On cleaning cups

One of my favorite illustrations that Jesus used with the Pharisees is the cleaning of the cup. The story I am thinking about takes place in Luke 11:37-39. A Pharisee invites Jesus to come and eat with him. Then the Pharisee is surprised to see that Jesus did not wash his hands before he ate. (My kids would like that.) Apparently the Pharisee is being judgmental of Jesus. It seems like this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Jesus tells the Pharisee that they are so careful about these ceremonial things and doing all the things that are right on the outside but inside they are full of greed and wickedness. How does this happen? Someone does all these good things but they are corrupt. Jesus' metaphor of cleaning the outside of the cup is great. You can hold a cup upside down under a stream of water and clean the outside without touching the inside. The cup might look good but it is as filthy in the end as it was before it got the outside shine. If you take that cup and try to clean the inside first you will find it quite difficult to have a filthy outside. Why? Because your hands get wet and the outside starts coming clean while you clean the inside. This is like us. You see if we have a horizontal focus (i.e. our eyes are on men). We will have a tendency to begin to measure our own righteousness by comparison to others. There is nothing driving us to rightness on the inside. Everything becomes about appearances. Judgmentalism begins to set in. We work harder at the look and things get worse on the inside. The best thing we can do if we struggle in this area is to really begin to focus on Jesus. If we look to Him our heart's wickedness will be revealed in the light of His mercy and grace. It is in His light of acceptance that we will find cleansing. As Jesus brings about cleansing on the inside the outside will naturally follow. Luke 6:45 says, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” If we focus on living a God focused life our hearts will have an abundance of good treasure.