Gospel of Matthew, chapters 14 & 15



Background: 

These chapters include several large segments of story: we learn that John the Baptizer has been killed, and how and why; there are two stories of thousands of people being fed by Jesus; Jesus walks on the water in a storm (and Peter tries); Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees and scribes about keeping tradition; and Jesus learns a lesson about God’s grace when he meets a mother whose daughter needs healing. 


While these stories may seem like unrelated episodes, there are some common themes. 

  • We see abundance, in the feeding and healing of so many people, Gentiles and Jews alike. God’s grace goes everywhere, spilling out past the borders to include all creation. 

  • Jesus goes places that are hard to get to, like walking on water during a storm, spending time in the wilderness and remote areas, and crossing borders and seas to get to “the other side”. This perseverance is increasing as he seems to learn and focus more on how God’s grace is made real and less on what other people think or “the way we’ve always done it”, all the while keeping strict observance of Torah. 


Some interesting details: 

Many of these episodes happen in the wilderness, which signals a God encounter. Think about other wilderness stories and what happened there: Jacob alone, wrestling with God (Gen. 32) until he knows who he is, and who God is; Moses talking to a burning bush (Ex. 3-4) to learn who he is and who God is; the Israelites between Egypt and Canaan (Exodus) who are given food every day and taught what it means to be the people of God; Elijah hiding from God in the cave (1 Kings 19) when he doesn’t trust God; Jesus tested by the devil (Mt. 4) until he knows who he is and who God is. For us, wilderness is scary, a place humans don’t live; or it’s an adventure, a place to visit. In scripture, wilderness is the place where faith and community are formed, where you have to rely on one another and on God to survive. Whatever Jesus and the crowds are teaching and learning out in the wilderness, it is forming them into, and preparing them for, something new that God is doing. 

The feeding episodes remind us of the ways that God provides abundantly when it seems we are out of resources, calling us both back to the Israelites wandering hungry in the Sinai desert and forward to the Last Supper. The verbs in the story are the same words we hear in the communion liturgy: Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to the people to eat. Meals of any kind, not only Sunday communion, are a great time to be aware of God’s presence at our tables, and of our call to sharing that abundance with all who are hungry. 

Matthew calls the woman whose daughter needs healing “the Canaanite woman” (Mark calls her “a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin”). Canaan has a very specific connotation– it was the land of Canaan that needed to be evacuated of its inhabitants so the Israelites could take it as their promised land. This woman is not only not Jewish, but she’s an enemy from way back. The people who lived in Tyre and Sidon in Jesus’s time were no longer called “Canaanites”, so this title is intentional to evoke a reaction– she is “other” in all the worst ways. At the beginning of the story, Jesus seems to hold this posture, refusing to respond to her at all, then making excuses about why he won’t listen to her or heal her daughter. In this short interaction, Jesus learns a lot from a mother who seems to have a better understanding of God’s grace than he does! Again we see abundance where there was thought to be scarcity; the surprise is that Jesus is the one who thinks God’s healing power has limits, until the mother helps him see a new shape that faith can take. 


Key Themes: 

  • God’s abundance and power are not limited by tradition, ethnicity, history, what we think, or nature

  • Being faithful means going places–physically, emotionally, spiritually–that are hard to get to (even for Jesus) and being changed by what we learn there


Questions: 

  • When have you seen God provide something that was needed but not expected? 

  • Think about how you have developed in your faith in the last 5 years. What kinds of things, people, or experiences changed the way you think about God?

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