Sometimes God has something difficult to say. What do you do when you find yourself knee-deep in a difficult passage of scripture? You can find a good book, which is like asking someone to give you a hand with something you don’t understand.

That works.

But you can also fall back on the same skills that you use for the easy passages. You can look close, take your time, and try to see what God is saying. Sometimes you will find a very simple truth wrapped up in difficult language. 

These next two chapters will give us a chance to practice on some very difficult passages of scripture.  

Let’s use some of the tools we have already learned. For starters, I’m going to run through both chapters and attach some bumper sticker summaries to the different paragraphs.

In chapter fifteen, verses 1 through 20, the Pharisees don’t like the fact that the disciples don’t ceremonially wash their hands before they eat. Jesus condemns their ceremonies that don’t have anything to do with the law, and he says that our heart and our words make us unclean, not our food.

So let’s say the title is: Wash your heart, not your hands.

Verses 21 through 28 are one of the really hard passages. A woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter, but he refuses. Because she isn’t from Israel, he won’t heal her daughter. But she presses, and he is amazed at her faith. So at the end of it all, he does heal the girl.

So let’s say the title is: Faith is faith, no matter where you find it, or you don’t need a passport to have faith.

In the rest of the chapter, Jesus feeds four thousand people with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish.

The title could be: Jesus has more than enough for everyone.

In the first few verses of chapter sixteen, the Pharisees demand a sign. Jesus tells them they will get one sign, the sign of Jonah. He also talks about the weather, which I think implies that they shouldn’t need any sign, because Jesus is right in front of them. They should recognize him.

So let’s say the title is: See what’s right in front of your face.

Then Jesus warns about the yeast of the Pharisees, which makes the disciples think about bread. But no, this is not about bread. It is about the sneaky teaching that takes away the truth of the law or the gospel.

So let’s say the title is: The truth is simple, so keep it that way or don’t spoil the truth.

Then the big stuff. Jesus asks who people think he is, and he asks what the disciples think. Peter says that Jesus is the Christ, or Messiah, the promised one of the Old Testament, and he says that Jesus is the Son of the Living God. Jesus says that he will build his church, and he will pass on the keys to the kingdom to the disciples. But the disciples should not tell anyone, yet.

So let’s make the title: Jesus is the Rock. You can probably think of something better, but that’s what I’ve got.

In the last few paragraphs, Jesus starts to tell the disciples about the cross, and Peter steps in to tell him he’s crazy. So Peter gets scolded, and Jesus tells the disciples that anyone who wants to follow him must take up their own cross. If you try to save your own life, you will lose it. And when it comes right down to it, what can you give for your soul?

So let’s say the title is: Come to the cross, ‘cause there’s no way around it.

Let’s put it all together.

Wash your heart, not your hands.

Faith is faith, no matter where you find it.

Jesus has more than enough for everyone.

See what’s right in front of your face.

The truth simple, so keep it that way.

Jesus is the Rock.

Come to the cross, ‘cause there’s no way around it.

Now we have the entire two chapters available to us. It will take a bit more work, of course. We have to do more than just tag some titles on the paragraphs. But we’ve at least looked quickly at everything. So we can start to play.

Let’s go after the first really tough section, the woman who came to Jesus looking for healing for her daughter. The thing that people don’t like is that Jesus at first doesn’t even talk to her. And then, he actually refuses to heal the daughter.

He actually tells the woman that he doesn’t have anything for her. She is a Canaanite woman, which would make her something of an enemy of the Jews. Jesus tells the woman that he has only come to the lost sheep of Israel, and it wouldn’t be right to take food away from the children and toss it to the dogs.

The language is insulting. Without knowing anything about how the story ends, is there anything that might help us understand what is going on?

First, let’s reach back to another story of healing from earlier in the gospel. A Roman centurion showed tremendous faith, and Jesus never told him that he was unfortunately outside the chosen circle. So why is this such a big deal?

I think the answer is in the passages right around this one. In the first section, Jesus battles the Pharisees about tradition and ceremony. They have lost the whole idea of the law, so how are they in any way living as God’s chosen people?

Jesus actually tells the disciples that if people have only empty tradition in their lives and nothing else, God will pull them up by the roots.

That is a direct reference to God’s chosen people.

Then he comes to the woman who is definitely outside the law, and she calls him Master. Even though she sees her way blocked, she still pleads for healing for her daughter.

Jesus says some things to this woman that would have offended most people. But just look back a few verses. When he spoke to the Pharisees, they were offended also.

He didn’t even say anything all that bad. Well, he called them hypocrites. But he simply accused them of loving tradition more than God, and he called them to reorganize their priorities.

And they stomped off, apparently, and refused to listen.

The woman, however, does not. She stays. And she asks for the slightest miracle, even if it can only a be a few crumbs from the table.

Now see how the story ends. The daughter is healed. And the woman is praised. She has great faith. And she is merely a Canaanite woman, probably not educated, and surely not raised in the marvelous tradition of the Pharisees.

She is the direct opposite of the Pharisees. Faith was easy for them, and they were offended. Faith was difficult for her, and she came to Jesus and would not let go. She persisted. She fought for her miracle.

This is not about the Canaanites. The gospel will come very quickly to people in every corner of the world. This is about the Pharisees, who have lost their way even though the law and the scripture are laid out all around them.

Let’s add something more to this. The next account is the feeding of the four thousand people. At the end, after everyone has been fed, they pick up the fragments, or the crumbs from the table.

There were seven full baskets of food left over. Picture some pretty good sized baskets. Think of laundry baskets piled high with crumbs of bread and fish. There are enough crumbs to feed another sizable group.

What did the woman ask for?

Just let me have a few crumbs. I know the food has come (for now) to just the immediate family, but there must be a few crumbs left over.

This miracle is not just about how much food Jesus can produce. It says something about who will get it. The gospel will spill out onto the Canaanite woman and unto her family, and unto so many others who were not Jewish.

And I’m glad it did.

Let’s do one more difficult passage.

On this rock I will build my church.

When Jesus said that, he probably knew that people would argue over the identity of the Rock.

That’s why he warned about the yeast of the Pharisees. The Pharisees took the truth and changed it into a tradition. Along the way, they took out all the power and made the tradition weak and ineffective. It might feel good, but it left God on the outside looking in.

Matthew explains the matter of the yeast, and then he talks about the rock.

Over the years, someone decided that the rock should be Peter. His name means rock, sort of, and so they thought Jesus would build his church on Peter.

Today the authority of the pope in Rome rests on this passage. The catholic church feels that the pope has inherited Peter’s authority from this verse.

The problem is that Peter has no authority in this verse. Jesus is the Rock. Peter has done nothing in his life that would make the church possible. In fact, a moment later, he tried to correct Jesus, saying that the whole idea of the cross was silly and unnecessary. Jesus called him Satan’s puppet.

No, Peter isn’t the rock. If we try to put someone else in the place of Jesus in this passage, we might make it a little more comfortable for ourselves, but we would take all the power out of the verse.

And we don’t want to be comfortable. We want to be right.

Maybe there is a lesson here. The gospel isn’t comfortable, and it isn’t about us. That was the yeast of the Pharisees, as far as I can see. They wanted a righteousness that they could show off. They wanted to be important. They wanted to be in charge of their own life.

But remember what Jesus said. Take up your cross, even if it isn’t comfortable. Deny yourself, set aside your pride and your strength, and walk in the power that God can give you. Lose your life for Jesus, and you will find life in Jesus.

If you feel that you can do it yourself, without God’s help, just think about it. What can you give God that might redeem your soul? How can you pay for your sins?

You can’t. And why would you want to?

Jesus already did.

You want to talk about a rock? That is a rock!