Jesus Obsesses about the Inside of Things

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. - Matthew 23:25-26

The work that us religious people like to do on the externals have a couple of perks for us - for one, it keeps people thinking (and sometimes saying) nice things about us, and then there’s the advantage of keeping us distracted from looking at the yuck inside, and finally there’s the busyness that makes us feel like we’re really accomplishing something. And yet…

Have you ever noticed that Jesus is not particularly interested in the outside of things? Whether it’s a cup or a tomb or a skin disease or a person caught in a ‘naughty’ act, Jesus consistently pivots away from what draws our attention. In fact, you could say that the trajectory of his moral teaching universally arced away from external conformity to certain ideals and arced directly towards the state of our hearts. Is our inside clean or dirty? Regardless of what smile we put on when we show up at church, how are we really doing? These are the things that Jesus focused on almost obsessively.

So how is your heart today? Take just a few moments and sit with that question. Ponder it. Talk with Jesus about whatever you find going on inside of you right now. He’ll be very interested.