"Why is it that your disciples do not follow the teaching handed down by our ancestors, but instead eat with ritually unclean hands?" (v. 5, TEV)

There’s a grand old hymn I haven’t seen in many hymn hooks, but we used to sing it in my boyhood church. The opening words are these:

My church, my church, my dear old church, my fathers’ and my own.
On prophets and apostles built, and Christ the cornerstone.
All else beside by storm or tide may yet be overthrown,
But not my church, my dear old church, my fathers’ and my own.

Now when we hear this complaining question of the Pharisees as we read today’s Bible text, we might rephrase it and cast it in the terms of the old hymn, "My church, my church, my dear old church: what’s happened to my dear old church?" 

Have you ever wondered what’s bee…