Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God

 Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God.

“These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me. It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach human rules as though they were my laws!” (Mark 7:6-7)

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Pharisees. They’re really sticklers for the rules. They know every command from God’s Law, and they have set up mountains upon mountains of complicated rules to make sure we know how to obey the commands exactly. They are obsessed, not only with God’s Law, but also with the rules they have made up. It’s no fun being around them, because they’re always correcting us, telling us how bad we are because we don’t follow their rules to the letter.

Here’s an example. We were eating lunch, but we hadn’t dipped our hands in the basin that was specifically set aside for ceremonial washing. The Pharisees must have been watching us, because they just barged in and accused us of eating with “unclean” hands (The truth is, we did wash our hands, but we used the vessel that collects rain water, and not the one with the “special” cleansing water; and maybe we didn’t do all the hand motions that the Pharisees’ rules require). They confronted Jesus – rather rudely, I might say – and demanded that he explain why we didn’t wash our hands according to the rules that had been handed down from generation to generation.

Well, Jesus didn’t answer their question. Instead, he leveled an accusation of his own at them. He recited words of the Lord spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “These people claim to worship me, but their words are meaningless, and their hearts are somewhere else. Their religion is nothing but human rules and traditions, which they have simply memorized.”(Isaiah 29:13) Then Jesus went on to point out how the Pharisees put more importance on their own traditions than they do on God’s Law itself. In fact, they use some of the rules that they have made up in ways that actually contradict God’s Law.

“God’s Law says to honor your father and your mother,” Jesus said. “But you have this way of designating your money as ‘holy money, set aside for God,’ and then when your parents need your help you say, ‘Oh gee, I’m sorry. I would help you if I could, but I’ve designated that money as holy money, so I can’t use it for you.’ Sheer hypocrisy!”

Later on, when we were alone with Jesus, we were rehashing the debate about unclean hands. Jesus told us that it’s not what’s on the outside that makes us unclean, but what’s in our hearts. He told us, “from the inside, from your heart, come the evil ideas which lead you to do immoral things, to rob, kill, commit adultery, be greedy, and do all sorts of evil things; deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride, and folly—all these evil things come from inside you and make you unclean.”

It made me realize that the rules and rituals don’t mean anything if they don’t address what is in my heart. God’s Law was given to us, not so we could rigidly adhere to a bunch of rules, but so we could cultivate in our hearts a deep and abiding love for God and for everyone we encounter. I remember how God spoke through the prophets and told the people that the sacrifices and elaborate worship they observed meant nothing to him because their worship failed to make the people help the oppressed, provide for the orphans and widows, or pursue real justice for everyone.

Now that I think about it, I realize that when King David wanted to be right with God, he prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” It’s always been about our heart.

The longer I walk with Jesus, the more I am convinced that walking with him – following him, obeying him – is not worth anything unless my walk with him is changing my heart. Unless my heart is becoming more and more conformed to the heart of Jesus, then any way that I act like Jesus is no better than the way of the Pharisees.

Becoming “clean” in the eyes of the Lord goes way beyond washing my hands and avoiding lepers and women with issues of blood, because it’s not the dirty hands or leprosy or issue of blood that the Lord sees. It’s the heart that he sees.

If you want to know if you’re “clean” before the Lord, you don’t need to look at how well you adhere to the rules. You just need to look into your heart.

Dear Jesus, I don’t want my walk with you to consist of rigidly going through the motions of doing the things you tell me to do. What I do want is for my walk with you to make me more and more like you – not just looking like you on the outside, but really being like you deep in my heart. Amen.