Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Oct 20

20 October 2020

Text: Matt 15:1-20

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The word “virtue-signaling” never appears in the Bible.  But the idea is there.  The Pharisees have a human tradition of a hand-washing ritual before meals.  And washing one’s hands is a good idea – especially before eating.  But the Pharisees created an elaborate ritual, and then ostracized those who didn’t know the steps, or those who just did not take part.  There was peer pressure, and the sense that doing the ritual made a person more righteous than his neighbor.  The Pharisees signaled their virtue by means of the ceremony.

And this may well be why our Lord and His disciples deliberately did not take part.  They ignored the tradition and the peer pressure to participate.  Our Lord called the virtue-signalers out by applying Isaiah’s prophecy against them: “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”

For cleanness isn’t ultimately about hand-washing or eating ceremonially clean foods.  What comes out of the mouth is the barometer of the cleanness of the heart.  For “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

Our Lord’s rejection of their tradition and His refusal to play along caused the Pharisees to be “offended.”  How often we hear this word today!  When someone is offended, we are supposed to stop whatever we are doing and apologize.  Did our Lord do that?  In fact, this same Greek word is used by St. Paul when he says, “We preach Christ crucified” – as Jesus Himself is a cause of “offense” and “foolishness” to unbelievers.

Traditions are a good thing.  Ceremonies are a good thing.  Washing your hands is a good thing.  Eating healthy is a good thing.  But none of these things makes you righteous.  Christ crucified makes you righteous.  Our Lutheran confessions teach us that ceremonies exist to “teach the people what they need to know about Christ” – not to virtue-signal or to be self-righteous.  Ceremonies, traditions, customs, rituals, and social rules of conduct are good things when put into perspective, when they confess Christ crucified, when they point us to Jesus as the source of our righteousness, directing us to the cross as the authentic sign of true virtue.  May all of our traditions serve to worship our Lord not in vain, but in spirit and truth!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.