The Practice of Goodness

Text: Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

Jesus is in the middle of arguments with the scribes and Pharisees. He accuses them of valuing their own laws and traditions more than the law of God. In our time, this would be like trying to deal with the legalists and moralists in our tradition - and I don’t mean the lawyers and philosophers, I mean the religious people who are so concerned about making sure that other people keep the rules that they forget about the most important godly values of faith, hope and love.

So Jesus takes the opportunity to offer some teaching to the people in the crowd. The Pharisees have been arguing about the kosher laws and practices around food. But Jesus says it’s not what we put IN our mouths that causes evil, it’s what comes OUT of our mouths. The disciples come to tell him that the Pharisees are offended by this statement, but Jesus dismisses the Pharisees as willfully blind. “Never mind them,” he says, “they’ll mislead others and they’ll all end up lost.”

Jesus explains his little parable about digestion. The food we put in our mouths simply passes through the digestive system, the waste is excreted and is no longer a problem. So we can wash our hands endlessly and the effect is not of particular importance. But the same is not true of what comes from the mouth. Because what comes from the mouth proceeds from the heart, and has greater influence. You can’t deal with an evil heart by washing with soap and water. Jesus is severely critical of the Pharisees who focus so much on petty laws and practices, particularly since these many requirements are impossible for the poor to carry out. In first-century Palestine, you can’t wash your hands every time you touch food when you have no servants to provide the water and prepare the food.

Jesus goes on his way into the foreign territory of Tyre and Sidon. I had to think about why Matthew included this story with the passages about the Pharisees and their useless ritual efforts to be clean and holy, and Jesus’ parable about digestion. I think it must be to show that faith in Jesus as the Son of God is more important than ethnic background or tradition; in other words, it’s more important to be a person of faith than to be a pious Jew or a Pharisee who carries out all the religious observances.

A local woman, obviously a Gentile, not a Jew, approaches Jesus asking for help for her daughter. At first Jesus ignores her. She keeps asking and the disciples are annoyed. Jesus explains to her that his mission is to the Jewish people, to bring THEM back to God. She continues to ask and finally begs him for help. He gives her a rather harsh answer: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” In other words, his purpose and his power are for the Jews, not the Gentiles – her people are less worthy of his attention. But she persists, saying “…even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table….” She believes in his ability to help and does not mind being called a dog if she can get the help she needs for her daughter. Jesus recognizes her faith and is willing to honour it, even though she is outside the boundary, so to speak. What is unthinkable for the legalists is possible for Jesus – and another reason why he gets into trouble with the authorities. With a few words he grants her request and her daughter is healed.

I suppose that in Jesus’ and Matthew’s time, people knew something about how the body worked when it came to eating and digestion. They raised animals and they had to know that nourishing food was necessary for healthy growth. But I don’t think they knew much about human psychology – how the mind works and how the personality develops. Even now, in our society that makes extensive use of technology and spends so much time and money on human research, one has to wonder whether we have learned very much about human development. Because we do many things that are not healthy or helpful. We spent a few days recently visiting our grandchildren, ages 10 and 7. I realize whenever I see my grandchildren that I lead a sheltered life. For one thing, I never watch TV. That might be hard to believe, but I grew up without TV and though I used to watch a few things, these days I honestly don’t find anything I want to watch. I do look at the TV Guide but there’s nothing I want to see. So I’m shocked when I see what our granddaughter is immersed in: Hannah Montana…and various teen-agers in situations and conversations that are slick, offhand, shallow and sometimes crude. And it’s larger than life. They have a wide-screen TV set that seems to bring these glitzy creatures right into the living room. And Jessie talks like those airheads: when her father, who is preoccupied at the time, doesn’t respond to her request to come and look at something on the TV, she goes into an emotional spin: “Daddy, you’re not listening to me. You never listen to me. I’m not important!” And her brother, who is ten and fairly rational most of the time, runs away twice in one afternoon because his mother won’t grant some request or other. But he doesn’t really run away; he has no idea how to run away – he’d need a ride to get anywhere and he’s not about to inconvenience himself. Don’t get me wrong; they’re my grandchildren and they’re nice kids. They’re just in danger of filling their minds with trash. On the other hand, Jessie, now that she can read, has discovered libraries, and is enthusiastic about getting books to read. That warms her grandmother’s heart. And Josh is developing into a good athlete: he is spending several weeks of the summer in soccer, hockey and swimming programs. It takes a lot to ruin a good kid, but I think our society is careless about what we feed our kids’ minds. We fuss about their physical health but we don’t do a good job of guarding their mental health. They need wholesome information, positive experiences, good role models, guidance and discipline.

And then there’s spiritual development. Jesus has some guidance for us about this. He says, “…every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.” I don’t think we need to take this as a threat to the lives of persons who are not faithful to God. I think we can take it as a judgment on any thoughts and words and actions that are offensive to God – and more and more we hear and see things around us that are offensive to everyone. But this behaviour is common and to many people, acceptable. Again, I think I lead a sheltered life – but last Friday I rode the C-Train from Dalhousie Station in northwest Calgary to Centre Street and 7th Avenue downtown…and the language that one hears from young people in public is shocking. I honestly think they don’t know any better. I used to think that of the young street people – glue-sniffers and prostitutes – I knew on the streets in Edmonton. They could use the f-word five times in every sentence: as exclamation, noun, verb, adjective and adverb. They definitely didn’t know any better – and they had reason to be very angry and bitter about their lives. I know they didn’t know better because they’d talk that way, then say, “Excuse my language, Pastor…” and then blurt out another sentence full of the same trash-talk! But now we hear that kind of talk from ordinary kids - and adults. I can’t help but think it’s a very bad diet to feed our minds and hearts and spirits.

And what else does Jesus say here? He says “…if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” So we should make sure those who lead others have the ability to lead in a good and positive direction. That goes for parents and for teachers and pastors and politicians, and everybody who has responsibility to be an example to others. How can we make sure of that? Well, we can’t do a lot about others, but we can take responsibility for ourselves and for the people over whom we have influence. We have a responsibility for what we consume – not only for the health of our bodies, but also for our minds and hearts and spirits.
And here’s where the experience of the church as a community comes in. One thing you can say about the church is that we might speak a language that not everyone understands, but we don’t talk trash. When we’re doing our job here, we speak constructively: we tell stories that are upbuilding; we speak faithfully, hopefully and lovingly; we practice respect for every person; we control our anger; we exercise forgiveness. A young person who comes here will experience goodness and kindness and encouragement. And older people will set the examples. It is a different atmosphere inside here from that which exists on the street and in the mall and even in the school corridor. Because we believe in God - and because we believe in God, we believe in goodness. It might be the only place some people find