The Parable of What Goes In and Comes Out of the Mouth (Mat. 15:10-20)
10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” 12 Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” 13 He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” 15 But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” 16 Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
It is surprising that the disciples failed to understand this parable because there is nothing particularly hidden in it. In fact, it is a bit of a stretch to identify this teaching as a parable because it does not have the hidden character of so many of Jesus’ parables. And yet Peter said, “Explain this parable to us” (v. 15). With this in mind we need to step into the religious setting of the disciples; from there we will recognize that this teaching is indeed mysterious. Jewish purity laws identified clean and unclean foods and activities. Eating unclean foods made the religious person ceremonially unclean and such a one had to go through a purification ritual before they entered the temple.
Jesus appears to be turning the laws of ritual purity on their head and Peter immediately assumes that there must be a deeper meaning, that Jesus is talking about something else, in other words, that this must be a parable, because obviously Jesus wouldn’t defy the Mosaic Law. Of course the purity laws were eventually set aside by the church as revealed to Peter in a dream (Acts 10:9-16). Was Jesus already telling the disciples it was okay to disregard at least portions of the Law? I believe not, although it seems clear that he is setting the stage for future events in the church.
Rather than contradicting the Law, Jesus is interpreting the Law from an internal rather than external perspective. The preeminent text where Jesus does this is the Sermon on the Mount, where repeatedly he seemingly contradicts the standard synagogue teaching by offering a far more radical internal interpretation. But he prefaces those teachings with this: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Mt. 5:17). “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire” (Mt. 5:21-22). “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mat. 5:27-28).
This present teaching follows the same pattern. Jesus is offering a fulfillment of the purity laws: A pure heart makes the person pure; food (whether ritually clean or unclean) simply passes through the mouth and digestive system into the sewer (Mat. 15:17). And with that analogy he puts the idea of ritual cleanness into a completely different perspective. Eventually even the portion of the sacrificial lamb or bull that is eaten by the Levites ends up as dung. True purity, true holiness, operates not from the mouth to the stomach, but from the heart to the mouth. If the heart is pure, then the whole person is pure.
Parables, in teaching us about the kingdom of heaven, also teach us about the character of God. This parable tells us something important about God. That which enters the kingdom (even if it's impure), that which comes near to God cannot defile God.
There is a popular Protestant (and Western Christian) teaching that God can’t stand to be in the presence of sin. It would seem that Jesus is offering a deeper perspective on the whole issue of sin and the presence of God. Consider the life of Jesus Christ: He was fully God, and yet he preferred the company of sinners (the impure) over the righteous. Consider the church: We do not have to become righteous before we join the church; it’s the other way around. We enter the church (or kingdom of heaven—I’m using the terms synonymously here—as sinners, and in the presence of the holy God our sinful lives are transformed. Consider Jesus’ teachings about the kingdom in Mat. 13: The kingdom of heaven, in its earthly manifestation, is made up of both righteousness and unrighteousness. It is not until the end—the judgment—that the unrighteous, the weeds (Mat. 13:24-30), the bad fish (Mat. 13:47-50), are separated from the good.
Unrighteous people do not contaminate the heart of God. Because of that, God invites unrighteous people into his presence, where they enter into the difficult task of casting off that unrighteousness through the divine “yokes and burdens” of attentiveness, discipline, and confession. The problem is that the holiness which issues forth from the heart of God is a consuming fire, and if we hold on tightly to our impurities, we will get burned with them as they are burned away in the purity of God’s holy presence.
But it must be remembered that this insight into God’s character and the kingdom’s nature is secondary to this parable. It could even be a way of avoiding Jesus’ central teaching. The parable calls for personal purity, the sort of purity that grows out of a pure heart, the sort of purity that is demonstrated in pure words. This is a parable about personal responsibility for our heart and personal humility as we allow God to purify our hearts.
Finally, this parable is also a parable of judgment. “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let [the Pharisees] alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit” (Mat 15:13-14). There are two facets to the judgment talked about in this parable. The first is the judgment at the end of the age. This is the judgment that was also talked about in Mat. 13. Like the parable of the weeds in the field, so here, everything the Father has not planted will be uprooted. Since that was covered fairly thoroughly in the parable of the weeds and the parable of the fishing net, no more will be said about this first facet of judgment at this time.
This teaching also considers the followers of false teachers. The Pharisees, as teachers, will receive the greater judgment, but their followers are not mere blind, helpless innocents; they too are responsible for discerning the truth of the message they hear and follow. The same twisted sense of reality that makes the Pharisees teach that our works appease God or give us an inside track with God is held by those who are willing to believe that message. The fundamental problem is not the teaching itself but rather the attitude of the heart that produces the teaching and allows it to be accepted. Thus, Jesus’ condemnation of the blind followers as well as the blind guides follows precisely the same logic as the parable itself. It’s not what goes into the body that is bad (whether unclean food or bad teaching) but rather that which issues forth (evil words and false beliefs) because they both go forth from an evil heart. And the only solution is planting that which the Father plants (v. 13) in a well-tilled heart (the parable of the sower) so that the heart can begin to produce righteousness, ten-fold, fifty-fold, or even hundred-fold.
Copyright © 2006 James E. Nelson (Just Another Jim). All Rights Reserved.
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