Just what do you mean by clean?
Mark 7:1-13
In this portion of scripture Jesus and his disciples were eating and apparently, there were some Pharisees in their midst. The Pharisees decided to question Jesus about the disciples’ eating habits – they were eating with dirty hands! Not that they had dirt on their hands, for they probably had washed, but they didn’t wash their hands according to Jewish tradition, which would then make their hands “ritually clean.” Jesus, in his ever-loving tone, called the Pharisees hypocrites. What was Jesus’ beef?
What was Jesus’ beef? Read verses eight and nine. The Pharisees were giving preference their oral traditions, rather than the laws of the Old Testament. This hand washing stuff wasn’t even in the Old Testament! It was a commandment of men. Jesus illustrated their hypocrisy by using an example, not a parable, so that they would understand. Jesus wanted these knuckleheads to get the point. He used one of the 10 commandments as his starting point: Honor your mother and father.
While this commandment was one of the foundational elements of the Jewish Law brought down by Moses, the Pharisees had an oral tradition that circumvented this commandment – a loophole if you will. If your parents had a need, probably financial, you could say to them that whatever might have helped them, like money, had been set aside for God’s purposes (the Jewish word for “to set aside for God” is “Corban”). Their parents could not have that money, but it was worse than that…
Say you wanted to make your wealth untouchable. You would go to a legal office and declare that your wealth was “Corban.” Scribes would write down the amount set aside for God, declare this amount in a legal document, THEN they would also give you a second document that exempted you from any duty to take care of your parents because you no longer could. Your money was now God’s money. Well, at least the money was going to God, right? Wrong! Evidently, according to another law, they were not obligated to give the money to the temple. They could keep it and use it “for God.”
I’ll tell you, if my generation knew about this “Corban” rule, it would already be on the books. Can you imagine the religious fervor as millions of Baby Boomers devoted their wealth to God? We are a very selfish generation. Wow, I guess Jesus was a pretty good lawyer (or was he the anti-lawyer), and he certainly knew the hearts of men.
Do you use laws and loopholes to avoid doing what is right; and then feel justified about it? God calls us to be honest with ourselves and to treat everyone fairly. Jesus summed it up best when he said “love the Lord your God… and love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” In other words, if we follow these two commandments, we can’t go wrong.
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