Missions Paul

In this story of the Canaanite woman appealing for help for her daughter we see that Jesus’ programme to go first to Israel was eclipsed by the faith of this Gentile. My hope is that all our programmes and plans are eclipsed by faith even from the most ‘offensive’ of people.

^“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.” “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.” (Matthew 15: 24-28)

Why was Jesus so reluctant to drive the demon out of the woman’s daughter?

He wasn’t.

He was testing her faith.

Will she fight back when he indicates that it is not right to take the children’s bread (Israel) and toss it to the dogs (the Tyre and Sidonian people)? Or will she respond according to her knowledge that salvation is for all, Jew and Gentile. That God’s love reaches beyond the barriers that man puts up.

“Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” She got it!

She understood even what the disciples would fail to.

That even an outcast, a dog, a second-class citizen of God’s community would get a crumb if she persevered. And one crumb from the master’s table is all she needed. Yes, Jesus was called to Israel first but she saw that ultimately He was called to bring healing to the whole world. This woman had a global perspective which the disciples would eventually understand. But for now her faith is beyond them. Some of the most amazing revelations come from the unlikeliest of places and people.

Jesus gave her more than a crumb. He granted her heart’s desire and he welcomed her to the table.

The Jews of Galilee had not repented; they had not come into the kingdom even though John the Baptist had called them to it and Jesus had performed so many miracles that changed countless lives.

“Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.’ Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, ‘Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.’ (Matthew 15 v 21-23)

So he withdraws. He comes away from those who were more easily positioned to receive Him and goes to a place no one would ever think of going.

This season you are in contains at least one of these questions. Slow them down and ponder on them. How will you answer?

Do you know when to leave and withdraw which is far more than just moving on?

Are you prepared to follow Jesus to go to people who the hypocrites never would?

Can you cope with the silence of Jesus or will you misinterpret it and try take control?

Every Sunday I am testing another different hand-sanitiser as I step into a Church building. We are rightly wanting to make sure people are clean when they come in. We don’t seem to be too bothered on their way out but coming in is different. We need to protect everyone from the virus.

Remember how we have been reading about the ‘lifting up of hands’? Jesus was challenging the Pharisees teaching regarding the dietary laws and their desire to protect the purity of the people.

Jesus has told a parable and Peter speaks on behalf of the whole team. They haven’t fully understood.

“Peter said, ‘Explain the parable to us.’ ‘Are you still so dull?’ Jesus asked them. ‘Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts – murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.” (Matthew 15 v 15-20)

What needed cleansing and healing wasn’t a person’s hands or mouth but their heart.

You can have ceremonially clean hands but a defiled heart.  So what good is that?

A person can look great and acceptable on the outside but if the heart is bad then it is all a façade.

Your profile picture may look sharp but it is your texts and statuses that follow that count.

So don’t let people burden you with guilt and shame for something you are or are not doing, these are attacks from the outside and are burdensome.

But Jesus cleanses hearts today, the place where sinful practices are born.

The greatest need in the Church today is heart-sanitiser not to get into the Church but for the Church as it moves into the world.

How do you navigate hypocrisy? When impacted by hypocrisy what decisions do you need to make to enable you to get through?

The reply from Jesus to the fact that he had offended the Pharisees was this: “He replied, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.’ (Matthew 15 v 13-14)

You can take control of your situation. You don’t have to be swallowed up with the hypocrisy. Here is what we should know about surviving the trap of hypocrisy from the parable Jesus tells in these 2 verses:-

Inevitability: God appoints and so does man. When man appoints it won’t last but with God it does. God will not be mocked and what is sown will be reaped. These are certainties.

The back-story: The reason why it lasts is found in what is not seen. What is important isn’t what is seen. It isn’t the performance. The roots. There is always a motive. Learn to ask the question, why?

Hands-off: So stop fighting. Let it be. Wait. Some campaigns shouldn’t happen. Choose your battles carefully.

Follow your own path: Don’t be like them, don’t follow that kind of appointment, you don’t have to be blinded, it is a choice. Be your own unique self.

He touched a raw nerve and they became offended.

Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” (Matthew 15 v 12)

The answer was yes. Jesus knew what he was saying. Jesus had purposely touched their raw nerve.

Hypocrites get offended with exposed truth because they have spent all their energy on hiding it. Hypocrisy says ‘I am self-aware I have no faults’ and yet at the same time hides the fault. When the fault is touched on then offence will defend the hypocrisy at all costs.

Hypocrites get offended the most when their raw nerve is touched in public. Hypocrisy has worked to falsely promote them before people. To be then publicly told they are not as good as those around them or at least the same, leads to offence.

Hypocrites that are offended create an anxiety to those around them. The disciples seem anxious when they return to Jesus. They are wondering what will happen next? Are they going to be drawn into this? It could get out of control.

Hypocrites that are offended don’t seem to bother Jesus one bit, as we shall see …

The greatest miracle is that of a changed heart.

Yesterday the UK Health Secretary resigned under shouts of hypocrisy. There are many more in every sphere of society and even in religious circles that don’t even think of resigning. Within the Church we have our own problems with hypocrisy. Amazing gifts and charismatic abilities to soften the most hardened of crowds can mask a desire to perform and gain. Softly-spoken and carrying an atmosphere of pious dignity can mask the raging anger within the heart of men and women in the pulpit and pew.

“Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” (Matthew 15 v 10-11)

These Pharisees who outspokenly challenged Jesus over his disciples not washing their hands and so making themselves unclean have not only deceived themselves but others too. So Jesus brings the crowd together to tell them that failure to follow these traditions will not actually make you unclean but it is all about the heart. The Pharisees question was actually an attempt to stop the ministry of Jesus. It had nothing to do with protecting devotion to God and being holy before Him. That is the hypocrisy that Jesus points out. When the reason is veiled and attention is drawn to something which may be real but is used to keep it hidden, that is hypocrisy.

It’s what comes out that counts.

It’s the words we use. The way we speak to others and about them.

It’s the motivation and the reason behind the actions.

Of course, whenever we speak of this kind of thing, offence is never far away. As we shall see …

“The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” The person who said those words also confessed to: “”boasting, the inflating of the truth, the pretence of being an intellectual, the impatience with people, and all the times I drank to excess”? Brennan Manning died in 2013. Was he a hypocrite? No. A hypocrite is someone who will not acknowledge they are a sinner. Manning knew who he was. “”Don’t think I’m a saint. I’m a ragamuffin, you’re a ragamuffin, and God loves us anyway.” (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

In our next verses Jesus is quoting Isaiah 29:13 which reveals how the main focus for God is our heart, not the outward person we display.

“You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules!” (Matthew 15 v 7-9)

Just because people have rules for living and whose behaviour is apparently ‘cleaner’ than most does not mean they are more acceptable to God than those who have no rules. A human rule will not bring you closer to God. Neither will the rules of God, the law of God, it doesn’t bring you closer it actually reveals how far away from Him you are, it distances you.

Just because people are doing what has always been done, it has been passed down generationally, it has become cultural norms and laws, does not mean they were right in the first place. Traditions of men are often a variant of the commands of God. Variants are burdensome, the commands are light. In a particular church the members would always bow the knee and cross themselves before a white wall shortly after taking communion at the altar. A visitor on noticing this asked why they did it and no one could tell him. No one knew why they did it, they just did; they had always done it. One night there was a torrential storm and the rain came through the church roof and leaked all over the white wall causing the paint to peal. The members of the church decided they would fix the wall. As they started to take the paint off they exposed a mural of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Suddenly they all realised that down through the generations when they had all lost the reason for doing so the practice continued even though it had zero meaning. They had carried on the practice but had lost the heart of the practice.

Having traditions but not knowing why doesn’t make you a hypocrite.

A hypocrite is a person who purposely deceives others. They appear right, all the while they hide or deflect the reality of their wrongness. They deny the invitation of grace because they deny their own sinfulness to either themselves or their world. The moment we deflect our own wrong in order to expose the wrong in others is when we become a hypocrite.

There are 4 leaders: Steve, Geoff, Mary and Margaret. Here is the story and on reading it you may find it a mental test and it so often is!

Steve calls me to tell me the following:

Geoff had called Steve about how Mary had called Margaret about some sensitive information that should never have been passed on.

Geoff knows this because Margaret had called Geoff to tell her.

Steve told me that Mary must be careful for she should never have called Margaret.

Now what Steve didn’t know and what I told him was I had already called Margaret regarding the same sensitive information because in my position I had the authority to do so. In that call Margaret had told me that it was Geoff who had called Margaret about the sensitive information and it was then that Margaret told Geoff that Mary had got there first and told her the information.   

Now see the italics again. The italic sentences were switched around to make Geoff look innocent. Mary was wrong and so was Geoff but he had hidden his wrongdoing to simply expose Mary’s.

This is hypocrisy. The centre, the very heart of the matter was changed, ever so slightly, but it radically changed the story and exposed one sinner whilst hiding the other.

When there are prayers, worship and teachings but the heart is twisted then there is hypocrisy.

The more self-aware we become, the more we expose our own sinfulness then the less danger we are in of being hypocrites.

A self-aware sinner never points fingers without pointing at their own life.

A hypocrite only points fingers in one direction, away from their own heart.

Our lives are full of tradition. They are handed down to us generationally and some we create ourselves or adopt from the world we live in. Even if the traditions are common sense or maybe benefit us greatly we need to align them with the Bible.

The problem with traditions is when they become as or more important than what they are birthed out of. These next few verses are an example of that.

“Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!” Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?For God said, ‘Honour your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ they are not to ‘honour their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.” (Matthew 15 v 3-6)

Jesus brings to the surface what was clear hypocrisy. The 5^th commandment says that we must honour our parents but what if you don’t want to do that? Well instead of providing for your parents you could give that financial resource to God instead. Now how would you do that? Of course you would be giving that through the religious system and it would benefit the Pharisees. Further to that if you had previously promised to give money to the religious leaders/God and your parents then needed help, you couldn’t take back that promise.

How could they substantiate this hypocrisy? It is in a word only found in Mark’s gospel (7:11), Corban. It means a gift devoted to God.

Hypocrites say one thing and do another. They attacked the disciples for having unwashed ceremonial hands at the same time having this stance towards their parents. 

The disciples had broken their traditions by not ‘lifting up their hands’/ritual cleansing of their hands, they had ‘nullified’ the traditions because they were with the Word of God. In contrast these religious people had ‘nullified’ the Word of God by imposing their traditions on the people.

We need to be careful on the heaviness of our judgment against the lightness of our own conduct. 

So the big question is this: is tradition or the Word of God ruling your life?

It is quite easy to offend people. Either by what we say, do or even how we look. People get offended by language, appearances, politics, bad habits, affiliations etc. The list goes on and on. There is a purity that not only isn’t pure it isn’t very happy either. But the question is this: Can God offend your purity?

Some context before we read a couple of verses.

When the Temple was destroyed in 586 BC and also in AD70 there was obviously no way that the acts of Temple sacrifice and offerings especially for cleansing of sin could be conducted. So teachers of the law, rabbis, Pharisees, debated continually until they reached a decision on new teachings that were created to keep the purity laws despite not having a Temple. After AD 70 they were compiled into what is known as the Mishnah. One of those purity laws is called ‘the lifting up of the hands’ and it is based on the Temple instruction for Aaron and his sons as they are before the altar in Exodus 30: 17-21. Since I was knee-high I remember the golden rule of washing the dirt off my hands before I ate. It makes sense. This is not that. If Jesus had dirty hands he would have washed them. No, this is ceremonial washing is to continually make every meal akin to a sacrificial offering in the Temple.

It seems the religious leaders in Galilee in their desperation called for the big guns to come up from Jerusalem to deal with Jesus  who seemed to be flouting the ‘lifting up of the hands’.

“Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!” (Matthew 15 v 1-2)

Jesus will offend our paltry attempt at being pure and righteous especially when it is an interpretation of the Bible handed down by generations and applied to our lives in a way it was never meant to be. They exist in our lives and our churches. Every Sunday there is someone becoming offended in church because it wasn’t done the ‘family way’. The irony is that we can lift our hands up and at the same time be offended with the fact that the leader or someone isn’t performing the ‘lifting up the hands’ or is doing so in a wrong way. Offence arrives unknowingly because we don’t usually believe we are offended for we know it is wrong to be so!  

If a person is easily offended then maybe they should be.

Today may be the same as every other day in that you will carry out certain spiritual disciplines. You will talk to God; you will worship Him and as you listen to a song you perhaps will sing and you will read the Bible and maybe you will meditate on a certain verse. You will do this on your own the majority of the time and some will carry out these disciplines with another or in a group.

Though you may feel even less significant than the very small context of your spiritual discipline you do it because of this strong desire to connect with God. It may not happen every single time in the same impactful way because after all this is a discipline. Yet there have been many times in your experience when you realise that this practice is so much more than a prayer, a song and a reading.

Sometimes the small things that we do carry the most powerful moments. They become more than the edge.

“When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret. And when the men of that place recognised Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought all who were ill to him and begged him to let those who were ill just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.” (Matthew 14 v 34-36)

According to the instruction to Moses (Numbers 15) the Israelite men were to wear tunics that would act as prayer shawls. At each corner of the tunic there were tassels tied into 613 knots to symbolise the 613 laws of Moses. Everyone could see them and the man would have to be careful to keep those laws. Every day the man knew he was carrying the Word of God in his life. They also spoke of the man’s authority. In the Old Testament story of David cutting off a piece of Saul’s robe we see the reason why David was so upset for the action was because he felt he had stolen Saul’s authority. This would humiliate Saul and David was annoyed with himself (2 Samuel 24). Finally the edges of the cloak were also seen as what was referred to by Malachi “… the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in His wings.” (Malachi 4) The word ‘wings’ is a translated word for the edges of the wing. The man knew that symbolically the edge of his cloak was a picture of the power of God.

It is so much more than the edge of his cloak!

In your spiritual discipline today you reach out in faith to the Word, to His identity that Jesus is God. You are stating that you believe in Him.

In your spiritual discipline today you reach out in faith to His authority, that there is no one higher than Him. He is the King of Kings. All things are held together by Him.

In your spiritual discipline today you reach out in faith to His power. There is no need which is impossible for Him. He can do this.

The people at Gennesaret had understood the principle. It is not just the edge, it is so much more. Reach out again today to His identity, authority and power: this is the true impact of your spiritual daily discipline which is so much more than the edge.