Humble and Humorous when Humiliated-Matthew 15

Matthew 14 suggests that we Christians should Walk on Water. In Matthew 15 we consider what constitutes (great) faith from a Canaanite woman. She was aggressively persistently humble, humorous and unrelentingly undeterred while [seemingly] humiliated (Mt 15:25-27). One who is humiliated publicly or even privately often reacts and retaliates angrily and is rarely humble or humorous. Also, one who is humble is rarely aggressive, while one who is aggressive is rarely humble. But a Canaanite woman who came to Jesus was unrelentingly aggressive, humble and humorous–despite Jesus’ seemingly curt and repeated dismissive responses to her. How we react and respond when we feel humiliated might indicate whether we have great faith or not (Mt 15:28).

Challenging Christ. Jesus and the disciples go to Gennesaret, and he’s recognized (Mt 14:34-35a). Word spreads throughout the region that Jesus has come. People bring the sick to him and beg him to let them only touch his cloak, believing that even a touch will cure them. All who touch him are cured (Mt 14:35b-36). This attracts the attention of the Pharisees and scribes, who came from Jerusalem to challenge his work (Mt 15:1). They follow their earlier strategy of asking about the behavior of his disciples (Mt 12:1–8) rather than about Jesus. They ask why his disciples don’t wash their hands before eating (Mt 15:2).

Using the Bible as a weapon. Lev 15:11 admonishes anyone whose hands have been defiled to purify them by washing them in water before using their hands in ritual. The Pharisees and scribes regard this “law” as the tradition of the elders, even though it’s not clear that Leviticus requires everyone, not just the priest, to wash their hands before they eat. Jesus recognizes the question as a ruse, so his response exposes how the Pharisees and scribes use the tradition of the elders to evade the law (Mt 15:3).

Using the Bible for one‘s benefit. The commands are clear: honor your father and your mother, and whoever speaks evil of father and mother must die (Mt 15:4; Exo 21:17; Lev 20:9). But Jesus says that the Pharisees and scribes avoid honoring their moms and dads. Instead of supporting their needy parents they claim they’ve given everything to God (Mt 15:5-6), while they use all that they have allegedly given to God for their own benefit. Jesus accuses his accusers of manipulating the law through tradition for their own benefit. Jesus charges them of hypocrisy. They honor God with their words and by manipulating the law, but by doing so they fail to worship God (Mt 15:7-9; Isa 29:13), for to worship God rightly we can’t distinguish who we are from what we do. To drive his point home Jesus calls the crowd to him (Mt 15:10) to tell them that it’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles, but what comes out (Mt 15:11). It’s not a question of whether the disciples’ hands have been washed, but whether they lead faithful lives.

No diplomacy needed with hypocrites. The disciples are concerned that Jesus’ words offended the Pharisees (Mt 15:12). The disciples who’ve just worshiped Jesus as the Son of God (Mt 14:33), are concerned that he offended those who represent religious legitimacy. The disciples think they need to be diplomats, but Jesus is no diplomat when he deals with hypocrites. Jesus says that the Pharisees and their followers, the blind leading the blind, are best left alone because they’ll self-destruct (Mt 15:13-14).

How‘s your heart? Peter asks Jesus to explain this “parable” (Mt 15:15). Just as he forbade taking oaths (Mt 5:33), Jesus says that speech expresses our hearts, for out of our hearts–often unknown to ourselves–come “murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander” (Mt 15:19). These defile much more than what we eat with unwashed hands (Mt 15:17, 20). Jesus’ reply suggests that the Pharisees placed emphasis on the minutiae of the law, like Eve adding to the law (Gen 3:3) while ignoring the weighty matters.

An outsider recognizes Jesus. Jesus then goes to the district of Tyre and Sidon (Mt 15:21), which aren’t Israelite cities. He encounters a Canaanite woman who identifies him as the son of David, begging him to exorcise the demon that’s tormenting her daughter (Mt 15:22). Jesus, unlike his encounter with the centurion (Mt 8:5–13), remains silent (Mt 15:23a). The disciples beg him to send her away because she’s shouting at them (Mt 15:23b). Harshly (seems harsh to us), Jesus tells her that he was “sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 15:24)–the first time he says so, after telling the disciples to go only to the cities of Israel (Mt 10:6). Yet from the beginning those who aren’t Israelites have been cured and instructed by him.

Undeterred and humble. Israel’s Joshua (this time) doesn’t kill but heals the Canaanite’s child. Remarkably, this Canaanite woman recognizes that this is the son of David, and refuses to be deterred by his silence and continues to beg him for help (Mt 15:25). Jesus answers in an even more derisive fashion, using the Israelite derogatory name for Gentiles, to tell her that food intended for children shouldn’t be given to dogs (Mt 15:26). Yet this extraordinary woman, observes that even the dogs are allowed to eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table (Mt 15:27).

Willingness to beg exemplifies our faith. Jesus, as he commended the faith of the centurion (Mt 8:10), praises this woman’s “great” faith (Mt 15:26a). There’s nothing “little” about her badgering of Jesus. Jesus, as he did for the centurion’s servant, declares that that for which she asks will be done, and her daughter is instantly healed (Mt 15:28b). This unknown Canaanite woman, not only becomes for us Gentiles the forerunner of our faith, but her reply to Jesus teaches us how to speak.

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he is us. Amen.

Healing. Jesus leaves Tyre and Sidon and passes along the Sea of Galilee (Mt 15:29). He’s in the vicinity of where his ministry began, maybe close to where he delivered TSOM, because he went up the mountain, sat down, and again the crowds came to him bringing the lame, maimed, blind, mute, and many others (Mt 15:30). This time on the mountain he doesn’t deliver a sermon, but cures all who are brought to him. The crowd is amazed to see the mute speaking, the maimed whole, and the lame walking. They praise the God of Israel (Mt 15:31), recognizing that the long-expected kingdom has drawn near in this man’s work.

Disciples don‘t get it. They stay with Jesus 3 days on the mountain and ran out of food. Jesus has compassion on them, saying to the disciples that if he sent them away some might faint on the way for lack of food (Mt 15:32). Jesus is the Messiah from heaven, yet he’s one of us being well aware of our daily need for food. He’s already taught us to pray for our daily bread (Mt 6:11). The disciples protest that there’s nowhere in the desert in which they may obtain enough bread to feed such a multitude (Mt 15:33). These same disciples were with Jesus when he fed the 5,000, yet they continue not to understand who this Jesus is or what he can do.

Eat with Jesus. When asked, they tell Jesus they have 7 loaves and a few small fish (Mt 15:34). He orders the crowd to sit, gives thanks, breaks the bread, gives it to the disciples to give to the crowd (Mt 15:35-36). 4,000, not counting women and children, eat and are filled. Just as when he fed the 5,000, food was left, this time sufficient to fill 7 baskets (Mt 15:37-38). This feeding, like that of the 5,000, anticipates his feeding of the disciples at Passover. He gave thanks before he broke the bread just as he does before the meal with the disciples. To eat with Jesus is to be made part, to participate, in the continuing Eucharist of his kingdom.

Why repeat stories…like the feeding of the 4,000? Haven’t we learned all we need to know by his feeding of the 5,000? Or why does Matthew continue to tell us that Jesus heals the lame, maimed, blind, and mute (Mt 15:30)? Also, the reports of Jesus’ disputes with the Pharisees and scribes may seem repetitive. But under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Matthew knows we need all the stories we can get. 7 virtues. The details of the feeding of the 4,000, like the details throughout Matthew, can occasion reflection that’s fruitful for the church. The 7 loafs of bread and 2 fish have been interpreted as the 7 virtues we need to live as Christians. The 2 fish are the law and the gospel. It may be objected that there’s nothing in the text to suggest that Jesus is using the 7 fish to represent our need for 1) courage, 2) temperance, 3) justice, 4) practical wisdom, 5) faith, 6) hope, and 7) charity, but neither is such a reading excluded by the text. Such readings are possible. The crucial issue is whether such a construal builds up the body of the church.

Discipleship requires virtues. I object to those who restrict forgiveness of enemies or prohibition against oaths to the “private,” because the distinction between the public and private is not in the text. But the feeding of the 4,000 with 7 loaves doesn’t mention the virtues. The difference between these two ways of reading the text is that the former reading has no justification within the whole gospel of Matthew. In contrast the virtues are found throughout Matthew because 1) courage, 2) temperance, 3) justice, and 4) practical wisdom are constituent habits of discipleship. Yet their content is transformed by the theological virtues of 5) faith, 6) hope, and 7) charity. Such virtues are required for a faithful reading of the feeding of the 4,000.

Reference:

1. Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, MI, 2006.  Matthew 14–15: John’s Death, Jesus’s Miracles, and Controversies.
2. Bailey, Kenneth E. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels. IVP, Downers Grove, IL, 60515, 2008. The Syro-Phoenician Woman (Mt 15:21-28), Ch. 16, pg. 217-226.

Herod exists in an unreal world created by and for those who occupy positions meant to sustain the illusion that they are accountable only to their own desires.   Jesus’ exchange with the Pharisees, scribes, and his disciples is prismatic of many of the controversies before the church in our time. Many who desire churches to take a more open attitude toward homosexuals do so because they think that what people do with their lives sexually is not that significant. Moreover, they can rightly point to gay people who lead morally admirable lives. Accordingly, they can’t help but view those who oppose inclusion of gay people in the church as “Pharisaic.”

Arguments concerning homosexuality fail to see the interconnectedness of our lives. Jesus condemns adultery and fornication. He does so because he has called us to live lives of faithfulness and trust. To be faithful and to trust one another means that we must be truthful and avoid slander. No aspect of our lives can be isolated, having no relation to other aspects of our lives as well as the lives of our brothers and sisters. Sex cannot be a private matter for those who’d live as disciples of Christ. That sex must be public doesn’t determine the status of gay people in the church, but suggests the kind of community that must exist in which the kind of argument and conflict required for the up-building of community can happen. Jesus makes clear that prohibitions against murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, and slander cannot be separated from the habits necessary to sustain a community capable of forming people of virtue.

It matters who’s included in the community that has arguments about what is and is not defiling. The question of who is to be included in the people whom Jesus is calling into existence is raised by Jesus’ leaving the controversy with the Pharisees and scribes to go to the district of Tyre and Sidon (Mt 15:21).

It’s not accidental that we’re taught to pray before we receive the body and blood of Christ.