When Talk is Cheap the Price
is Too High
Matthew 15:10-28
It was one of those advice column letters that caught my
eye. A secretary wrote in to say that her desk was located very close to the
Men’s Room. So, close in fact, and so
thin were the walls that she could tell who washed their hands after using the
facilities and who didn’t. When those
who did not walked out; she said she didn’t want them touching her computer or
files or anything else. She wanted to
know how she could gracefully communicate her special knowledge without being
overly offensive.
At the beginning of the fifteenth chapter of the gospel
of Matthew, Jesus encountered the Pharisees who had made a special trip from
Jerusalem with the hope catching Jesus or his disciples in breach of some
Jewish Law. There trip was not wasted, for they caught the disciples committing
the grievous sin of eating “bread with unwashed hands”.
When the Pharisees saw this they didn’t write Dear Abby
to ask how this sin should be gracefully addressed. They didn’t wrestle with questions of
propriety and decorum. They were not
worried about hurting anyone’s feelings. They just laid it out for everyone to
see. They rang the alarm and pointed
their fingers and called out “See, see what filthy people this Rabbi has with
him.”
As they did with the Sabbath Laws, the Pharisees had
taken a verse from the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and expanded
and extrapolated from that verse all kinds of rules and regulations. This time they took a verse, which indicated
that the priests had to wash their hands and feet prior to entering the
Tabernacle or Temple of God.[1] This was a ritual designed to symbolize in a
physical way the purity that the Priests should reflect in an inward way, and
this was a good thing. It had some of the same meaning Baptism has for us
today. But, by the time the Pharisees
were through with this law they had developed a very intricate, formulaic
ritual for when and how often people should wash their hands. Once again, this had little to do with
physical cleanliness; but it had much to do with ritual purity.
Remember the Pharisees were not the political power
brokers in Jewish society; rather they were struggling to impose their vision
of morality and ritual obedience of the law on Israel. Maintaining purity was a key item in their
agenda. They thought Jesus was religiously incorrect, and his cavalier attitude
toward such things threatened their vision of a smoothly running, holy
community.
Jesus response to their cleanliness patrol was simple and
to the point. It was taken from the prophecy of Isaiah where God said, “This
people honors me with their lips; but their heart is far away. In vain do they
worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.[2]
Jesus adds a kicker to the obvious
meaning of this verse. “It is not what
goes into a person which defiles, but it is that which comes out of a person
with corrupts.”[3] He said in effect, “You have forgotten to
keep the main thing, the main thing.”
The main thing is having a heart for God. Everything else comes in second. Your genealogical pedigree is not the main
thing. Your ethnic background is not the
main thing. Your stock portfolio is not
the main thing. The diploma hanging on
your wall is not the main thing. The
main thing is having a heart for God.
The reason that is the main thing is because everything else that is
good proceeds from the condition of the heart.
Honesty, integrity, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and the way these
are expressed by our words and actions all spring from the condition of the
heart.
To illustrate that point Matthew connects the story,
which was read this morning to Jesus’ view of purity. Remember, Matthew does his theology as an
editor who places these stories in a particular order. This is neither haphazard nor
accidental. They are where they are for
a reason. So, immediately after Jesus explains that our attitudes and actions
proceed from our faith or lack of it; he goes to the city of Tyre.
This is the only time that the Gospels record Jesus
leaving the country of Israel. Tyre
means `Rock’. It was a Phoenicia
port city, which at that time was considered part of Syria. There was a long history of animosity between
those who lived in that region and those who lived in Israel. In the Old
Testament it was described as a wealthy and godless oppressor Israel.[4]
“This woman is, therefore, not just a Gentile; but she is
a member of a resented class of privileged foes. To the Jewish reader, she has
a lot of Gentile chutzpah to ask a Galilean Jewish healer for help. It would be analogous to a rich Brahmin
pulling up in a fancy limousine to a shelter run by Mother Teresa and insisting
that she leave her untouchable charges to pray over her sick child.” (Garland, pg 293)
Yet, that is exactly what this Syro-Phoenician mother
does. Her daughter, the Bible said, had
an unclean spirit. We don’t know what that meant exactly. We only know that it would have been bad.
Now, this mother had heard stories of Jesus’ healing power. So, she did what any desperate parent would
do. She pleaded with Jesus to come and
heal her daughter. She was going to
leave no stone unturned; no remedy untried.
She asked again and again, “Master, please come and heal my
daughter.”
Jesus response
to her presents us with one of the most difficult passages in all of the New
Testament, because it seems so out of character. Jesus turns this desperate parent away by
saying, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take
the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”[5] This sounds so much like the response of a
typical Jew of that time to a hated enemy. In fact, this may well have been a
common saying. The enemy was then and is
today often referred to as `dogs’.
If you are like me; when you read this verse your mind
immediately searches for extenuating circumstances; or some way to soften the
meaning. We must be careful when we do
that or else we end up creating Jesus in
our own image and the image of him we prefer.
We often do so in our artistic renderings of Jesus; but we must not do
so in our theological understanding. For
then we end up with a kind of self-idolatry.
Some Bible
scholars look to the Greek and make the point that the use of the word dog is
in the diminutive form rendering its translation more like that of a family
puppy. To be sure that is better than
calling someone a rabid dog, but it is still pretty racist and
paternalistic. None of us want to think
of Jesus in these terms.
Others look at this verse and explain that the meaning is
found in the tone in which it was delivered.
There may be something to that.
Black and white print cannot communicate body language or the twinkle of
the eye or a slight smile lifting the corners of the mouth. Jesus may have been using this common ethnic
jibe as a way of deliberately pointing out how ridiculous it is to make
judgments based solely on race or ethnic background. It may challenge the
listener not to set limits on the universality of the good news of the Kingdom
of God. This episode is fundamentally about crossing boundaries.
Jesus may have been doing what the New York Yankee
manager, Branch Rickey, did when he brought up Jackie Robinson to be the first
Afro-American to break the color line in the major leagues. Rickey brought Robinson into his office and
deliberately used racist language to see how Robinson would respond; because he
knew that the greatest challenge Robinson would face would have nothing to do
with his baseball skills, and everything to do with the way he would handle the
pressure that would inevitably come from racist fans who wanted to keep the
Major Leagues all white. When asked what
he would do if some white player slapped him across the cheek; Robinson was
reported to have said, “God, gave me two cheeks.” With that answer Branch Rickey knew that he
had found the right man to break the color barrier in baseball.
Perhaps, Jesus was doing something similar. Maybe this was some kind of test to judge the
sincerity of this woman’s faith. She
interprets that way at least. For she
responds with one of the great come back lines in all of scripture. She says, “Yes, Lord, but even the
dogs under the table feed on the children’s crumbs.” Not many had ever cornered Jesus in this
way. Her response was one of
humility. Her love for her daughter and
her faith in Jesus overcame any pride she might have in her ethnic
background. She does not storm away with
wounded pride like the rich young ruler.
She is like the men who dug a hole through the roof to
lower their paralyzed friend to Jesus.[6] She is like the woman with an issue of blood
who relentlessly pushes her way through the crowd to touch his garment.[7] She was like the widow who knew no shame and
screamed out daily in the court of the wicked judge for justice. She will not be put off. And I’m guessing that Jesus found her faith
refreshing. After dealing with the
cynics in Nazareth; after playing theological tag-you’re-it with the Pharisees;
I think Jesus saw her faith that would not give up as a breath a fresh
air. So, he assures her that her
daughter will be all right.
Dwight Moody is reported to have said, “Jesus
sends no one away empty, except those who were full of themselves.”
Pride stiffens the knees so that they will not bow down
and muzzles our voice so that we do not call out in humble supplication. That is one reason Jesus said why it is so
difficult for those who are rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.[8]
That’s why the Old Testament said, “Pride goes before the fall.”[9]
That may be the key to our understanding of
what Jesus really meant. Perhaps Jesus
was saying the Kingdom of God is for those who have been waiting, watching, and
hoping.
The structure of the Bible itself indicates that God
began to plant the seeds of faith first with a man Abraham, and then a people;
the children of Abraham; and finally God sent his son to the whole world. (John
3:16) There was an order to this, and a strategy. When invading hostile territory a beachhead
must be established; and God chose for God’s own reasons to charge the shores
of the Sea of Galilee.
The people living there had been prepared by the Prophets
and the Word of God. They were the first
who came to believe in one God unfettered by limits of geography. They understood that God would send a
Messiah. For that reason the Apostle
Paul said that God came first to the Jew and then to the Gentile.[10] The children of Abraham had been waiting for
a thousand years for the advent of the Messiah.
Would this Canaanite woman have really understood what
that meant? Her world was one of
fertility gods, war gods, love goddesses, moon goddesses, and more. Could she
have the slimmest notion of who Jesus was?
Was Jesus just another magician in her eyes?
Jesus didn’t know, until he heard her response of
faith. Then he knew she had a heart for
God. One preacher put it this way:
“Jesus suggests that there are limits to God’s grace
and mercy. God cannot give forgiveness
to those who have no sense of guilt and do no think they need redemption. God cannot give love to a person who does not
want to be loved. God cannot give
strength, comfort, encouragement, and peace to one who refuses to admit the
need for strength, who will not admit a weakness. God cannot give hope to those who are
satisfied with what they now have. God
has no way to give faith to those who will trust no one but themselves. God
will not make whole and better than new that which no one will confess is
broken. A savior is worthless to those
who have no desire to be saved.”[11]
God will not force reconciliation where none is
desired. God does offer the “bread of
life”, but you must take and eat.
Jesus offers the water which springs up to eternal life”, but you
must drink it. God comes to those who wait for Him to make us over by grace
into His likeness and into His glory.
Love, even crumbs of love, come where love is desired. Take and receive
in your life all that God has to give.
Remember, “It is not what goes into a person which
defiles, but it is that which comes out of a person with corrupts.” We have to keep the main thing the main
thing and that is having a heart for God.
Everything else comes in second.
Let us pray:
Lord grant us the faith of that woman who would not take
no for an answer. Help us when we too
easily give in and give up. Remind us to
keep the main thing the main thing and that is to have a heart for you. Amen.
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