Matthew 7 & 8
In these two chapters we have a continuation of a theme, which just means this was important to the Gospel writer. We again have Jesus putting acting in a just and compassionate manner over the Law. He gives the example of being able to consecrate money that should be used to take care of an elderly parent. God's commandment, he says, is not the legalistic details drawn from the Mosaic law. It's doing the right thing for the ones closest to you.
I am particularly fond of his short discourse on clean and unclean foods. It all turns into poop anyway, Jesus says. Don't worry about what you're eating, worry about what you're doing.
There's some retreads from Matthew here. Instead of a Canaanite (dispossessed indigenous person) woman we have an immigrant, a Syrophoenician. I got the impression that this woman was well off. Certainly she doesn't come across as having the same forlorn desperation of the Canaanite woman, who begged Jesus to heal her child. Instead, her foreign counterpart comes to Jesus and has her argument seemingly all laid out. He talks about food being intended for the children and not the dogs; she coolly responds with the comment about the scraps under the table. Furthermore, she sees that leftover grace as her right, not something to be given to her patronizingly. Jesus seems to like her style: "For saying this you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter." After all the doubt from his fellow townsfolk and the fear that others show when he effects cures, no wonder a woman coming up to him confidently to ask for a healing would be refreshing!
The disciples, in contrast, don't seem to be able to get through their heads that where Jesus goes, hunger does not follow. He's multiplied food (or in my eyes, gotten people to share what they have) twice in this Gospel and they're still worrying about their next meal. It is at this inauspicious moment that he starts introducing the idea of the Passion. As we saw earlier, it does not go over well and Peter doesn't even get commissioned as the first pope here either.
I am particularly fond of his short discourse on clean and unclean foods. It all turns into poop anyway, Jesus says. Don't worry about what you're eating, worry about what you're doing.
There's some retreads from Matthew here. Instead of a Canaanite (dispossessed indigenous person) woman we have an immigrant, a Syrophoenician. I got the impression that this woman was well off. Certainly she doesn't come across as having the same forlorn desperation of the Canaanite woman, who begged Jesus to heal her child. Instead, her foreign counterpart comes to Jesus and has her argument seemingly all laid out. He talks about food being intended for the children and not the dogs; she coolly responds with the comment about the scraps under the table. Furthermore, she sees that leftover grace as her right, not something to be given to her patronizingly. Jesus seems to like her style: "For saying this you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter." After all the doubt from his fellow townsfolk and the fear that others show when he effects cures, no wonder a woman coming up to him confidently to ask for a healing would be refreshing!
The disciples, in contrast, don't seem to be able to get through their heads that where Jesus goes, hunger does not follow. He's multiplied food (or in my eyes, gotten people to share what they have) twice in this Gospel and they're still worrying about their next meal. It is at this inauspicious moment that he starts introducing the idea of the Passion. As we saw earlier, it does not go over well and Peter doesn't even get commissioned as the first pope here either.