Reading: Matthew 15-16, Psalm 88
Let’s say you have something good. You know it is good, and you would like other people to know that it is good, too. How do you go about it? There are two directions people often take. The first is the direction of setting barriers. You put up requirements and walls, limits and challenges, which drive only the most determined to achieve the goal. The goal of getting the good thing that you already have. The second is to give it away. Take the good thing you have, and give it to as many people as possible. It is their business to decide whether it is really good and what to do with it.
Jesus and the Pharisees come to a point of confrontation in today’s reading that is, in many ways, about this difference in approach. See, the Pharisees were basically the descendants of the tradition of Ezra. They set their hearts to study, practice, and teach the laws of God. Which is a pretty good thing. But when they looked at the good thing they had, they chose to take the route of putting up barriers and boundaries. They made laws around the laws around the laws, thinking that by doing so they were treating the Scriptures with respect. What actually happened was they made the great Story that the Scriptures were telling inaccessible. Jesus is not amused.
Jesus comes along and begins to give away the good thing. He doesn’t water it down or make it less challenging that it is, but he doesn’t hide it behind rules and regulations either. The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who adopt the message of the Scriptures into their hearts, not those who obey all the rules and regulations that are built around it. The Pharisees are looking on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. Jesus really lets the Pharisees have it about this mistake. Then he leaves and head off to talk to a bunch of gentiles and Samaritans.
It is a pretty intense object lesson in what he is saying to the Pharisees. He tells a gentile woman that his message is for the Jews, but when she persists, and demonstrates that her heart is in line, Jesus heals her son. Then he goes to a largely gentile and Samaritan area and gathers a crowd of thousands of non-Jewish people. He teaches them all day, and they are getting hungry and …. is this story feeling familiar? I occasionally hear people question the repetition of the story of Jesus feeding thousands of people with a few loaves of bread, wondering if this could be anything but two takes on the same story. On the contrary, it is a very different story. Jesus miraculously feeds a crowds of Jewish people. This is wild and a great story, but it fits right into the narrative of the Pharisees and the rest of the returned exiles hoping for a coming Messiah. Then he goes and feeds thousands of non-Jewish people the same way. This is not in the narrative at all. Jesus has chosen to give the good thing away. Participation in the Kingdom of Heaven will not be governed by rules and regulations, but by a decision to allow the transformation of your heart. The good things of the Kingdom will be given away to those who will receive them.
Having performed perhaps the most shocking miracle of his ministry thus far, Jesus returns the Jewish people and… is asked for a miraculous sign to prove who he is. Really? Jesus has been running around giving away the Kingdom of Heaven and these people have completely missed it. Their perception is severely limited by their own rules and regulations, such that they have no idea that the King of the Kingdom is standing right in front of them. Those who have the most knowledge, who were given the most advantages, have missed the Big Event. They have The Guy, the Servant of the Lord, the Messianic King, standing right in front of them.
Warning his disciples to not be taken in by the Pharisees teaching, Jesus takes them away and asks who they think that he is. The guys setting up all the barriers missed it, but these guys nail it. Particularly a fisherman named Simon knows Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. But Jesus says this was not of his own wisdom, but was given to him by God. This fisherman has not tried to take his own knowledge of good and bad, but has relied on God. And what happens? He is given the authority to bind and loose, in heaven and on earth. Almost like that was the role humans were supposed to have before they chose to take their own wisdom and leave God’s to rot.
But the authority is not total. They are still authorities under the authority of the King. When Peter gets out of line, the King puts him in his place. Those in the kingdom must be vigilant not to take their own wisdom and knowledge ahead that of God’s, even if God’s wisdom appears to be foolishness. Even if God’s wisdom appears to be a path to death, to a Roman cross. Even if the victory of God looks like total defeat.