St Matthew, Chapter 15, verses: 10 - 11, The Lesson: Hear and Understand.

Our paragraph topic is:  (Disciples warned to shun the Pharisees) Part 1. 
         
Christ was in the land of Genesar.  And the people heard of him through word of mouth.  There was no Internet.  There was no radio.  There was no television.  There were no anchor people giving the news hourly or live as it happened.  There were no reporters in the field.  There was only the local person who kept the latest news and spread it to the appropriate people like himself that would carry the message throughout the land.  They were paid for good news.  They were rewarded for keeping up with hot topics that the rulers wanted to know about.  And the Pharisees wanted to know about Jesus.

He was a miracle worker.  He healed the sick.  He made the lame walk.  He opened the eyes of the blind.  Some called him a prophet.  Some said he  was a great man of God.  And some knew that he was the Messiah.  So the Pharisees had to find out who this man was that performed miracles.  If all that was said about him was true then they had to win him over to their side that he might bring the people under their authority and their rule.  But Oh!, were they shocked when they heard the things that he preached and taught the people.  They were compelled to confront him.  They were moved to action.  They had to do something before the people were led astray.  For this man, this miracle worker, taught the people against the Pharisees.  This Christ allowed the people to go against the teachings of the forefathers.  This Rabbi was wrong in their eyes and they had to stop him.

For decades the Pharisees had taught that a man was defiled if he did not wash before eating.  For years they preached that one should wash before eating to prevent from becoming unclean.  All they had to do was to watch the gentiles who were unclean, defiled men, women, and children that eat without washing.  They, the gentiles, were below the chosen people because they did not follow the traditions set by the Pharisees.  And then Christ comes along, after years of traditions, and he teaches the people how not to be unclean.  He allows his disciples to eat without washing.  They, the disciples, set the example for all the followers of Christ.  And if this example was not corrected it would corrupt and defile all of Judea, according to the thinking of the Pharisees.  But Christ taught them differently.  Christ,  then he called the crowd to him, and said to them,'' Hear, and understand.   What goes into the mouth does not defile a man; but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a man."

A new lesson!  A change in direction from the teachings of the past.  For it was taught that every man was unclean unless they washed.  Every man, according to the Pharisees, was unfit unless they followed the traditions handed down by them.  Every man did not have water to wash before eating.  Every man did not have flowing water into their homes as did the Pharisees.  Every man was not wealthy enough to be able to bath and clean up two to three times a day.  So only the wealthy and the well to do and the rich, and the politicians and the rulers and the Pharisees had access to this privilege.  So this tradition made all men who were not able to follow the teachings, unclean.  And all were made unclean and defiled.  But Christ came and changed all that.

He taught people that they were clean.  He taught the people that it was not the washing that made them clean but what came from the mouth that made them unclean.  For out of the mouth the heart speaks.  And if the heart is evil and possessed of evil, then from the heart comes all manner of evil.  For the heart is concealed from man and no one knows what is in the heart of men except Christ.  And it is from the heart that evil takes possession of men.  Christ  wiped away the teachings of the Pharisees and opened the eyes of men that they may see the truth of who they are.  The door to the soul is through the heart and the heart must be protected against the evil that wants to posses it. 

Hear and understand!  Christ told the people around him and he tells us today to understand that the mouth is the gateway through which evil comes.  The mouth is the archway from which man is defiled and made unclean.  For the mouth only speaks what is in the heart.  And if the mouth speaks defilement then the heart is unclean. 

Hear and understand!  Protect the heart.  Open the heart to the love of Christ and he will protect it.  Open the heart to Christ and he will send the Advocate to guide it.  For the Advocate will protect.  The Advocate reside in it.  The Advocate will counsel with it.  The Advocate will fill the heart with the spiritual love of God.  And it is this spiritual love that provides understanding and wisdom to the kingdom of heaven. 

Christ has given us a way to know that we have received.  He has told us what to look for.  He has provided a light that we may follow.  But it is our decision to follow.  It is our decision to seek.  It is our decision to wake up from the drug induced sleep of the world and become lamps unto the world.  Christ has opened the door.  He has provided a way.  He has set forth a path for us to follow.  Seek and ye shall find!  Knock and it shall be opened to you!  Ask and it shall be given to you!  Come!  Receive the Holy Spirit and all will be revealed to you.

St Matthew, Chapter 15, verse: 9 , Vain Worship

Our paragraph topic is: (Christ refutes the Scribes and Pharisees)
Part 6.

Christ gave the Pharisees a wake up call.  He called them hypocrites.  They had changed the Commandments of God and preached and practiced the precepts of their own making in place of the just Commandments of God.  Arrogance guided them.  Evil was their companion.  Power was their love and rule of the people was their passion.  For they were the Pharisees.  They knew the Law.  They studied the Law; they were the keepers of the Law. Everyone had to obey their words and their commands or suffer punishment as metered out according to the wisdom of the Pharisees and suffer the wrath of God as they professed it.  They knew not mercy.  They knew not compassion.  They knew not love.  They only knew the law according to their own interpretations.  And the Law was for the people.  The Law was not for the Pharisees.  For behind closed doors the Law was interpreted differently for them.

And Christ called them hypocrites for what was in their hearts was not of God.  The evil of arrogance had taken them.  The evil of self deception had guided them.  The evil of the world was with them and they were with the world.   For they believed that they worshipped the one true God.  They believed that they followed the commandments.  They believed that the love in their hearts was that for the love of God.  And they believed that their actions demonstrated that love.  But arrogance had blinded them.  Evil had deceived them.  And deceit had filled them with hypocrisy that they might maintain their belief in themselves.  Christ repeated to them the prophesy of Isaias saying,   "In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine the precepts of men."

Hypocrisy had led them to believe that the worship that they garnered was for God when in actuality they brought worship to themselves.  They loved to receive honor and praise.  They loved to have influence.  They filled themselves with pride for their positions over the people.  For the people honored them.  The people respected them and their positions.  The people praised them as they were taught that it was praise given to God.  But hypocrisy had deceived the Pharisees and the Pharisees deceived the people by leading them to vain worship.  For praise was not given to God but to the Pharisees.  Honor and glory was expressed to the Pharisees and not to God.  The heart was filled not with the love of God but was filled with love of the Pharisees in exchange for the power and privilege that they held. 

And so, worship became vain and empty and the people followed the traditions and precepts as handed down by the Pharisees.  We worship today out of tradition.  For it has been handed down from parent to child that we should go to church and worship God.  It is the right thing to do, we have been told.  We know not the purpose of our worship.  We have not a reason for our worship.  We believe not the love that is missing from our worship for we have missed the truth of worship.

God our father has given us life eternal through our Lord Jesus Christ, a precious gift that we value not.  For one does not value a gift until it is taken away.  One does not value life eternal until one experiences death eternal.  Yet, in that utter despair and loss of hope, does one realize the true value of the gift that was given.  We try, today, to grasp the value of that gift, without experiencing the despair and loss of hope, by expressing praise and worship to the giver of that gift of eternal life.  But in our attempts, our expressions are in vain.  Why??  Because our expressions of praise and worship do not come from the heart. 

How does one express love if there is no understanding of spiritual love?  We know physical love because that is what we are and what we know through our experiences.  And that is the basis of our expression of love.  But spiritual love is beyond the physical and requires the input of the spirit to understand.  Spiritual love comes from and through and with the human heart and the heart of man is in the world.  It is only through the input of the spirit of eternal love that one realizes that spiritual love comes from and through the Holy Spirit.   Then one begins to understand and know and experience the eternal spiritual love of God our Heavenly Father. 

Christ came that we may have life.  Christ came that we may have the spirit.  Christ came that we may know the love of God our father.  Yet today, we know not the spiritual love of God.  We worship the father weekly, daily, hourly but without the fruit of the spirit.  For over time the fruit dies on the vine.  Over time, the worship that we express to the father, dies and does not produce.  Over time, the world takes hold and entraps us, deceives us, and turns us into hypocrites and we become like Pharisees, clean on the outside and dead on the inside.

Seek the love that comes with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  You can know Him!  You can see Him!  You can be with Him, everyday, every minute, every hour.  A transformation will take place.  The ways of the world will leave you.  The passions of the world will seek to capture you again but you will only know the passion of the kingdom of heaven.  Christ came, a light into the world.  He gave us instructions how we might find our light.  Seek it!  Find it!  Know it!  For it is within you that you may know the truth of who you are, children of our creator, God.

St Matthew, Chapter 15, verses: 7- 8, The Transformation into Hypocrisy

Our paragraph topic is:   (Christ refutes the Scribes and Pharisees)
Part 5.  

Christ called them hypocrites.  The Pharisees were the keepers of the law.  The Pharisees were the educated of the people.  The Pharisees were the elite of the people.  They had money, they had power, they had influence, and they knew the Law, handed down by God to Moses.  But in their arrogance they opened the door to evil and allowed evil to come into their hearts.  And in the arrogance of evil they changed the Commandments of God and preached and practiced their own precepts.  Evil persuaded them.  Evil helped them.  Evil came to them little by little until they became evildoers, the agents of evil.  But justice prevailed.

Christ came with justice.  Christ came that the scales of justice would be balanced and all mankind would be justified before God.  He was the sacrifice.  He was the propitiation for the sins of man.  He was the lamb, the innocent one.  He was the gift to mankind that God gave that all would be saved.  But hypocrisy had come in.  Hypocrisy had taken over the minds and hearts of the Pharisees.  They were the givers of the Law.  They were the enforcers of the Law to the people.  But, they did not live by the Law nor did they believe in the Law, for their hearts were not in and of the Law.  And Christ came and told them who they were.  Christ said to them, Hypocrites, well did Isaias prophesy of you saying, 'This people honors me with their lips, but
their heart is far from me.'

They pretended to be religious.  They pretended to believe in the Law and the Commandments of God.  But inside, their hearts were of the world.  Inside, their hearts sought after the power, the influence, the wealth of the world.  Inside, their hearts did not belong to God but to the world.  The arrogance of evil had persuaded them to follow.  The arrogance of evil had moved them along the path of self deception and denial that made them believe in themselves.  And the Pharisees believed in their authority to rule the people according to their own precepts.  So they transformed themselves into hypocrites.  They became the face of religion for the people and the face of the world to themselves.

Where does your heart lie?  Are you of the world or of Christ?  Does the world draw you to watch football on Sunday or does Christ draw you to his supper on Sunday?  The world is subtle.  It entices you with all its charm and fun and activity that you may slip into darkness without knowing how difficult it becomes to return to the light.  For the battle is not in the mind.  The battle is not in the actions.  The battle is for the heart of men that they may follow good or follow evil.  For out of the mouth the heart speaks and the actions of men speak to where lies their hearts. 

Can you stop in the middle of a great football game, turn the TV off and pray?  Can you stop in the middle of a good mystery or romance, turn the TV off and pray?  The enticement of the world is subtle.  It captures the mind.  And through what we see and what we hear the door is opened so that control of the heart follows. 

We go to a movie and our hearts are moved by what we see and hear.  Yet the control is so subtle that we are not aware of the change that is taking place.  And we like the control that has taken place so we go back for more and more until now our hearts are addicted to the control.  We see violence.  We see murder.  We hear language that is accepted as normal.  And our hearts are controlled by the upbeat of the music that we hear.  The beat of the music is set to the beat of the heart and the control is subtle.  So we go in to the movies being mindful of the things of God and come out being mindful of the things of the world.  And the decent into hypocrisy is a slow decline that takes place and we become transformed, our hearts become addicted.  Sex and violence and murder become accepted in what we see and hear in our entertainment.  It's not real.  It's only make believe, we say to ourselves.  Is it?  It may be make believe but the battle for the control of the heart is real.  And we slide a little further along the path of hypocrisy.

Christ called the Pharisees hypocrites.  It was a wake up call for them, a slap in the face that they may look in the mirror and see who they had become.  What have we become today?  Can we look in the mirror and say with true confidence that we are for Christ?  If there is doubt then there is hope.  If there is denial then the heart is lost and the control of the world has taken over.  How can you know the difference?  It is a difficult task to continue to deceive and deny to oneself who or what we are day in and day out.  Evil will continue to persuade us that we are disciples of Christ when we live in the world.  Only those who know the Advocate will be able to withstand the tricks and traps of the devil.  Many want to know, many want to believe, many want to find, want to see, but are misled.  Seek the truth!  Ask Christ for guidance.  Believe that he will come!  Be delivered from hypocrisy and live the life that Christ gave us to live.  Christ said, "I am the light of the world.  I came that those who believe in me will no longer live in darkness."  Step out of the darkness and into the light and welcome the Holy Spirit into your life.  I did!!