Matthew 15: Hypocrisy within the Faith According to the Editor of Matthew
Matthew 15: Hypocrisy within the Faith According to the Editor of Matthew
8 "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules."
17 "Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?
18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them."
The editor of Matthew accuses hypocrisy within the faith from two perspectives. The first is the hypocrisy within Judaism. The Pharisees used the law to justify not doing what is humanely right, hiding behind God. They were particularly sensitive about money, to the extent of ignoring not only their neighbors but also their own parents. They established laws that allowed them to ignore obligations such as returning a garment taken as collateral by sunset or even providing for their parents. The law of Corban, a gift dedicated to God, was considered supreme, overriding any other obligation. This was because no human could surpass God. Jesus pointed out the hypocrisy of adhering to the law while their focus was on money, not on God.
The second form of hypocrisy exposed is in the distinction between the chosen people and Gentiles. The consciousness of being God's chosen people among the Jews should have been based on faith in Yahweh. However, they set the boundaries of land and blood purity as the limits of their faith. Jesus reaffirmed the obvious truth that the standard for being chosen should be faith in Yahweh, not dietary practices. It is not what enters one's mouth but what comes out of it that determines purity or impurity, illustrating that even among the Jews, there could be Gentiles, and conversely, Gentiles divided by land could be among God's chosen people. Thus, in verses following 21, Jesus initially rebuffs the Canaanite woman seeking healing for her demon-possessed daughter, to later reveal her great faith. This emphasizes that faith in Yahweh is not limited by land but is a matter of the heart.
The event of feeding four thousand with seven loaves in verse 32 and beyond accuses the Jewish contradiction with the law of the Jubilee. If the Jubilee system worked as intended, there should not be masses unable to secure food. The faith in Yahweh cannot survive on the establishment of the Jubilee law alone. Known to all Jews, the Jubilee law, which cancels all debts every fifty years without conditions, breathes life into the faith through its unrestricted implementation, even in the form of free meals. Yet, suggesting free meals today might invite criticism, even to the point of claiming it causes a loss of human dignity to work, reflecting the evil thoughts Jesus mentioned. At the very least, Christians reading Matthew should not contradict Jesus's words.