Matthew 15: More healings, more teachings, more food!

Introduction

The stories today are going to be bookended by a series of healings. In between, we are going to see Jesus talk about traditions and cleanliness, followed by a healing of a Gentile woman’s daughter. This event will set up the final grouping of healings as we see the Gospel shift away from one people group to everyone.

The heart of these passages I think is the heart of the Gospel. We will see that in the end, it’s the condition of our heart that matters, and the heart can only be purified by faith. The good news is, this can be done to anyone.

14:34-15:20: Traditions, Commands, and Cleanliness

We begin the section at the end of Chapter 14. Jesus and the disciples have just crossed back across the Sea of Galilee after the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus walking on water.

John tells us that the people from the other side of the lake followed them over the next day. They landed at Gennesaret, which was both an area and a small town. It’s on the western shores of the Sea of Galilee.

They began bringing all of their people to him to be healed, and it gets to the point where they all just start trying to touch him (and of course, it works). This shows their faith that Jesus can do these things.

This same and similar power was given to the apostles later in the book of Acts. People were brought to Peter, and his shadow healed them. People also used Paul’s handkerchief and other items to heal people that they touched.

Now John follows this story up with the Lord’s Bread of Life sermon/argument with the people. Matthew, being a Jew, writing to Jews, instead focuses on this conversation around traditions and commandments.

It’s possible that both conversations happened at the same time. Matthew may also not be telling the story chronologically, which is normal.

The religious leaders (Pharisees and lawyers) came from Jerusalem. That’s traveling almost 100 miles to see Jesus. Except, unlike the people wanting to get healed, these men were wanting to nitpick.

I think Matthew wants us to see that the religious leaders cared more about a silly little tradition (washing hands) than the obvious: tons of people getting healed just by touching Jesus!

I read a story once of a man who took his son to a parade where the Queen of England would be passing by in her car. When she passed by, everyone got so excited. Afterwards, the man asked his son what he thought, and the son said, “Dad, did you see the wheels on that car!” The dad was shocked and asked, “But did you see the Queen??”

His son has been paying attention to the wrong thing, and in the process missed the important part. That’s what these men were doing!

They ask why the disciples don’t wash their hands - which was a tradition of the elders. This may seem funny to us now since we know how germs spread, and that washing hands is actually a good thing, but back then it wasn’t about disease per se.

The Law of Moses had laws regarding clean and unclean things. The simple idea was not to touch or eat anything unclean. Over time, this tradition had developed that basically said, “Maybe we should just wash our hands before eating anything, just in case we’ve touched something unclean and didn’t realize it.” (again, to them it was probably less about hygiene, and more about ritual purity).

The thing with traditions is that they can become a source of arrogance. “I follow this, and you don’t.” By not following the traditions, it meant the leaders weren’t being listened to. And if they aren’t being listened to, do they really have any power? That’s the real threat.

Something the religious leaders had missed was that the Law of Moses was never meant to be burdensome. In fact, in the grand scheme of national laws, it’s pretty minimal.

Here’s my unpopular opinion: the OT Law was not difficult to follow and obey for the regular person (Paul casually says that according to the Law of Moses he was ‘perfect’). There are only 613 laws. That may seem like a lot, but guess what? I bet there are more than that in the State of Missouri alone. Then add on federal laws.

Here is a quick estimate of the current number of federal laws:

30,000 This is the number of statutes enacted since 1789 by Congress and the Continental Congress, which were signed into law by the President or passed after a veto. Congress typically passes 200–600 statutes during each of its 115-term biennial sessions.

300,000 This is the number of laws that some estimate exist, including many that cover government agency regulations. For example, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) administers and enforces over 180 federal laws.

4,500 This is the number of federal crimes estimated to be in the United States Code, with more than 300,000 additional federal crimes spread across federal regulations.

It’s no surprise that John says in John 1:16–17 “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

The Law was extremely graceful in many ways. But Jesus brought “grace upon grace” because he minimized it even further. From 613 laws, he shrunk it down to just two: Love the Lord your God, and Love Your Neighbor.

But these religious leaders had done just the opposite. Rather than expanding the grace of the Law, they simply expanded the Law through their traditions.

Jesus responds to their question of hand washing with a question of his own: why do they break the actual Law of Moses?

Jesus points to the example of honoring mother and father. It’s one of the Ten Commandments, and one of the most important in the entire OT.

And yet, the religious leaders had developed a “tradition” that conveniently got them out of having to take care of their parents, while also making them look pious.

It was simple, just say, “Corban”, which meant gift or dedication, and basically declare that whatever gift you would have given was now dedicated to God, and therefore couldn’t be given.

Win-win right? They no longer had to give the money to their parents, and then who’s actually going to question whether or not you really gave that money to God?

It would be like going out to eat and telling the waitress, “Sorry I can’t give you a tip, this is my offering money for church.” Frustrating isn’t it?

And so Jesus calls them out for their hypocrisy. They complain about handwashing, but have no problem actually skirting one of the most important laws!

We ourselves need to be careful about this. The previous example about tipping is just one of many examples where Christians can over complicate things at the expense of loving others. (On tipping, there’s the old, but terrible saying, ‘I only give God 10%, why should I give you more?’, and it is pretty well known that after church meals produce lower tips.)

Jesus ends his rebuke by saying that the religious leaders and people were actually fulfilling prophecy (Isaiah 29:13). Lots of people like to ask, “Am I in the Bible?” usually the answer is yes, but as in this example, not for the right reasons!

Jesus then goes one step further, this time talking to the crowd as a whole, and gets to the real heart of the matter.

The traditions were so concerned with keeping someone physically ‘clean’, and yet they paid little attention to whether or not someone was spiritually ‘clean’. And so the Jesus clears that up by saying that it’s what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person.

A couple of funny things comes out of this:

First the disciples ask, “Did you know you offended the Pharisees?” I like to imagine Jesus saying, “You don’t say?”

Instead, we know what he actually said, which was a warning about following them. They were blind guides, shooting in the dark, and quite literally making stuff up (the traditions). If the people didn’t know any better, then it was like “the blind leading the blind”.

The other more ominous part of this was Jesus saying, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.” These men had refused to attach themselves to the Vine (Jesus). Judgement would come, and as in the parable of the weeds, they would be rooted out.

Again, this is a warning for teachers today who aren’t connected to Jesus (but might think they are).

The second funny thing is Peter’s question asking for the parable to be explained.

The ESV softens the translation of the Lord’s answer to, “Are you also still without understanding?” The NIV84 says, “Are you still so dull?” The Greg Morse Translation says, “Are you an idiot?”

Have you ever tried to explain something to kids, gently, but they still don’t get it? So then you have to just get almost explicit? That’s what I think Jesus had to do here.

He explains the process of how pooping works. “What you eat, goes in one end, and out the other into the toilet.” Therefore nothing you actually eat can defile you. The dietary laws were merely symbolic in this manner, trying to get people to understand the truth.

And what is the truth? Real defilement comes from the heart (aka, what comes out of the mouth, not what goes in). And what comes from the heart? Well, Jesus lays out a rogue’s gallery of the worst sins.

Jesus is telling them (and us), that we can follow the entire Law perfectly, and even all the ‘traditions’ perfectly, but at the end of the day still be terrible people. Why? Because as Isaiah said, our bodies can be present at the alter, but our hearts are miles away.

Which is why, if we aren’t letting Jesus purify our hearts through the Holy Spirit, nothing we do matters.

Philippians 3:4–9 “though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—”

21-28: Healing of the Canaanite Woman’s Daughter

From there, Jesus went further north into Tyre and Sidon, a relatively Gentile area.

While there a Canaanite woman comes to him. This is breaking all kinds of social norms. Not only is it a woman, but she’s Canaanite. A quick history lesson shows that the Israelites and Canaanites didn’t exactly get along. These two peoples were ancient enemies.

She puts racial animosity aside to plead for her daughter. She clearly knows who Jesus is because she calls him, “Lord, Son of David’ - that’s more than what most Jews would call him!

And yet…Jesus doesn’t answer her right away. Perhaps some of you have felt this way with God. We beg and plead for something, but He stays frustratingly silent. As it turns out, God is usually silent in order to test our faith.

The Lord only responds after the disciples try to get him to send her away. He says that he was “sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” This isn’t too surprising: Jesus was first and foremost the Jewish Messiah.

But this woman is persistent. In fact, I think she is living out the Lord’s teaching on prayer: Matthew 7:7 ““Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

But again, Jesus tests her faith by saying, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

This might seem offensive to our ears, but I think Jesus is simply using the norms of his time as an illustration to really test this woman’s faith.

Nonetheless, I don’t know how you would have responded to this comment. Would you have said, ‘I’m no dog!’ and walked away? Pride would tempt us.

Instead, this woman actually throws it back at Jesus, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

The humility, and boldness, demonstrated in that statement is astounding. She’s willing, for a moment, to be classified as a lowly animal in order to obtain healing for her daughter. But not just that, she is acknowledging that Jesus is Lord and Master.

Jesus rewards her great faith, and heals her daughter (instantly, it might be added).

So what can we learn from this story?

On one level, the Lord destroys the racial barriers and animosity that had existed for millenium. He was in fact ‘only send to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’, but here he expands the definition of “Israel”. It was no longer the Jewish people, but rather anyone who has faith in Him. And this woman had “great faith”. It didn’t matter that this woman was a Canaanite by birth. She was now an Israelite by faith, as is anyone who believes in Jesus.

Second, would you take even just a crumb of the Bread of Life? This woman was. So many of the Lord’s own people had rejected him outright, and here this woman was begging for a simple “crumb from the Masters’ table”.

When we truly grasp who Jesus is, the Bread of Life, we ought to want any part of him, no matter how small it may seem. That’s what also makes her faith so great. Too many people will say, “If I don’t get it all, I don’t want any of it.” and that is tragic.

The Lord will ultimately give all of himself to us. But sometimes he might start out by testing to see just how badly we want even a crumb.

Conclusion

This section ends very similar to how it began. Jesus goes for a walk beside the sea, before heading up on a mountain. There, more and more people are healed. This is almost a summary of all the healings he had been doing: the lame, blind, crippled, mute and more were all healed.

Of course the people were amazed at these things. But it’s the last sentence that is important, “They glorified the God of Israel”. The majority of these people probably weren’t Jewish. The Canaanite woman has symbolically been the first non-Jewish person he performed a miracle on in this area, and it broke open the flood gates.

These people were finally getting to experience what the Jews has been experiencing for a while. And now here they were glorifying the God of that people group that they didn’t really care for. But what they probably didn’t understand quite yet is that they themselves were now Israelites, just like the Canaanite woman.

Through Jesus, God’s master plan was coming to fulfilment. All the nations were receiving the light the the Lord had always wanted them to have. Here Matthew is showing us that Jesus himself is the True Israel. Where the Jews had failed in their mission, Jesus was completing it.

Luke 2:30–32 “for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.””