What we give

Why are the Pharisees always arguing with Jesus?

the Written Torah (Torah she-be-Khetav) and the Oral Torah (Torah she-be-al Peh)

Arguments & disputation: I state my interpretation, you state yours and, like iron sharpens iron, we seek Gods will together.

Washing of hands - outrage or enquiry?

Can’t say either way, but we can say that the Pharisees were upset with Jesus’ answer.

Rabbinic method can end up with the conceit that all argumetns have equal value.

Jesus doesn’t politely disagree

Scathing of Pharisees. Instead of arguing with them, instead of treating them like rabbis, he usese them as an object lesson for the crowd.

What comes out of your mouth

The New International Version Chapter 15

What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

Strange thing about that list, though, Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”

We tend to think of the things that come out of our mouth as the things that we say. But Jesus is being more, shall we say, “earthy”? Matt 15:17 ““Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?”

Rather than being our words (although we may speak murder, or falseness, or infidelity), the things that come out of our mouth are the things that we can’t truly stomach, and are vomited out.

Jesus shifts the conversation from the head, from abstract disputation and interpretation, to the stomach, to the visceral experience on life.

And, for all their religious correctness, the Pharisees are found wanting.

There is a cautionary tale here, for us in the church.

We may have things lined up in our heads, but what is jostling around in the core of our bodies.

A life of faith is not just about saying the right things, about believing the right things up here, it is about how we respond to life from in here.

The Canaanite woman

And then wee come to the second part of the story. Jesus and the Canaanite woman. The annoying person who the disciples want to get rid of.

It feels like Matthew has missed a couple of gears here.

The story crunches rather than flows.

On the surface it seems that Jesus is acting in direct opposition to what he has just said. First he ignores her. When he responds, it only gets worse Matt 15:24-26 “He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.””

Oof.

That lands pretty hard.

This is not the Jesus we know. A man of compassion and love. The Son of God sent to seek and save the lost.

But then something interesting happens.

Jesus engages with this desparate woman on a level that he did not engage with the Pharisees. He engages in her argument. He listens to waht she has to say. After a false start, Jesus treats this nameless woman, defined only by her ethnicity, as an equal. In short, Jesus treats her like a fellow Rabbi, and listens to her teaching.

In Matthew’s Gospel this is the point that the compass begins to turn, and Jesus moves from establishing his ministry, to fulfilling his destiny. From here Jesus feeds the Four Thousand at Galilee, is challenged once more by the Pharisees, is acknowledged as the Messiah by Peter, and turns his face towards Jerusalem and the cross.

In Mark’s Gospel Jesus takes his queue from this unnamed woman, and preaches the Gospel in Tyre and Sidon - Greek speaking gentile communities.

This isn’t just a chance encounter, a footnote in history, but a profoundly important moment in Jesus’ ministry and in our faith.

In the end, it is not Jesus’ interpretation of his calling that shapes the future, but his response to her lived experience. What comes from her heart over-rules what comes from his head.

It’s staggering when you stop to think about it. The Law of the Head (the written word) is overruled by the Law of the Heart (God’s spoken word from the Canaanite woman to God’s living Word in Jesus).

This woman, anonymous and yet not powerless, refues to allow her story to be shaped by what she is given, and instead shapes our story by what she is prepared to give.

What do we give?

I want to come back to something I said earlier:

“A life of faith is not just about saying the right things, about believing the right things up here, it is about how we respond to life from in here.”

“We may have things lined up in our heads, but what is jostling around in the core of our bodies.”

One of the strengths of the Presbyterian tradition is our thoughtful faith. We value the act of listening to God’s Word and applying it to our lives.

This strength can also be a weakness.

We can spend so much time up here, that we forget how to live down here.

Sometimes we need shaking up. We need to reconnect with the heart of God.

Does our experience live up to our interpretation?

Do we listen with our hearts, or only our heads?

So what is God’s heart saying to us today through Matthew account of Jesus and the Canaanite woman?

Even if your life is outside the bounds of interpretation, Jesus will listen to your experience.

The Pharisees Jesus treated with disdain, the Canaanite woman, Jesus treated as an equal.

In her story, mirrored with Jesus’ dispute with the Pharisees over interpreting the Law, we learn that what we put in to our lives will shape what comes out.

Words are from our heads, what spills out of our guts comes from somewhere deeper.

What do we see when we look inside ourselves? Is it a life in harmony with the Holy Spirit, or a life at war with itself?

In Galatians 5 Paul gives the church in Antioch advice about living by the Spirit. He gives us two lists - the acts of the flesh - very similar to Jesus’ list of things that defile when they come from deep within us.

In contrast are the fruits of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22–23 NIV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

In Christ, we are called to live by God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus teaches us that what coems from within us is more important that what we are exposed to. So let’s take Paul’s advice: Galatians 5:25 “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”

If we fill our lives with these things, then this is what will overflow.