Sermon from June 18, 2023: Righteous Disagreement based upon Matthew 15:1-9

Matthew 15:1-9 The Tradition of the Elders 
 
Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.’ 
He answered them, ‘And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 
For God said, “Honor your father and your mother,” and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” But you say that whoever tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God”, then that person need not honor the father.  So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.” ’ ​

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     In the chapters before today’s reading, Jesus has been rejected in his hometown, demonstrating, according to Andrew Overman’s notes on Matthew, that there are people turning against Jesus even as we will witness so many people turning towards him for healing. His cousin and baptizer John is also killed for daring to critique Herod and his wife Herodias. This shows us the possible outcome of ruthless people using their power to silence critics. Jesus had to go into the wilderness for a while after this, though the people who needed his healing followed them there. Scriptures tells us, with only five loaves, two fish, and the Holy Spirit, he fed more than 5,000 of them.

     Jesus went to the mountain to be alone again and his friends took to the water. In the midst of a terrible storm, his disciples saw him walking towards them on the water. Peter, struck by an intense faith, asked if he could do the same. Jesus said yes. Peter was brave enough to do it for a moment, but then grew afraid. Jesus caught him before he sank, offering a word that makes it sounds like Peter could have kept doing the impossible. With Peter and Jesus finally in the boat, they landed in a place called Gennesaret, where more people found him and asked to be healed, begging to even just be allowed to touch the fringe on his cloak, hoping that would cure them. Matthew 14:36 says “all who touch it were healed.”

     And, then, Jesus got into an argument. That’s where today’s reading starts: an argument. There has been so much tension: Jesus’ hometown was suspicious of him, his cousin was killed, people kept seeking him out even when he was needing time alone, and yet, he still healed people and helped his disciples do miraculous things.  Then, these respectable and respected people travel all the way from Jerusalem and ask him why his disciples are disregarding traditions that their shared community holds dear. To be fair, it sounds like a reasonable tradition. Who among us hasn’t been taught to wash our hands before we eat? This hand washing has more to do with ritual purity than germ theory, but still. It was common practice and inherited tradition in their religious community to wash one’s hands as a reminder of their connections to and commitments to God. The Pharisees and scribes, people very committed to their faith and to following their religious laws, would have noticed when someone who claimed to be a teacher and his disciples were not adhering to the practices that much of their community agreed were appropriate behaviors for demonstrating your faith.

     Jesus seems prepared, if testy, in his response. Remember, it’s been a challenging few days and weeks. He says something like “oh yeah, why do you break the commandment about honoring your parents for the sake of your tradition?” Then he described a tradition where people wouldn’t have to financially support their parents if they said that the money they were supposed to share with them was set aside as an offering to God. That is not described in the religious law, or Torah, given to Moses from God. It was a tradition that grew from people trying to figure out how to follow the Torah in lots of different kinds of situations. Overman describes these “traditions of the elders” as religious “regulations not found in the written Torah.”

     Notice that Jesus is drawing a distinction between religious law believed to be handed down to Moses from God and the traditions of interpretation that branched out from the Law.  Now, many of us learned traditions about how to live out our faith. Who here learned that you should wear a suit and tie or a skirt to church every Sunday in order to be respectful to God? Did anyone learn that you shouldn’t say swear words, especially at church, as a way to demonstrate your faith? Did anyone learn that women shouldn’t have leadership positions in church? These are three examples of traditions that elders in my childhood community taught me. Maybe you have similar examples. These traditions are usually justified by pointing to scripture, but I think are just as often a product of the culture in which a person was raised as they are of any straight forward reading of the Bible. 

     The traditions that Jesus and the Pharisees are referencing here are more formalized than the three examples I just mentioned. Even so, I hope you will remember that, for a long time, well before Jesus, people have been trying to figure out how to live out their faiths. And, they pass along what they learn. Sometimes the practices we learn from our forebears are useful. Sometimes, they are not. And, nearly always, people will disagree about what it means to actually live out our faiths. They might even argue about it.

     In his introduction to the New Testament, Bart Ehrmann points out that there are some teachings that people assume Jesus was either the first one to say it or that he always believed something very different than other Jewish teachers at his time. This idea is particularly prominent in discussion about how Jesus understood religious laws. For example, there are parts of scripture where the Jesus and/or the disciples are criticized for harvesting or healing on the Sabbath. Some claim that Jesus was unusual in saying that healing people and feeding hungry people is acceptable on the Sabbath. He wasn’t actually. Jewish people have always made allowances for care work, especially life-saving care work, to happen during the Sabbath.
 Another example: the Rabbi Hillel, one of the most revered rabbis to live around the time of Jesus’ own life, is said to have believed something very much like Jesus’ own golden rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Hillel put it this way: “What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor; that is the whole Torah, while the rest is commentary. Go and learn it.” It is important for us to remember that Jesus found deep meaning and usefulness in following the religious law and many traditions of his people. At the same time, he, like Hillel, was clear that love and mercy are the most important aspects of the law.

     If we think about the stories leading up to today’s scripture, we see Jesus actually trying to live this out. He preached the truth as he understood it in his hometown, even though people did not respond well to it. In the midst of his grief over the execution of his cousin and mentor, he still made space for acts of mercy and love for the crowds who continuously sought him out. Storms, literal and emotional, did not stop him from practicing love, even when he could have likely used a break. Bart Ehrman describes Jesus’ actions this way, “The Law is to be obeyed to the fullest extent possible, but in obeying the Law what really matters is human need.” Everything else is subservient to the command to love. Even the traditions that the elders passed down to help us learn how to live out our faith.

     People will quibble about what “loving action really means,” even arguing that abandoning children for being gay or refusing to feed hungry people is actually loving. They are wrong, by the way. Because they have forgotten that part about doing unto others... they have forgotten that human need is an adequate reason for going against tradition. What I pray we will gain from this scripture is a reminder that our traditions have use only as far as they lead us to love. And, when measuring our actions between the way we’ve always done it and a way that will alleviate human need, we will remember that Jesus persistently cared for the need first. May we go and do the same.

Resources consulted while writing a sermon:
​Bart Ehrman's chapter on Matthew inThe New Testament: A Historical Introduction of The Early Christian Writings, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

J. Andrew Overman's notes on Matthew in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: The New Revised Standard Version with Apocryphya, ed. Michael Coogan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)