Crunchy

Confession: I make my own granola. 

You probably just mentally labeled me a “crunchy mom,” if you use the new lingo. With the advent of an entire department of the government dedicated to “making America healthy again,” we’ve developed a lot of terminology for our latest health trends and crazes. 

I like making my own granola. It seems like a balanced, low-cost way to get my kids to eat grains, fruits, and proteins in the morning without sugar. However, when my dad recently visited, he stocked the house with enough sugar cereal to coat my granola recipe in two layers of dust. The children were elated. I called my dad “Grandma,” just to remind him of the days when he was the parent trying to limit sugar intake. He smiled, just like Grandma always did. 

And, you know what, it doesn’t really matter. There is no moral standard when it comes to sugar intake. Gluttony is a sin, sure. Allowing your belly to be your god flies in the face of the first commandment, yes, but there is no compulsion when it comes to being crunchy- or not. 

The Pharisees and Scribes had their own first century version of the crunchy movement. They gathered around Jesus, but instead of asking questions about His teachings or His healing, they became the morality police.

“Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” They wanted to know. 

They’d been watching. Some of the disciples didn’t follow all of the traditional hand washing rules. (They probably ignored the signs posted in all of their restrooms.) Even when they’d been in the dirty throng of the masses in their local Walmart, the disciples didn’t observe the customary twenty seconds of handwashing followed by a generous squirt of Germ-X. The Pharisees were offended. 

They demanded an explanation.

Jesus didn’t hesitate. 

“Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me…”

Ouch. 

That’s what Jesus thought of Make Judaism Great Again. 

It’s easy to slip into the deception of allowing externals to be the measurement of morality. We judge ourselves on how much money we give to the poor, how often we attend church, how well our children do in school, how well other people speak of us, how faithful we’ve been in our marriage or ministry, how well we can stick with a diet and exercise regimen, how long we’ve been sober, or how many inches we’ve erased from our waistlines. We judge our neighbors on how terribly their externals are looking. 

In 1828, Mr. Webster gave morality two definitions. One was external. The other was something more. 

“Morality: the practice of moral duties; virtue.”

“Morality: The quality of an action which renders it good; the conformity of an act to the divine law… This conformity implies that the act must be performed by a free agent, and from a motive of obedience to the divine will. This is the strict theological and scriptural sense of morality, but we often apply the word to actions which accord with justice and human laws, without reference to the motives from which they proceed.”

In other words, Mr. Webster recognized the same truth that should have been dawning on the Pharisees: We confuse morality with morality. 

Jesus told His disciples, “If you love Me, you will obey My commands.”

It is this love which renders obedience good, producing a morality that goes so much deeper than what we eat for breakfast.