The Clean Hand and the Crumb on the Floor: A Lesson in True Holiness. Matthew 15.

Read Matthew 15 online here.
Jesus was sure strange. He never quite fit in, never did what was expected. And he built up quite a reputation.

So here come the big shots, traipsing all the way from Jerusalem to the north country to confront Jesus. And what was their concern?

“Why do your disciples disobey the tradition of the elders? For they don’t wash their hands when they eat.” (Matt 15:2)

Big deal! How many of us would take a two-day trip just to personally inform someone that we would appreciate it if they would wash their hands before they ate? How picayune could you be? That’s the Pharisees for you: a strange lot, I’d say.

Funny thing, in that day the Pharisees were considered the norm. What they said was golden. It might be a little difficult for the average person to follow it all, but you sure knew they had the goods — the keys to living a godly life.

Jesus didn’t fit that world; he didn’t always do or say the “religiously correct” thing. It was almost as if he came from a different planet.

Well, he did come from another place. And that’s the story of Christmas, from the unconventional birth, to the makeshift motel room, and so on. This world was not his home, he was “just a passing through”. And the world did not know what to do with him.

Would we know what to do with him were he to show up in our midst today? Are we willing to give up our comfortable American (and even “religious”) life, for the sake of his radical teachings? And might it even be that we, good Orthodox Christians, have our own set of “hand washings” — practices and beliefs just as silly as anything the Pharisees did in the first century, when viewed from God’s perspective?

“This world is not our home” — at least that’s the way it’s supposed to be. As we see later on in the book of Hebrews, when speaking of the heroes of the faith, the writer says they “acknowledged that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth.” (Heb 11:13) Are we going to follow their example?

Being a stranger himself, Jesus understood the foreigner. As we see in Matt 15:22–28, Jesus had a far easier time conversing with the Canaanite woman than he had earlier with the Pharisees. She was of a different nationality, and a different religion. Why should Jesus have anything to do with her? He even as much said so himself: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

The Woman of Canaan at the Feet of Christ
Jean-Germain Drouais -- 1784

And yet Jesus saw into her soul. And she responded in humility, recognizing her foreign status, yet sensing the infinite mercy of God . “…. but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” (Matt 15:27)

Would the Pharisees respond like that? Would we?

As we reflect on this chapter, let’s contrast the teachings of Jesus with what came before: the Pharisees’ focus on the externals versus Jesus’ teaching of the heart; the Jewish nationalistic and cultural pride versus Jesus’ acceptance of the foreigner.

Which is the better way? Which way will you follow today?

Today's article written by Robb Starr.