My Inner Cup – Matthew 23:25-28

Have you seen the new Disney film Aladdin? It only got a 57% rating from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes but a 94% audience approval. I like the message. Aladdin is a street urchin, living hand to mouth, but has an opportunity to connect with the princess. Only, he feels the need to put on a front, clean up the outside and pretend to be someone else. But that doesn’t work. It’s his inner person who needs to win the princess’s heart.

He is presenting a clean outside cup and plate, to put it in Jesus’ words, but needs to have a clean inner cup to not be a hypocrite.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matthew 23:25-28 ESV)

The next two woes that Jesus pronounces on the Pharisees speak to their commitment to outside appearances and their neglect of internal uncleanness.  None of us wants to focus on the ugly thoughts and intents of our hearts.  We don’t know what to do with them.  These hateful, lustful, selfish, arrogant thoughts tell us that we are not pure and not good in every way, and we don’t want to accept that for two reasons: (1) It does damage to our sense of self and being okay, even righteous, before God and people, and (2) It leaves us feeling exposed and ashamed and desirous of hiding what we really feel from anyone else, including God.

Jesus tells the Pharisees to clean their insides first of all.  But how does one do that?  They were cleaning their cups and plates according to a ritual process of washing that was symbolic of God’s cleansing.  The answer to cleaning their insides was to appeal to God for cleansing.  That meant first of all confessing what was going on inside them, confessing before the very God to whom they feared to acknowledge their hypocrisy and lawlessness, their greed and self-indulgence.  That meant losing control. That meant being fully unworthy before God and therefore unable to merit heaven. It meant depending on Him to do the cleansing, starting with forgiveness and ending with a supply of His ability to change hearts.

When one embarks on this journey of being totally honest about the evil within one’s own soul it inevitably changes the way you relate to others.  The judgmental approach of the Pharisees has to be abandoned.  I realize I am no better than you and that I struggle with unrighteousness and so I appreciate the mercy of God and others toward my own wickedness.  I long for another and so I offer to others another chance.  I forgive those who ask for my forgiveness because I have experienced such forgiveness myself and so desperately need it and prize it. 

Clean the inside of your cup!