Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was prophesying about you when he said,
‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far away. Their worship is a farce, for they replace God’s commands with their own man-made teachings.’
For you ignore God’s specific laws and substitute your own traditions.”
Then he said, “You reject God’s laws in order to hold on to your own tradition. For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.’
But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, “Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I could have given to you.’ You let them disregard their needy parents. As such, you break the law of God in order to protect your own tradition. And this is only one example. there are many, many others.”
Mark 7:6-13Mark 7:6-13
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
6 . Jesus replied: You are nothing but show-offs! The prophet Isaiah was right when he wrote that God had said, “All of you praise me with your words, but you never really think about me. 7 It is useless for you to worship me, when you teach rules made up by humans.” 8 You disobey God's commands in order to obey what humans have taught. 9 You are good at rejecting God's commands so that you can follow your own teachings! 10 a ; ; b ; . Didn't Moses command you to respect your father and mother? Didn't he tell you to put to death all who curse their parents? 11 But you let people get by without helping their parents when they should. You let them say that what they own has been offered to God. v has been offered to God: According to Jewish custom, when anything was offered to God, it could not be used for anyone else, not even for a person's parents. 12 You won't let those people help their parents. 13 And you ignore God's commands in order to follow your own teaching. You do a lot of other things that are just as bad.
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Giving is an act of worship. It is a statement of loyalty and trust, and even thanks. But it should not be surprising that we, paramount sinners, can turn what should be good into something that is only a dim reflection of God’s intentions.
In this passage Jesus condemns the hardness of heart in the spiritual leaders from Jerusalem. They are blind – unable to tell the difference between pure and impure, despite their thoughts to the contrary. And they provoke God to reject the people from the promised land by their rejection of God’s law in favor of their own tradition, so out of touch with God’s heart.
The command to honor parents was of great importance. It was first among the commands in the Decalogue relating to treatment of others, following those commands that taught how to approach a holy God. Honoring parents was more than just obeying them, and was not just meant to be learned by children. Honoring parents meant taking care of them as they aged, putting their needs ahead of one’s own. It was to be honor given to parents as honor owed to God. Honoring parents came with a promise of life. Consequently, failure to live up to the covenant in this regard was seen as the cause by which the people would be rejected from the land. 1
In one sense, the religious leaders saw themselves as “giving” to God. They had vowed to give, and this gave them a means for avoiding their obligation to their parents (so far as their traditions were concerned). Rightly, Jesus recongizes this as a violation of God’s intentions, and a sign of a hardened heart. It was a reversal of God’s order for things.
We must be careful ourselves, and test our thoughts about giving. Is our tradition out of touch with God’s heart? Do we avoid personal responsibility to God and others in the way we give? God wants our worship to be real – not just a pretty picture, a vain display for men. He desires intimacy, not just lip-service.
This will likely step on toes, but many in the church today think that if they “gave at church”, they have done their part. Or as the adage goes, “I gave at the office…”. Even tithing can be used to give oneself a false sense of being “spiritual”. This is not the way God views it. Everything we have is God’s, offered to us to be used as he would if he were physically here with us. He demands all. Now, that doesn’t mean we should all live penniless and on the street. But it does mean that we need to view giving as more than offering the “remainder” or a duty to be performed.
If we want to give the way Jesus would, we need to ask ourselves, what is important to God? Is evangelism important? Sure, and most believers would heartily agree – though many fewer give to support mission efforts. Is local discipleship important? Indeed. But are we using what we give wisely, or perpetuating an infrastructure or system that has lost connection with its reason for being? What about orphans and the homeless? The sick, depressed and the aging? Yes.
Here is where it gets odd. I have actually heard professed Christians say that caring for these people is not part of the gospel! When faced with opportunities to meet a physical need, every imaginable excuse streams out. I know that I have failed in this regard, using worldly wisdom to justify an attitude of indifference and judgment. It can make one wonder if we have been in touch with Jesus recently! Our tradition has taught us to give towards evangelizing these individuals, but we can get by feeling little responsibility or desire to meet their basic needs – the very thing that would open a door to share who Jesus is and what he has done. Beyond that, this sort of giving to evangelism dehumanizes the lost, making them nothing more than another “thing” to be recovered, not persons with real needs and real hurts. It seems that our traditions aren’t always in touch with God’s heart.
God doesn’t want us to give out of pride or show. He desires our giving to flow out of our thankfulness and trust. He doesn’t want us to blindly follow the socially acceptable “pattern” for giving. Rather, giving is something that asks for consistent and dynamic sacrifice - personal involvement in the lives of those who are in need. What could that look like in your life?
Notes
- Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, Baker Academic 2007
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