June 20, 2025; Matthew 15

Daily Dose of Hope

June 20, 2025

Scripture – Matthew 15

Prayer: Almighty God, We come before you with awe and humility.  Help us remember all you have done for us.  We are nothing without you.  We need you desperately, Lord.  Help us gather our scattered thoughts today as we focus on you.  In these next few moments of silence, help us remember that we belong to you.  Help us lay our worries and cares on the throne of your grace...We pray this in the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.

Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, a Deep Dive into the Gospels and Acts.  We are unpacking Matthew 15 today.

In today’s Scripture, we are talking about handwashing and cleanliness but it has nothing to do with germs. Germ theory wasn’t even discovered until the 1800s. So what was the hand-washing ritual discussed in the first half of Matthew 15? To go deeper, we need to talk a little about 1st century Jewish life. We walked through this in Mark as well.  If you recall, certain groups of Jews, such as the Pharisees and the scribes, affirmed two types of law. There was the written law (the first five books of the Bible – the Torah) and the oral law (the traditions of the elders/rabbis). Basically, the written law didn’t have specific details so the rabbis, over the years, filled in those details with oral traditions.

There were Pharisees from Jerusalem who sought out Jesus. We don’t know why these Pharisees had traveled some eighty miles from Jerusalem (a very long trip in those days) but there is some speculation that they had come to check out this Jesus character, this man who was healing, teaching, and saying things that were questionable in their eyes. They were suspicious and they must have also felt pretty threatened.  Remember the Pharisees were a strict sect of Judaism that believed in following the law in the fullest sense.

The Pharisees noticed that Jesus’ disciples were not going through the ceremonial hand-washing rituals that were required before they ate. They asked Jesus about this. This was clearly an insult, it was more like, why aren’t you properly teaching your disciples? Jesus has this interesting reply, he quotes Scripture from the prophet Isaiah: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me...”

I should note that there wasn’t anything wrong with what the Pharisees were trying to do. They had purity laws which they thought were very important in following God. But Jesus could see past their ritual and into their hearts. He saw their insincerity and hypocrisy; it was all a facade. Thus, he sees this as a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. Just as in the times of Isaiah, the Pharisees are giving lip service to following God but their hearts are far from him. They are concerned about the Sabbath being followed to the tee but they cheat people in the marketplace. They are concerned about following specifics of the handwashing but they aren’t worried about the widow and the orphan. Something was wrong, truly wrong. They appear to be all about piety but they neglect compassion, justice, and love.

But this issue goes even deeper. Being unclean and being defiled was a big deal in 1st century Judaism. If you couldn’t be clean (and a lot of regular people worked jobs or had lives that meant they couldn’t meet all the various regulations to stay clean). If you were unclean for whatever reason, then you were ostracized from the temple. You were basically shunned from religious life.

Jesus is making a huge point here. Jesus is saying, “You are shunning people, you are telling them they are unclean, you are ostracizing them from the community, based on the rituals they have done or haven’t done to be clean. But what you are missing is this: the things that really matter, the things that pose the greatest danger, are not external. They aren’t hand-washing. They aren’t meticulously keeping Sabbath. The things that matter most to God are internal.”

What Jesus is saying to them is that God cares most about the heart. I think we will all should admit that, at times, the church has looked a lot like these Pharisees. We’ve been all about religious activity and less about trying to be like Jesus. We’ve been about the external and not the internal. We’ve cared about appearances. We are putting up this great religious front but then being horribly judgmental, angry, or bitter. Friends, God could care less about your religious busyness. He wants your heart. He doesn’t care about our ceremonial handwashing---he cares about if we are treating others with the love of Christ. And if we aren’t, then all the ceremony, all the church stuff, it’s kind of a farce. Why? Because God looks on our hearts. 

The chapter says that Jesus withdraws from here to a Gentile region.  Maybe he was trying to get away from the people and the crowds OR maybe he knew that an important interaction was about to occur.  Here, we have this interesting and somewhat disturbing interaction with a Canaanite woman.  This was also in Mark, and it goes pretty much the same way. 

When this woman approaches Jesus, she is breaking all the social taboos of that time and place.  Not only is she considered unclean but she is a woman alone trying to get the attention of a Jewish teacher.

The woman begs Jesus to heal her daughter, who has an demonic spirit in her.  Jesus’ reaction is not what we would expect, as Matthew writes that Jesus doesn’t answer her.  Did he ignore her?  Hard to tell but the disciples are pretty clear about wanting Jesus to send her away.  Jesus finally responds to the woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  It’s possible he wants to see how she will respond.

Her quick reply is that even dogs get the crumbs dropped from the table.  Basically, there is enough of what Jesus has that he can afford to share it with her and her daughter.  And Jesus agrees, he sees her faith and heals the daughter immediately.  There is enough of what Jesus has for outsiders to be included.  God’s Kingdom is more than big enough.  And that’s good for us because most of us are Gentiles too.

Finally, we get the feeding of the 4,000.  This is where I just want to shake the disciples.  They just were part of the feeding of 5,000 men and probably 15,000 people in total.  Jesus has already shown what he can do.  Why are they doubting?  Why don’t they start from an attitude of abundance, knowing that Jesus can easily feed these people.

But they don’t.  They still have a scarcity mindset.  We better send these people away because we just don’t have enough food for them.  How in the world will we ever feed them? Yet, Jesus has already demonstrated the abundance of God’s Kingdom.

And Jesus wants us to operate from the ABUNDANCE mindset.  He wants us to trust that he will provide all our needs and then some.  All our resources – they are a gift from God. Just as Jesus was asking his disciples to do in this miracle, he is asking each of us to do --- look beyond what’s in front of you.  Look up from this physical, earthly reality and see that there is so much more.  I’ve got you.  I’m here for you.  Trust me.  The world tells us to be afraid, hold on tight to whatever you have, send the people away.  But Jesus is saying, “Look beyond the world.  Look beyond what’s right in front of you.  Look at my Kingdom.”

When you do this, when you trust in the abundance of God’s Kingdom, then it frees us to be generous.  It frees us to not hold so tight to things, to allow God to use us to bless others, to care for others.  It’s gets us beyond ourselves.  Friends, we are to be a picture of God’s Kingdom to an unbelieving, hurting, hungry, anxious, fearful, angry world.  There is no plan B.  We are plan A for demonstrating the Jesus way of life to others.  Just like he said to the disciples, “You do this,” he is saying the same thing to us.  John 20:21, Jesus tells the disciples and he tells us, “Just as the Father sent me, now I am sending you.”  Remember, the Christian life was NEVER supposed to be self-focused, it’s about giving ourselves away.  

Have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings,

Pastor Vicki