A look at the gaps in the lectionary.
This week: the gap between Proper 14A and 15A
The text: Matthew 14:34-15:9
The lectionary this week skips the end of chapter 14 and cuts out the opening to chapter 15.
As is often the case, this section is essential to the reader, but less for the typical Sunday morning. In fact, as we’ll get into below, it may be all together too confusing to be included. But it is essential for background.
At Gennesaret
There are three motifs with travel in the gospels:
- One is that this is a journey that begins in Nazareth and ends in Jerusalem.
- A second is of Jesus as an itinerate healer and teacher, crisscrossing the countryside.
- The third is the one we pay the least attention to: Jesus leaving crowds behind.
For many, Jesus’s leaving crowds often plays into the second motif. Teachers have to get new students, after all. He’s just going where the need is. And this is often true. But there are places where the focus is on the escaping rather than meeting a new need.
This sequence, which is common among the synoptic gospels, fits that third motif. Jesus spent all of chapter 14 trying to get away from the crowds, finally doing so before the gospel for Proper 14.
Now they cross to the other side, where, presumably, they would be free of the crowds. And yet…here are new ones. Not at first, but after just one verse, he’s recognized and people are coming to him for healing.
Even Jesus’s clothes can heal
How much do we pay attention to that detail? It’s an odd one.
People think that:
- They can be healed by touching Jesus.
- And that even touching his cloak is sufficient.
This is an interesting theoretical leap. But it’s one we are willing to imagine we might make if we were in their shoes. It’s the logic of desperation. Maybe if I just catch a piece of him, it will be enough.
As a matter of physics, however, it seems preposterous.
And as a matter of Christology, it is actually a bit of a complicated concept, isn’t it? If the healing is about touch, intention, and grace, shouldn’t Jesus have to, you know, want to heal people?
Of course, we know the one scene when the power flows out of him, and he’s like, Who did that? So it is safe to say we aren’t wedded to the attentive intention of Jesus as necessary for healing. But the idea of the healing power of Jesus’s clothes by themselves is quite problematic.
Considering the adoration of the relics, I can’t imagine the purpose of God’s mission in the world is to create a cloak of healing like something found in a D&D treasure chest.
The faith rationale
The most logical reason for this, of course, is that, as in other places, the people’s faith has made them well. I suspect that this is the best rationale we have. But I also don’t find it entirely satisfying here. Or at least, not in the way we take it elsewhere.
Why?
Because the motif has been about the crowds being too much. Jesus needed to get away. He needed to put space between himself and them because of all of the grabbing and trampling they were doing to get to him. In one part of the gospels, people were getting hurt trying to get healed…
And the critique Jesus makes about these people is that they are following because of the healing and not the message. They come for the transformation of self, not the world.
It feels a bit unsavory, then, to put all of our eggs in the basket of needy people just being needy and here is nice Jesus meeting all of their needs. That seems like a profoundly selective reading of the text. And one that meets our own selfish need to be healed in spite of the Good News itself…
Then More Confrontation
The confronters return at the beginning of chapter 15. Just like they came at him at the beginning of chapter 12, the religious elders confronted Jesus about his respect for tradition.
But unlike that earlier confrontation, Jesus’s response is far more petulant.
That earlier one was about the Sabbath—Jesus was encouraging his followers to break Sabbath law. There, Jesus essentially admitted to it—by condemning their interpretation of the Law. The closest modern comp might be when a person claims a law is unconstitutional. Arguing the law in question actually violates the foundational law.
Jesus has a deeper motivation, however. That isn’t about whether or not the disciples snap grain off on the Sabbath. It’s to change where we focus our attention.
Yes, away from law for the sake of law. And yes, toward God’s deeper, more important law. But ultimately toward God. Not the stuff we do to better understand God.
In this way, the closer comparison may be to the way Christian groups ascribe limitations to the gospel, by assigning orthodox interpretations, which then lead to orthodox behaviors which become enforceable practices.
This confrontation feels different
As much as the earlier one was clearly on message, this one is more troubling.
The elders come at him with a lesser charge. Not one of the ten commandments, but a levitical law about hand-washing.
Jesus’s response is confusing and strained—he brings up the commandment about honoring one’s father and mother, suggesting they encourage people to break that one.
This feels a bit like whatabouting someone on Facebook. Whataboutism is the classic KGB psychological warfare approach of muddying the waters in social and geopolitical situations. Say, when arguing that Russia shouldn’t invade Ukraine, they respond, What about the US and slavery, eh? You guys aren’t innocent.
The main problem with whataboutism: its purpose is to make things unsolvable. It isn’t about clarifying or equalizing. It isn’t about honesty—but it uses our desire for honesty to allow one to escape conviction.
I don’t think Jesus is using a psyop merely to get out of trouble here. But he does use a similar technique. And the question I have: is it for the same purpose?
Maybe…I guess?
But I suspect that our focusing on the details has a way of missing the point, too.
What is consistent between these two confrontations is that Jesus is pushing us to focus on what God is after. And, therefore, away from the junk that humans create to try and do precisely that. Regardless of the rhetorical move that Jesus employs, the point is invaluable.
While the hand-washing question will inform the following section about defilement (Proper 15), I suspect the imagery, the commandments, and the confrontation itself are too enticing to avoid.
This, of course, is precisely what whataboutism intends to do. It wants us distracted. I’m confident that isn’t what Jesus wants. He wants us to see past the details to embrace the purpose.
And what, then, is the purpose of Law? To be followed without intention? To be changed when we want to? Or is it about God?
And if it’s about God, then why do we insist on being God’s enforcers?