Who's In?

Matthew 15: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+15&version=NIV

            One of the driving questions in Israel in Jesus’ day was the question of belonging: who was truly a member of God’s holy people. The Sadducees’ answer was more or less, “Anyone who is descended of Abraham.” The Pharisees answer was more narrow—those who practiced the key practices of Judaism (circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, kosher law, ritual purity) with sufficient rigor. (The Essenes, a first-century Jewish group that is nowhere mentioned in the Bible, were even narrower than the Pharisees.)

            When the Pharisees challenge Jesus in these chapters, they are trying to figure out where Jesus is on this spectrum, and they don’t like the answer. Jesus believes that all of their answers are seriously flawed.

            First, we have the incident around washed hands and the traditions of the elders. Jesus is clear: exterior practices don’t define who you are. It’s what’s in the heart that matters. Or, to put it differently, it’s faith that matters. Now, just the other day, Monday as a matter of fact, I said that it would be good if those who claimed the name Christian took the commitments of the faith more seriously. So, let’s think about how these two things go together for a second. Lutherans believe that we are saved through faith alone. And at the same time our Confessions teach the necessity of good works—not to earn salvation but as a sign that faith truly lives in the heart. The Pharisees’ error was not in expecting that God’s people would act like God’s people; their error was in believing that works got you in or kept you in. Our works do matter, but not in determining our status before God. They are the legitimate fruit of faith.

            Jesus also challenges the assumptions of the Pharisees with a Canaanite woman. We should note that by the time Matthew writes, there hasn’t been a true Canaanite in Israel in, like, 600 years. It is a deliberate anachronism, and it is meant to sharpen just how outside the norms of Israel she is. Yet, Jesus commends her for her great faith. Even a Canaanite—one of the most outside of outsiders—receives the reign of God by faith. Faith opens the reign of God to everyone, no matter how unlikely!