Wisdom in answering Pharisees
Key Verses: 2, 6, 11, 18, 27
We are not talking about what our parents told us before we came to the dinner table. This washing of hands was simply a religious ritual done to show how holy you were. It was part of what the religious leaders of that day called “hedging the Law.” They would set up extra rules to keep you from breaking the commandment of God. It would be like me saying, “If you don’t want to break the speed limits, never drive your car over 5mph.” It is true that this would keep me from breaking speed limits, but it would then cause me to break the minimum speed limits imposed on the Interstates. But I would always be focused on this restriction and miss the point of the speed limit. The speed limits are there to keep us safer. (Read more here.)
Jesus jumps on their hypocrisy. They kept their traditions, their hedges, but they broke the commandments. They created a convenient way to keep the use of their stuff while they were alive and in the process prevent it from helping their parents. Almost like a living trust without the benefits for anyone except ourselves. Jesus quotes Isaiah the prophet to sharpen His point. They were all about the outward expressions, not the inner realities. They had missed the point.
The most common set of rules centered around food. Jesus tells them that all those rules are useless. It is just food. Food is only temporary: it is not a permanent part of us. It passes through. What comes out of us, in what we say and what we do, reflects the permanent part of us. It is much more important than food.
And then this Canaanite woman, a woman considered an outsider, comes and expresses faith in what she says and does. She is contrasted with the religious leaders who were all about the outward. She didn’t care. She knew Jesus could heal her daughter and so she came and begged. And Jesus answered her heart’s cry. She doesn’t let her pride get in the way of her faith. She knows she doesn’t ‘deserve’ to receive help, but she asks anyway. Jesus is again using a picture story to illustrate a point and she picks up on that and plays along. She understands and exercises faith.
Have we ever been offended by something God has spoken? Maybe we need to let go of our pride and accept God’s Word for what it is: God speaking to us. Sometimes we miss God’s message because we get offended by the way it is transmitted. When that happens we miss out on God’s blessing.
The Arnold Journey 