules that have been handed down to them by the religious establishment and loudly accuses them of being hypocrites.
This is a tried-and-true tactic when taking on someone who is perceived as a threat, but you don’t want to debate them on the issues. The Pharisees want to use what has become an oral tradition to debate Jesus, but he turns it around on them pointing out their hypocrisy. What he is throwing up to them is what is called a “Corban” which was a vow made by a Jewish male to dedicate money to God’s temple that otherwise would have gone to support one’s parents. Corban had become a religiously acceptable way to neglect parents, circumventing the child’s responsibility to care for them in their old age. Although the action of giving money to God seemed worthy and no doubt conferred prestige on the giver, many people who took the corban vow were disregarding God’s command to care for needy parents.
Turning the tables on them had to sting and then Jesus added insult to injury when he stated: Isaiah really knew what he was talking about when he prophesied about you, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from me. Their worship of me is empty since they teach instructions that are human rules. The Pharisees and experts in the law had to have been stunned, now finding themselves speechless and on the defensive with people staring at them. “You tell ‘em Jesus!”
Using this as a teachable moment Jesus called the crowd close to him saying: Listen and understand. It’s not what goes into the mouth that contaminates a person in God’s sight. It’s what comes out of the mouth that contaminates the person. And seeing the reaction of the Pharisees the disciples approached Jesus and asked him if he realized he had offended them. Unfazed, Jesus replied that every plant that his heavenly Father didn’t plant will be pulled up. He instructed his disciples to leave the Pharisees alone as they are blind people who are guides to blind people, remarking that if a blind person leads another blind person, they’ll both end up in a ditch.
And you can count on Peter to be that person who has no fear to ask the question everyone else is afraid to ask as he asks Jesus to explain the riddle to them. Patiently, Jesus explains that what goes into the body through the mouth goes right on through eventually ending up in the sewer, but what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart. He says that that is what contaminates a person in God’s sight. He says: Out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and insults. These contaminate a person in God’s sight. But eating without washing hands doesn’t contaminate in God’s sight.
You see, that’s the thing about maintaining the status quo for the benefit of a privileged few. The Pharisees believed that God gave an oral law to Moses at Mt. Sinai alongside the written law found in the Pentateuch, the first five books in the Old Testament. The result was a nullification of God’s written word to follow a human tradition, one that reinterpreted God’s law or added to it to serve a purpose not intended by God.
This is nothing new. We see it today in our politics as White Christian Nationalism is on the rise reinterpreting God’s laws to support their agenda of exclusion and fear of the other. Two examples that come to mind as they have consumed social media and the cable news channels are two young men running for the United States Senate. One a young man who taught middle school and is seminary trained, constantly being assailed by his detractors who try to pick apart what he says and discrediting his beliefs by using Old Testament scripture which he counters with the actual teachings of Jesus Christ. The other is another young man, a physician, who is Muslim and grateful for what America has afforded him. The scare tactics leveled at him are that, if elected, he will promote Sharia Law further stoking the claims that the United States was a country established by and for Christians only. Perfect examples of what comes out of a person’s mouth that tells you a lot about what is in a person’s heart. Jesus would have a field day with these modern-day Pharisees who are working hard to maintain their status quo at the expense of God’s most vulnerable children. Speaking truth to power really scares these people.
The Pharisees knew a lot about God just like many prominent religious leaders today, but they act like they don’t really know God. When we proclaim to honor God while our hearts are far from him, our worship means nothing. It is not enough to study about religion or even to study the Bible; it is not enough to act religious. Our actions and our attitudes must be sincere.
When people become Christians, God makes them different on the inside, and he will continue the process of change inside of them if they only ask. God wants us to seek healthy thoughts and motives in all we do and he wants us to speak truth to power when that power becomes self-serving and detrimental to God’s people and his creation. Afterall, it’s what Jesus would do and did.
Let us pray.
Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father; there is no shadow of turning with thee; thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not; as thou hast been, thou forever wilt be. Yes, loving and all-merciful God, you are faithful to us, your children, and how grateful we are for your Word. We pray that in everything we do and say that it will reflect the love of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. As we study your Word and the teachings of Jesus, we pray that we will seek out opportunities to reach others who may lost and searching for a life with meaning, a life in eternity with you. We pray that when we speak, we choose our words wisely and that we do no harm to your creation and all that inhabits it. Move us to seize those opportunities to speak truth to power when we see injustice and suffering. Move us to be the somebodies who do and say something in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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8/16/26
Speaking Truth to Power
When we proclaim to honor God while our hearts are far from him, our worship means nothing.