S4 Episode 42: Matthew 15:10-28

Translation: Common English Bible (CEB)

3 Questions:

What word, phrase or image strikes you in this text?

Toward what is God calling you in this text?

How does Jesus challenge your understanding of faith?

Additional texts:

Isaiah 56:1, 6-8

Psalm 67

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

Genesis 45:1-15

Psalm 133

Transcript

00:00:02.26
Nathan Pile
Kevin, we're back. And um the as I, as we begin this podcast, the thing that pops into my head is one of our daily themes this summer is ah considered a day of calmness.

00:00:18.62
Nathan Pile
And one of the the mantras that we are using during worship for one of those days is

00:00:19.13
Kevin Shock
Mmm.

00:00:23.90
Nathan Pile
um, breathe out our anxiety and worries and breathe in the calmness of God.

00:00:29.86
Kevin Shock
Mmm.

00:00:32.76
Nathan Pile
And I'll be honest, in the last week here at camp, we've had to alter our schedule because of the smoke haze affected camp.

00:00:43.35
Nathan Pile
And then we started another week of camp and we didn't have any water.

00:00:43.49
Kevin Shock
Mmm.

00:00:49.62
Nathan Pile
um

00:00:50.45
Kevin Shock
Oh my goodness.

00:00:51.35
Nathan Pile
And so, as we sit down to record, I am going to breathe out my worries and anxieties and breathe in the calmness of God.

00:01:01.50
Kevin Shock
I bet.

00:01:01.91
Nathan Pile
Um, and hope that that along with our study of scripture inspires me for the remainder of this week so that we can get through, things.

00:01:02.62
Kevin Shock
I bet.

00:01:11.62
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:01:12.66
Nathan Pile
We, we have some water back. We don't have all of our water back, but we have some of it back. So it's very exciting, very, very exciting here at camp. So.

00:01:23.05
Kevin Shock
Well, I'm glad to hear you calling it exciting. It sounds ah, it sounds horrible, but

00:01:31.18
Nathan Pile
It's ah I'm the, I'm the positive camp director, Kevin, I'm the positive camp director.

00:01:31.19
Kevin Shock
uh, it sounds like you're on the upswing too. Yes. Yeah. Good. Good.

00:01:36.94
Nathan Pile
So um it's fun.

00:01:37.64
Kevin Shock
Good.

00:01:40.99
Nathan Pile
That's how we title it. It's good stuff.

00:01:43.40
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:01:43.44
Nathan Pile
It makes us, it's, it's, it reminds us that camping is about, you know, reducing some of those creature comforts and surviving,

00:01:44.10
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:01:57.88
Nathan Pile
um on our own and what that looks like.

00:01:59.99
Kevin Shock
Mm.

00:02:00.42
Nathan Pile
So, yeah. So it's like, we still have flushing toilets and some showers. So it's better than 98% of the history of the world.

00:02:16.76
Nathan Pile
So, um

00:02:19.58
Kevin Shock
ah guess so. I guess so.

00:02:22.07
Nathan Pile
so, so,

00:02:22.33
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Well, I hope this gives you some time to breathe out what you need to breathe out and breathe in the calmness and peace of God.

00:02:31.03
Nathan Pile
I was, I was worried starting this week that we were going to have a re-, remix of the smoke haze condition.

00:02:38.08
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:02:38.32
Nathan Pile
And luckily we're not dealing with that on top of what we are dealing with.

00:02:43.41
Kevin Shock
Hmm. No, that's true.

00:02:44.76
Nathan Pile
Because we can be outside at least.

00:02:45.24
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:02:46.60
Nathan Pile
Last week we couldn't be outside at the end of the week.

00:02:47.27
Kevin Shock
Hmm. Oh gosh. Oh gosh. Did you have regular cabin campers last week?

00:02:52.06
Nathan Pile
It was... yeah We had both day campers and regular camper camp and cabin campers. And actually we canceled the last day of day camp because we, the cabin, the spaces that we had indoors allowed us to accommodate all of our overnight campers, but

00:03:02.26
Kevin Shock
Oh.

00:03:11.64
Kevin Shock
But not the day campers.

00:03:12.22
Nathan Pile
but not the additional 50 day campers.

00:03:14.92
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:03:15.66
Nathan Pile
We'd have been tacked, packed on top of each other. So yeah, because no like camp isn't designed to be

00:03:24.12
Nathan Pile
like airtight. There's only a few buildings that are, that, that we can actually shut out the complete outside world.

00:03:26.97
Kevin Shock
No, no, it's not.

00:03:31.73
Nathan Pile
Like we got pavilions, like if it rains, we're fine. Like we can go to, picnic pavilions and we have lots of covered spaces right but most of them are open air and so when you ran into the smoke haze stuff that was at 350 aqi which was what Johnstown monitored on Thursday night um we were like what what do we do with this so so we closed up the dining hall and

00:03:37.02
Kevin Shock
Oh, true. Yeah, yeah.

00:03:58.14
Nathan Pile
put some air filters in there and that made that space very functional and safe. Uh, and the cabin spaces were okay, but anything like everything else that you do is outside of camp. Right. And so we were very, like, we didn't do the, we didn't use the pool. We didn't shoot archery. We didn't go to the climbing tower, all of the things that would be kind of camp outdoor stuff and sometimes you can do in the rain but you can't do in a smoke haze so which will um it will be we we we had something similar in 2023 but it wasn't as bad as what for last Friday was, last Friday, last Thursday and Friday were terrible

00:04:29.56
Kevin Shock
Right, right.

00:04:43.41
Kevin Shock
Mm. Mm.

00:04:43.80
Nathan Pile
The morning was fine Thursday morning, but that by the time we had our ACA visit on that Thursday, so the morning tour was fine.

00:04:43.85
Kevin Shock
Mm.

00:04:50.40
Nathan Pile
I came out of our time with our ACA visitors and which all went very well, but we walked out from the our time of view doing all the paperwork and I'm like, why is it so hazy?

00:05:02.22
Nathan Pile
And everyone's like, it's the smoke, Nathan. And I was like, oh, it got worse over the course of the five hours we were in doing paperwork, so.

00:05:13.43
Kevin Shock
Yeah, it, yeah, it, last Thursday really did get worse.

00:05:16.82
Nathan Pile
Yeah, over the course of the day.

00:05:17.60
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:05:18.14
Nathan Pile
And so by the end of the day, it was really bad. And so then they were calling for Friday to start. Not, and you know, it was worse than Friday or Thursday morning, but then it was going to get worse over the course of the day. So then we, that's when we altered all of our schedules and made the shift.

00:05:31.65
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:05:32.25
Nathan Pile
And so it, and in, in the end, it all worked out fine.

00:05:32.71
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:05:34.53
Nathan Pile
we Campers were all safe and we were safe, staff was safe. And so, but it was... Yeah, you add that on to yeah things that we've not done at camp before.

00:05:46.04
Nathan Pile
At least that I've not done in 30 plus years of camp. 30, oh boy, it's a big number now. 34 years of camp that I've been on some level of staff at camp. So I've never had to be afraid of the outside air.

00:06:05.20
Kevin Shock
Yeah, right.

00:06:05.82
Nathan Pile
So crazy.

00:06:07.86
Kevin Shock
Hmm. Hmm.

00:06:10.90
Nathan Pile
So, all right, but let's do this thing and breathe in the calmness of God while we read the word of God. um So that was a long intro.

00:06:20.47
Kevin Shock
Okay.

00:06:22.59
Nathan Pile
So now we'll have to off to cut um cut Kevin short later on when he was getting really profound.

00:06:26.92
Kevin Shock
Okay. and okay

00:06:31.03
Nathan Pile
um So this week we are looking at Matthew chapter 15, verses 12. versus 10 through 28. Kevin and I are going to read it from the Common English Bible. And you can follow along if you happen to have a CEB.

00:06:49.75
Nathan Pile
or um or maybe you have a link to Bible Gateway or the app, Bible Gateway app, on your phone, and you could follow along there, or you could just follow along with whatever Bible is on your shelf.

00:07:01.50
Nathan Pile
There's going to be three questions. Two is the two that are our tradition. What word, phrase, and image strikes you in this text? Toward what is God calling you in this text? And then the third question this week, how does Jesus challenge your understanding of faith?

00:07:19.38
Kevin Shock
Yeah, some information about your hosts. We are men married to women in financially stable households, white firmly in middle age, college and seminary educated.

00:07:32.79
Kevin Shock
We work in a Lutheran church and were born and raised in Western Pennsylvania. All of this affects how we read scripture and discuss it, but none of this makes us better able to read and discuss scripture than any anyone else.

00:07:44.22
Kevin Shock
We believe that the wisdom of Scripture is the whole community's compiled interpretation for life with God and one another. So we want to know what you hear and think from your life experience.

00:07:56.63
Kevin Shock
And as Nathan said, we are reading from Matthew 15 from the Common English Bible.

00:08:05.82
Kevin Shock
Jesus called the crowd near and said to them, listen and understand. It's not what goes into the mouth that contaminates a person in God's sight. It's what comes out of the mouth that contaminates the person.

00:08:17.94
Kevin Shock
Then the disciples came and said to him, Do you know that the Pharisees were offended by what you just said? Jesus replied, Every plant that my heavenly father didn't plant will be pulled up.

00:08:28.86
Kevin Shock
Leave the Pharisees alone. They are blind people who are guides to blind people. But if a blind person leads another blind person, they will both fall into a ditch. Then Peter spoke up.

00:08:40.79
Kevin Shock
Explain this riddle to us. Jesus said, don't you understand yet? Don't you know that everything that goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? But what goes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and that's what contaminates a person in God's sight.

00:08:56.60
Kevin Shock
Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and insults. These contaminate a person in God's sight, but eating without washing hands doesn't contaminate in God's sight.

00:09:12.66
Kevin Shock
From there, Jesus went to the regions of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from those territories came out and shouted, "'Show me mercy, son of David. My daughter is suffing, suffering terribly from demon possession.' But he didn't respond to her at all.

00:09:29.24
Kevin Shock
His disciples came and urged him, 'Send her away. She keeps shouting out after us.' Jesus replied, I've been sent only to the lost sheep, the people of Israel. But she knelt before him and said, Lord, help me.

00:09:43.58
Kevin Shock
He replied, it is not good to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs. She said, yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall off their master's table.

00:09:55.58
Kevin Shock
Jesus answered, woman, you have great faith. It will be just as you wish. And right then her daughter was healed. If you're meeting with a group, you can pause the podcast now ah and engage the questions on your own.

00:10:14.52
Kevin Shock
Nathan, what word, phrase, or image strikes you in this text?

00:10:19.51
Nathan Pile
but the The translation, obviously, you heard me giggle, the fall into a ditch. um This translation is, um yeah, it, I just appreciated the, that piece of it.

00:10:26.30
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:10:32.21
Nathan Pile
um Being so, so very blunt. And to be honest, I don't know what it says in an RSV translation. Maybe it says fall into a ditch, but today that just kind of felt...

00:10:44.57
Nathan Pile
um ah surprising to me as you read it. The, um, but I think that the other piece of this is, is the beginning part of that same verse, leave the Pharisees alone.

00:10:57.18
Nathan Pile
Um, there's ah there, um, there's going to be a lot for us to talk about here today. Uh,

00:11:05.21
Kevin Shock
Mm hmm. Yeah.

00:11:07.86
Nathan Pile
I imagine after listening here, people have all kinds of questions and they wish they could call in and talk to us on this show.

00:11:13.56
Kevin Shock
Yeah, this, this, ah this reading actually has, you don't um have to read the first part in the lectionary, you can just read the, the woman coming to Jesus.

00:11:14.02
Nathan Pile
um

00:11:22.35
Nathan Pile
Canaanite woman.

00:11:24.31
Kevin Shock
But I thought, why not read the whole thing?

00:11:24.50
Nathan Pile
Yeah, sure. Sure. um So this, ah this piece of um like, if you're not getting along with so somebody or somebody's got a different way of thinking and who are, you know, here, you know, disciples kind of saying to Jesus, what, you know, deal with these Pharisees that they're offended about you. um Jesus is just like, leave them alone.

00:11:51.61
Nathan Pile
Like it's not, the it's not worth your time. God's going to take care of whatever the problem is, kind of a thing here. So, uh, and maybe there's not a problem at all. Like Jesus just says, leave him alone.

00:12:07.35
Nathan Pile
And so there's a piece of this that is very, Jesus feels a little aloof, not, maybe not aloof, like, um,

00:12:19.77
Nathan Pile
maybe more um,

00:12:25.02
Nathan Pile
as a Lutheran Christian and we as Lutherans sometimes have a tendency to hold on to our doctrine and theology and say, here, here is great theology.

00:12:36.09
Nathan Pile
Um, and why don't others follow us in believing this, um I get some of that in this passage of like, just let it get let it go. You don't need to try to force feed it or tell them that they're wrong or any of that piece. And so um so it struck me of Jesus's plain kind of instruction to his disciples, leave the Pharisees alone.

00:13:06.62
Nathan Pile
If they're blind and they're going someplace, they're all going to fall in a ditch. um Kind of a thing. It's not yours to deal with. It's not yours to, to, to change or alter or convince them some other way.

00:13:23.70
Nathan Pile
God will, you know, sometimes I think for us as human beings, and right now I think this is, feels really true for, for society as a whole. Like, I think we, things have to get really bad. I think we have to fall into a ditch until we're going to say we're willing to shift and change the way we think.

00:13:42.91
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah.

00:13:43.83
Nathan Pile
um You know, I've, I've argued this at least within my family circle with my parents and and others about the the world politically where we're at right now. Like, I, I just don't think it until it's bad enough, then we'll then, then we the masses will say we're going to fix this.

00:14:02.97
Nathan Pile
um

00:14:03.10
Kevin Shock
who

00:14:04.06
Nathan Pile
Right now, it's not bad enough yet, which is terrible because I think sometimes it's not good. um, um now. And so like we, it has to get worse. And so here it kind of feels in the same line, not that this is what Jesus is saying about Democrats and Republicans. That's not what Jesus, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that it feels here as if Jesus is saying like,

00:14:28.90
Nathan Pile
They're there. They are also believing in God. they If they're off target, it's not yours to, to fix them. But this idea of that we all have to be in a ditch until it's going to get better also feels.

00:14:36.88
Kevin Shock
Right.

00:14:43.96
Nathan Pile
Also kind of resonates with me, I guess, right now.

00:14:46.97
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:14:47.03
Nathan Pile
So, so that the 13, 13 and 14 kind of it's mostly all.

00:14:47.91
Kevin Shock
Yeah. yeah

00:14:51.92
Nathan Pile
in Actually, it's all, all verse 14. That kind of has me.

00:14:54.39
Kevin Shock
yeah

00:14:57.46
Nathan Pile
got my head thinking and spinning. And to be honest, my head started spinning so much that I barely listened to the Canaanite woman. So I'll be looking forward to reading it a second time. But what about you? What, what word phrase or image struck you?

00:15:12.95
Kevin Shock
Yeah. um I don't, Again, there's so much. I and, And like you, I didn't really listen. I'm, I mean, I, yes, I listened to what I was saying about the Canaanite woman, but um it didn't, it didn't have as much impact or stick as much as the first part, I guess. Or maybe I was just still hung up on the first part. It did occur to me when I was reading this earlier that Jesus kind of gives an object lesson.

00:15:49.42
Kevin Shock
I don't know how to say it.

00:15:52.40
Kevin Shock
I, well, and actually I'm not even now, I'm not even remembering what I was thinking about the earlier today, um that, that he, he gives a little bit of an object lesson though, when he interacts with the Canaanite woman, uh,

00:16:07.61
Kevin Shock
In the sense that, like, he, I don't know. He, he gets a little, he gets a little, it seems like something comes out of his mouth that contamin-, that would contaminate him.

00:16:22.49
Kevin Shock
I guess is.

00:16:22.74
Nathan Pile
He just says it and then he contaminates himself is what you're saying.

00:16:26.94
Kevin Shock
Well, well, yeah, I mean, the whole, like, like, here's ah here's a woman who's in great need.

00:16:33.40
Nathan Pile
hmm.

00:16:33.98
Kevin Shock
And he just, he ignores her. And then makes a comment that it's not even clear that he makes the comment to her because it just says that he's, he replied and it's his disciples who were talking to him.

00:16:48.82
Kevin Shock
um So I would assume that he replied to his disciples um until she like gets right in front of him and says, Lord, help me. And then, and then he says something that could be construed as an insult.

00:17:04.93
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Yeah.

00:17:06.61
Kevin Shock
And insults is something that he mentions as the, the bad things that come out of the human heart um in that previous paragraph.

00:17:15.08
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:17:17.34
Kevin Shock
So ah it's, I don't, like this is, I've, I've thought this for a long time with this reading. This is the reading that I think, you know, Jesus, I believe Jesus to be sinless, but man, does he skirt awfully close to it here.

00:17:34.23
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

00:17:35.58
Kevin Shock
Like it almost seems sinful that he makes this comment to the woman. And I guess, I guess if like it ended with the comment, then like, I, I get the sense because he, Je-,  he's Jesus. He knows that it's not going to end with a comment.

00:17:53.47
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:17:53.98
Kevin Shock
Um, he ends up acknowledging her,

00:18:01.08
Kevin Shock
ah what um like taking note of her faith in front of other people healing her daughter so you know like it seems like seems like everything turned out all right but, but just that, that comm-, I don't know, I guess ah I guess this is my answer. That comment gets to me. It always, it's always gotten to me um

00:18:30.78
Kevin Shock
it seems, It seems kind of unlike Jesus to say something like that, to, to ignore a woman and then say something like that. But also, I do think it serves as an object lesson for what has just come before.

00:18:49.09
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:18:53.78
Kevin Shock
like the, It seems like he gives in a little bit to the... to what the disciples are urging him toward. And like, like maybe, maybe that's the thing is that their, their, their human instinct of, or their, their human way of being annoyed by the woman, especially an outsider woman, a woman of a different ethnicity, different religion, we assume, or, or, you know religious practice, um, that,

00:19:28.06
Kevin Shock
they, They're not interested in helping her. And so they urge Jesus to send her away, which he doesn't, he doesn't do.

00:19:31.69
Nathan Pile
Right. Yeah.

00:19:36.14
Kevin Shock
But then he has this like kind of, again, rude interaction with her until, until she makes it clear that she has trust in him.

00:19:48.36
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:19:48.95
Kevin Shock
and then he yeah And then he responds the way that she hopes for, the way that she expects him, the way that she expects him to

00:19:57.18
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:19:58.30
Kevin Shock
Yeah. So I don't know. I'd like, that's something that I just sit with. And, and I think, I think somehow it must be related to like, it seems in the first half of this reading, there's a lot of backbiting going on about, you know between the Pharisees and the disciples or the Pharisees and Jesus, the, you know, the religious, the religious leaders and the religious authorities and Jesus as this itinerant teacher,

00:20:25.24
Kevin Shock
um Yeah, so there's just a lot of...

00:20:32.18
Kevin Shock
I don't know. Jesus...

00:20:34.40
Nathan Pile
Well, there would have been, historically, there would have been, between the disciples and, and any of the Jewish leadership, there would have been some back and forth, right?

00:20:34.98
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:20:44.22
Nathan Pile
And, and in Matthew, Matthew has a strong Jewish community that that that saddles up next to the Christian community in whatever town or region this that like this bo-, that this gospel is written in.

00:21:01.17
Nathan Pile
Matthew has a strong community there. And so there would have been this, just the friction that we hear between the disciples and the Pharisees and and even the disciples and the Sadducees, we would have also, you know, would have probably still been happening at the time of the gospel's writing, because there would have been a ah strong community of of um Jewish people in that community.

00:21:13.11
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:21:29.46
Nathan Pile
And so the Christians were or maybe growing or, or developing. And so there would have been this, um, friction that would have been existing even in the community, you know, whatever, 50 years after Jesus was, is, is off the, is, is, has died and been raised from the dead, but there's still this friction between these two factions.

00:21:45.25
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah.

00:21:54.26
Nathan Pile
Um, and so I think that some also that gets played out in, in the, gospel, that's the whole way through the gospel of Matthew. Um, And so it makes sense that it's here as well. um And so that's just a part of, of what's, what's playing out here too, I think.

00:22:12.54
Kevin Shock
yeah yeah Yeah, yeah, okay Yep, there's right there's there's tension. there's tension this tension

00:22:19.57
Nathan Pile
There's tension, yeah, yeah. And maybe it's not as, yeah, yeah.

00:22:22.98
Kevin Shock
There's tension between um different religious viewpoints and people.

00:22:23.24
Nathan Pile
Tension's a good word.

00:22:27.80
Nathan Pile
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

00:22:28.98
Kevin Shock
There's tension between Jesus's, well, there's tension between, I don't want to say Jesus, I don't want to bring Jesus into it necessarily. There's tension between human will and divine will.

00:22:42.94
Kevin Shock
there's There's the tension of who's in and who's out.

00:22:43.05
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:22:46.04
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Yeah.

00:22:47.03
Kevin Shock
That, yeah. That, yeah, there's, there's like a, I don't know, I, I don't want to read too much into the disciple situation, but I wonder if there's also a tension there of like them wanting to, like they're,

00:22:49.92
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:23:03.16
Kevin Shock
they live somewhat in opposition to the religious authorities, but I think that they also maybe in some regard want to be accepted by the religious authorities too. Like, I don't know what is behind the statement of the, the Pharisees.

00:23:13.73
Nathan Pile
Sure.

00:23:17.45
Kevin Shock
I pulled up the wrong tab. um what, what do they say? The Pharisees. ah

00:23:24.63
Nathan Pile
Are offended. We're offended by what

00:23:25.37
Kevin Shock
Do you, do you know that the Pharisees were offended by what you just said? Like, is, is that a concern for them? that like we don't want to offend the Pharisees. Like, is that where that question comes from? I don't know.

00:23:38.84
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:23:39.83
Kevin Shock
um It could very well be, but yeah.

00:23:44.92
Nathan Pile
um

00:23:45.95
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:23:45.98
Nathan Pile
Right. Well, again, I think you have this... The disciples are coming into understanding that Jesus is the Son of God.

00:23:56.70
Kevin Shock
Sure.

00:23:57.18
Nathan Pile
that they, yeah, Obviously, they're not... completely there because peter you know even at the end peter still does what peter does right um the leader of the disciples says I don't know this guy um three times so so that but they're they're living into that reality and I think as they do again it's hard for me to, to, to take the, the humanness like if I'm one of the disciples I'm starting to think pretty highly of myself um I'm starting to think pretty highly of

00:24:11.02
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:24:29.78
Nathan Pile
who I've, who, who, who's my teacher, um, as well. And, and, and it could be here cause I haven't read full context to be honest, like what, what's happening in the five chapters before here in Matthew do, are we already, do we already think that Jesus is you know, in some of the gospels, Jesus pretty quickly points his way to Jerusalem that he's going to be making major change. I'm not sure, Matthew, that it's quite this early yet, that there's there's still this tension of trying to figure out, has Jesus come to change Judaism or has Jesus come to form something new?

00:25:07.38
Nathan Pile
um And so I don't know exactly where that plays out. in Matthew at this place. So, but I think some of that, though I think your word tension is a good word for, for all of this that's happening in, in, in this story and throughout the the gospel of Matthew.

00:25:14.65
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:25:26.26
Nathan Pile
So.

00:25:28.12
Kevin Shock
yeah, the um, Yeah, I wonder if there's a, if there's a desire or an expectation that the... um that the Messiah, the one who comes, will just, will not be different from the Jewish authorities, but just will be the best one.

00:25:48.06
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:25:50.26
Kevin Shock
And so there's probably an, a ah thought that, um well, the the authorities, the religious authorities are going to get behind what the what the Son of Man, the coming one, the Messiah is, because, and is, is teaching and doing, because

00:26:00.12
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:26:07.13
Kevin Shock
He's the, well, we hear in Matthew that Jesus says that he's the ful-, he's come to fulfill the law.

00:26:15.03
Kevin Shock
So why wouldn't they be in agreement with him?

00:26:17.34
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:26:18.42
Kevin Shock
Except that the fulfillment of the law looks different from what people expect the fulfillment of the law to look like.

00:26:18.88
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:26:24.13
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:26:24.79
Kevin Shock
It looks like healing the daughter of a Canaanite woman who kneels at your feet and asks for mercy.

00:26:31.93
Nathan Pile
Yeah. So in a complete outsider finding love and forgiveness from God who we thought only loved us.

00:26:35.86
Kevin Shock
Right. right right, Right.

00:26:48.18
Kevin Shock
Right. and, And when you look at the whole of the law and the prophets, it makes total sense. But none of us is really good at looking at the whole of the law and the prophets whenever we're in the midst of wanting to

00:27:01.56
Kevin Shock
build our little boxes where God resides and where God is generous to us. And yeah, I had a, had a conversation with one of our listeners yesterday, Sam, and we, you know, as we record this, we just did the last Sunday, heard the weeds and the wheat of parable.

00:27:24.18
Kevin Shock
And Sam said something along the lines of, I'm not going to quote her exactly, but she said something along lines of,

00:27:31.42
Kevin Shock
Anytime we read this, we automatically think we're the wheat. and It's true.

00:27:35.51
Nathan Pile
We do. We do. Yeah.

00:27:36.06
Kevin Shock
It's true.

00:27:36.20
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:27:36.58
Kevin Shock
Like there's right.

00:27:37.66
Nathan Pile
we do let we do

00:27:37.98
Kevin Shock
And anytime we read a parable, we put ourselves in the place of the righteous or the ones that God loves or, you know, the children, the children of the kingdom who will shine in the glory of their father.

00:27:51.45
Kevin Shock
Yeah, of course that's us. Right. But. There's no guarantee, especially, I mean, there's no guarantee that we understand the parable in the fullness of how Jesus is explaining it.

00:28:07.96
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:28:10.62
Kevin Shock
Or, at the very least, we think that we're in, so we don't look as critically at Our own actions, words, things like that. I mean, even even as we were reading this, and then we can move on, but this last thing I'll say, even as we were reading this, verse 19, out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and insults.

00:28:35.13
Kevin Shock
And it's so easy for people, myself included, to look at that and say, oh that's not really talking about me because what murders, adultery, sexual sins, thefts. Like that's, that's those other people.

00:28:46.23
Kevin Shock
That's those really bad people. But those big, what we would call, we would call big sins, quote unquote, is couched in between evil thoughts, false testimonies, and insults.

00:29:01.50
Nathan Pile
Insults, Yeah.

00:29:03.03
Kevin Shock
I have been and continue to be guilty of all of those things.

00:29:07.86
Nathan Pile
Yeah. The book, the bookmarks or the end markers definitely have all of us wrapped up in them. Yeah.

00:29:15.61
Kevin Shock
it, Right, right, right, right. There's not a human heart that is exempt from that list that Jesus is talking about.

00:29:23.06
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:29:26.55
Kevin Shock
but, But we put ourselves in a place of, well, we're not as bad as those other people. Yeah.

00:29:32.50
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:29:36.38
Kevin Shock
Okay, well, you want to look at it a second time?

00:29:37.14
Nathan Pile
True that. Oh, is it only the second time?

00:29:40.82
Kevin Shock
It is only the second time, so let's look at it again. It is.

00:29:46.17
Nathan Pile
ah Okay, here we go. Second time through. Jesus called the crowd near and said to them, listen and understand. It's not what goes into the mouth that contaminates a person in God's sight.

00:29:58.73
Nathan Pile
It's what comes out of the mouth that contaminates the person. Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended by what you just said? Jesus replied, every plant that my heavenly father didn't plant will be pulled up.

00:30:15.48
Nathan Pile
Leave the Pharisees alone. They are blind people who are guides to blind people. But if a blind person leads another blind person, they will both fall into a ditch.

00:30:27.54
Nathan Pile
Then Peter spoke up. Explain this riddle to us. Jesus said, don't you understand yet? Don't you know that everything that goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer?

00:30:41.34
Nathan Pile
What goes out of the mouth comes from the heart. And what contaminates a person in, And that's what contaminates a person in God's sight.

00:30:51.80
Nathan Pile
Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and insults. These contaminate a person in God's sight.

00:31:03.64
Nathan Pile
But eating without washing hands doesn't contaminate in God's sight.

00:31:09.24
Nathan Pile
From there, Jesus went to the regions of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from those territories came out and shouted, "'Show me mercy, son of God. My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession.'" But he didn't respond to her at all.

00:31:26.26
Nathan Pile
His disciples came and urged him, "'Send her away. She keeps shouting out after us.'" Jesus replied, "'I've been sent only to the lost sheep, the people of Israel.'" But she knelt before him and said, "'Lord, help me.'" He replied, "'It is not good to take the children's bread and toss it to dogs.'" She said, yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall off from off their master's table.

00:31:52.66
Nathan Pile
Jesus answered, woman, you have great faith. It will be just as you wish. And right then her daughter was healed.

00:32:02.94
Nathan Pile
Kevin, toward what is God calling you in this text?

00:32:08.17
Kevin Shock
uh leave people alone I think or let me elaborate um

00:32:14.78
Nathan Pile
exactly and You move into the Yukon territory? what do you mean?

00:32:19.90
Kevin Shock
no, no, but, but I think like it's, it's so easy in our in our current culture to get wrapped up in the people we don't like and

00:32:30.41
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

00:32:32.25
Kevin Shock
I was thinking about this just yesterday and someone I, a Facebook friend of mine on Facebook who is a, is a pastor in a different tradition. um Like the, ah the, the cautions and the, like, he posts a lot of stuff that is based on his work as a pastor and, and things like that. And, and like, it seems like the last couple of months,

00:33:02.23
Kevin Shock
the like, look out for those people and you know don't be like that and like that, that kind of stuff is really ramped up it used to be some pretty decent good news kind of stuff and I don't know what's going on with him or his spirit that suddenly like you know people of different religions are the enemies and

00:33:08.52
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:33:21.28
Nathan Pile
Hmm. Hmm.

00:33:28.79
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

00:33:28.86
Kevin Shock
and or, and, Not the enemies, but like you know their way won't save you. like it Fine. like I, I would, I would say that I at, at the very root of what he's saying, I agree with him.

00:33:47.26
Kevin Shock
But my question is, why do you feel the need to be saying it?

00:33:50.82
Nathan Pile
Mm.

00:33:51.67
Kevin Shock
like That's what it comes down to. and, and so like I don't, I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be the look out for those other people or I, you know, I think this is calling me toward being the person who, um, well, when we think about the Canaanite woman,

00:34:20.54
Kevin Shock
that's the kind of person that Jesus, like, as he's, as he's talking here,

00:34:28.18
Kevin Shock
Oh, um I don't want to talk myself into a hole, a ditch, as I were, as it were. I think what I'm trying to say is, okay.

00:34:37.13
Nathan Pile
I'm definitely not following you then. I'm definitely not following you because.

00:34:39.64
Kevin Shock
Yeah, good, good. I think when, I think what I'm, it just keeps changing as it comes out of my mouth, which is why I keep stopping. um If you're to look at the Canaanite woman, and the Canaanite woman presents herself as an adversary,

00:34:51.13
Nathan Pile
hmm.

00:34:55.73
Kevin Shock
You know, well, those, those people following Jesus, they don't know what they're talking about. They don't know what they're doing. Jesus would probably say about her, just don't worry about them.

00:35:08.25
Kevin Shock
Leave them alone. But because she comes to him with something that she, with a cr-, a plea for help,

00:35:17.64
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:35:20.06
Kevin Shock
something that he can do something about, he doesn't leave her alone. Like, and there's, there's a sense, I don't know, there's a sense of, in, in that interaction for me of the biblical notion, we hear Jesus talking about it at one point, we also hear Moses talking about it at one point, whoever's not against me is for me.

00:35:47.96
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:35:48.69
Kevin Shock
And, and there's, there's a notion, there's a sense of, if this is not, Like, if you can find common ground with somebody, then

00:36:02.33
Kevin Shock
work on that common ground. Like, I, if, if there's, if the, if they're trying to sow division, then even if, even if you agree with them, like on the tenets of the, of your religion, maybe they're not the best person to be aligned with.

00:36:22.49
Kevin Shock
I don't know. There's like, there's something not really, not, I don't feel like I'm articulating it well, but there's something to me ah in the notion of like, whoever isn't against me is for me.

00:36:35.35
Kevin Shock
And, and it might be, it might be ah a person that, you know, that you have religious disagreement with might be a person of a different ethnicity or background or, or, or any other barrier that the world builds up. But if it's a person that,

00:36:50.81
Kevin Shock
is not adversarial and a person that you can find common ground with. And that's the kind of person that you should be working with. And, and, and the ones who like are just trying to sow division and cause problems, even if you agree with them, maybe that's not the kind of person you want to be aligned with.

00:37:10.68
Kevin Shock
So I think that some of it is to leave, ah leave the people alone who are just interested in stirring up trouble and look for the ones that I have common ground with.

00:37:27.13
Kevin Shock
However, that common ground may come across.

00:37:29.86
Nathan Pile
Yeah. As you were sharing, the thought that came into my head was like, this mother is desperate. she's already, She's already in a ditch, right?

00:37:40.94
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:37:43.51
Kevin Shock
Well, yeah, right.

00:37:43.88
Nathan Pile
She's already.

00:37:45.19
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:37:47.35
Nathan Pile
and, And so even out of her, you know, and there's other places in scripture that we find that those who are in desperation, who are in the ditch, are the, the, these are God's people, you know?

00:38:00.31
Nathan Pile
Um, we hear Jesus providing, um, love, mercy, uh, forgiveness in those, for those individuals over and over and over again.

00:38:14.66
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:38:14.97
Nathan Pile
Um, and so, ah like it's, that to me um, um So like, I don't know how that fits into what you're saying necessarily, but like, as you were, I hadn't thought about her. Like we, you know, just before this, we talked about the people falling into a ditch together.

00:38:35.64
Nathan Pile
In some ways, I would say that this person is in that, like they're there. No one else can help her. No one within the Canaanite community has been able to help her daughter. And so, um, and, and, and she could be, uh, a Jew who lives in Cana.

00:38:56.44
Nathan Pile
She could, you know, Christianity hadn't really started yet. It's in the process of starting.

00:39:00.62
Kevin Shock
Right.

00:39:01.28
Nathan Pile
So to say that she's a believer in Jesus, maybe she's heard of him. And so that's why she's there. Um, but more than that, there's not like a Christian faith that she's a part of at this point.

00:39:14.71
Kevin Shock
Well, no.

00:39:14.77
Nathan Pile
um

00:39:15.54
Kevin Shock
Mm-mm.

00:39:15.90
Nathan Pile
But there there could be word of a person who provides healing and this is her best chance. And so, so there's something about that idea of common ground that you're talking about for, for us. um Like one of the places that over and over again we hear in the gospels common ground is, is that ditch.

00:39:38.07
Nathan Pile
Um, and, and how, how Jesus goes into the ditch to help us. Um, you know, it calls us to go into the ditch.

00:39:46.48
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:39:48.56
Nathan Pile
If you get into the Samaritan story, um, you know, so you have the, the, that kind of imagery, again, different gospel, but same, same, you know, so there's just these pieces, um,

00:40:02.62
Nathan Pile
that seemed to be flowing together, which is interesting to me. as yeah As you were talking about that, com I wasn't thinking about common ground, but even in these two stories, this idea to me, in my head, there's here we have the the blind being led into the ditch and

00:40:06.84
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:40:22.38
Nathan Pile
a woman in desperation who's in, as you know is is essentially in the ditch, doesn't know where else to turn, doesn't know how to get out.

00:40:29.94
Kevin Shock
Yeah, right.

00:40:32.73
Nathan Pile
And so maybe this miracle worker that people have been talking about can help me.

00:40:40.02
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:40:41.11
Nathan Pile
So.

00:40:41.53
Kevin Shock
What about you, Nathan? what Toward what is God calling you in the text?

00:40:45.62
Nathan Pile
um I wouldn't be far off from from where from where you're at, of, of like, leave people alone, like how do we hold back our own judgment on them?

00:41:04.25
Nathan Pile
Um, because the temptation is very much there, right. To, as a part of our culture, we're really good about tearing, uh, tearing each other down, pointing and, and making statements about the others, casting judgment, all of those things.

00:41:27.51
Nathan Pile
And so, it does feel here as if, um, the things of our heart vary in the, you know, what comes out of, of our heart sometimes is, is hurtful. like I can remember years ago when I was young, I was a young camp director and was at a training and, made a, uh, offhanded comment to,

00:41:55.32
Nathan Pile
What I thought was a small group of people, but what I didn't know was within earshot was the person I was talking about. And so it was many years later that that camp director came up and said, hey, you know, I always just didn't think you'd like me because I heard this comment that you had made.

00:42:02.34
Kevin Shock
Jeez. Hmm.

00:42:10.12
Nathan Pile
And I was like, I didn't know what I was talking about, dude. I'm sorry. Like I was a young, a young, uh professional and um like, it's more convol- convoluted than just me making a comment, but I was making the comment because one of my friends was hurt by something that this gen-, this camp professional had no power over.

00:42:35.93
Nathan Pile
So that this gentleman had gotten a promotion and my friend did not get the same promotion, essentially, right? There was only one position.

00:42:42.64
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:42:43.86
Nathan Pile
And so all I knew was my friend was hurt. And so I was like, oh, this person's no good.

00:42:47.84
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:42:51.10
Nathan Pile
But that wasn't really the truth. It was, it was, it was the other, you know, it was the person was decided to be the better camp director, camp professional.

00:43:04.06
Nathan Pile
And so they got the job and my friend didn't get the job.

00:43:04.59
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

00:43:08.15
Nathan Pile
And so, um, and so I made a judgment about the person, not ever really knowing the person, kind of a thing. And so like we do this as human beings, right? We do this all the time in lots of different ways. Um, and so, um, we make judgment about each other and, and then we get caught up in our,

00:43:30.78
Nathan Pile
our insults, our false testimonies, and our evil thoughts about them and can create all kinds of horrible storylines about them. And, and they're things that we then say out loud to other people.

00:43:44.37
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:43:45.72
Nathan Pile
And so but the, the poison of our heart um then poisons others. So, so yeah, so I'm with you. Like, how do we, how do we keep from, from making these judgments about one another? Because it's so easy, right? ah Like it's a part of culture. if, If we can categorize, if we can name the box and put them in it, then we know what type, type of people they are, right? Like this is true about in situations and, and all of those things. So, um, being able to, um,

00:44:23.03
Nathan Pile
to make those if categorizations, if we can make those categorizations, then it makes us, then, then we, then we think we know what kind of a person you are. And again, in some ways, I think we you have Jesus having this dialogue with his disciples that is doing some of that, but then Jesus recognizing that, that, she is, she is more than the boxes that we've put people into.

00:44:57.43
Kevin Shock
Right.

00:44:58.10
Nathan Pile
um

00:44:58.36
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:44:59.29
Nathan Pile
You know, as he talks with his disciples, I've come to the lost sheep, the people of Israel. um

00:45:06.87
Nathan Pile
And so again, as, as you said earlier, like, it doesn't say that Jesus already knows what she's going to say. But I think absolutely it becomes a teaching moment for the, that, the teacher, the great teacher, to show his disciples our categories our categorization, our discounting of them because they're just, they're Canaanite.

00:45:29.52
Nathan Pile
They're a woman. They're whatever is going on here.

00:45:30.36
Kevin Shock
Yeah, right.

00:45:32.15
Nathan Pile
um None of that matters. So...

00:45:36.62
Kevin Shock
Yep. Yep.

00:45:41.14
Nathan Pile
All right. We better do it a third time, I think.

00:45:42.55
Kevin Shock
Okay. All right. From Matthew 15. Jesus called the crowd near and said to them, listen and understand. It's not what goes into the mouth that contaminates a person in God's sight.

00:45:55.18
Kevin Shock
It's what comes out of the mouth that contaminates the person. Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended by what you just said? Jesus replied, every plant that my heavenly father didn't plant will be pulled up.

00:46:09.08
Kevin Shock
Leave the Pharisees alone. They are blind people who are guides to blind people. But if a blind person leaves another blind person, they both they will both fall into a ditch. Then Peter spoke up, explain this riddle to us.

00:46:22.78
Kevin Shock
Jesus said, don't you understand yet? Don't you know that everything that goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? But what goes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and that's what contaminates a person in God's sight.

00:46:35.10
Kevin Shock
Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and insults. These contaminate a person in God's sight, but eating without washing hands doesn't contaminate in God's sight.

00:46:49.82
Kevin Shock
From there, Jesus went to the regions of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from those territories came out and shouted, Show me mercy, son of David. My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession.

00:47:01.59
Kevin Shock
But he didn't respond to her at all. His disciples came and urged him, Send her away. She keeps shouting out after us. Jesus replied, I've been sent only to the lost sheep, the people of Israel.

00:47:14.26
Kevin Shock
But she knelt before him and said, Lord, help me. He replied, it is not good to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs. She said, yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall off their master's table.

00:47:28.15
Kevin Shock
Jesus answered, woman, you have great faith. It will be just as you wish. And then, and right then, her daughter was healed.

00:47:38.94
Kevin Shock
Nathan, how does Jesus challenge your understanding of faith?

00:47:45.28
Nathan Pile
Um, the word is how?

00:47:48.63
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:47:49.18
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Okay. I was going to say when I thought maybe it was when, and then I could just say all the, all the time, all the time.

00:47:52.98
Kevin Shock
Well, you can answer that too. Okay. All right.

00:47:56.98
Nathan Pile
Um, so, but I think this passage is a great, um, I think this question pairs well with this passage, um, because I think sometimes as Christians, yeah, well done.

00:48:06.14
Kevin Shock
Oh, thanks.

00:48:08.26
Nathan Pile
Nice job.

00:48:08.70
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:48:10.10
Nathan Pile
There's an, there's an attaboy for the bishop.

00:48:12.02
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:48:12.12
Nathan Pile
Attaboy. um I think ah I know that I, I can only speak for myself. I know that at times I need to be reminded that God sees the world bigger than I do.

00:48:33.78
Nathan Pile
um

00:48:36.89
Nathan Pile
and, And that my faith is a Nathan-sized faith most of the time. and which has my human limitations to it and um my, my borders and boundaries that I create.

00:48:55.06
Nathan Pile
And yet Jesus here in the, in this passage, both with the initial teaching of the disciples about the Pharisees and then this interaction with the Canaanite woman, this mother, Canaanite mother, says,

00:49:14.84
Nathan Pile
who is desperate and yet still shows a boundless trust in God, probably more so than, than my sheepish, sheepish boundaries, um, of, of, of, of Nathan sized faith.

00:49:36.73
Nathan Pile
Um,

00:49:40.02
Nathan Pile
like Jesus comes in and says, you know, faith can be bigger than what you've created, what you've envisioned for faith to be, um, what, what, what trust is.

00:49:47.01
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:49:54.32
Nathan Pile
have a, um,

00:49:57.56
Nathan Pile
you have a

00:50:04.18
Nathan Pile
like Jesus, Jesus, again, time and time again, passage, scripture, and, and, and it can be Old Testament things too, that that God is bigger than what I am,

00:50:16.57
Nathan Pile
um what I am presenting here I go. I'm trying to turn down the ringer on my phone, but that then that's what happens is I forget after we're done recording to turn it back up.

00:50:26.50
Kevin Shock
Mm.

00:50:28.07
Nathan Pile
And people are like, I tried to get ahold of you today. And I was like, Oh crap. um But it just keeps dinging here today. The, but how do, how do yeah Jesus, Jesus in this passage,

00:50:43.07
Nathan Pile
helps me to say, oh, I need to, I need to press on my own boundaries. Um, cause I can think about probably three things that I've already done today that, that can be tied up in, uh, false testimonies, insults, and evil thoughts.

00:51:03.05
Kevin Shock
Hmm. Hmm.

00:51:04.28
Nathan Pile
And, and it's only halfway through the day, not even halfway through the day.

00:51:04.29
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:51:08.16
Nathan Pile
I'm still technically in the first like five hours of the day here. Um, And so recognizing that, like that it happens all the time, it's happening every day in my life. I'm, I'm constantly making judgment about others and, and, um, casting dispersion, at least in my own head. Sometimes I'm also articulating it out loud. Um, hopefully not to the people, but to other, others that are around me. Um,

00:51:44.82
Nathan Pile
so, like, So that piece of it for me is,

00:51:54.87
Nathan Pile
is here, I guess I would say. how

00:52:00.86
Nathan Pile
do... like a how'll do

00:52:06.42
Nathan Pile
how does Jesus challenge my understanding of faith? Um, Jesus challenges my understanding of faith yeah usually by being what I'm coming to understand is to so to be the son of God, to, to to show me my, my two close boundaries, my limiting, my judgment of others that, that, um,

00:52:31.89
Nathan Pile
doesn't ever get too far, a you know, from my own face because I'm constantly making it.

00:52:40.93
Nathan Pile
Um, I'm constantly making that judgment on others. Um, whether I, like taking time today, having this conversation helps me to see the three times that I did it this morning.

00:52:59.10
Nathan Pile
but I don't, I don't normally have that self-reflection every day, right?

00:53:03.06
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:53:05.16
Nathan Pile
I don't don't take an hour to have, to breathe in the calmness of God and to read a little bit to kind of say, oh, I did this again over and over and over today.

00:53:05.18
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yep.

00:53:13.79
Kevin Shock
Right. Right. Yeah.

00:53:16.12
Nathan Pile
um I, I, I didn't, I didn't believe, I didn't believe that this person had the value that God sees in that person.

00:53:27.33
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:53:28.47
Nathan Pile
you know, kind of a thing. So, um, yeah. So I think that would be the, um, like it's a constant, it's a constant, um,

00:53:43.99
Nathan Pile
the question, that your question is a constant challenge to me, right. Of, because I'm constantly doing it. I'm constantly,

00:53:55.74
Nathan Pile
not having enough trust in God and in God's people that surround me.

00:53:59.15
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:54:02.57
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:54:06.46
Nathan Pile
Because my own selfishness or my own,

00:54:11.42
Nathan Pile
well, my own selfishness is saying they're not as good as I am or why can't they see the whole picture or why can't they just do it?

00:54:24.33
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:54:24.92
Nathan Pile
um Why does their hand need to be held to make that, that choice or that decision or that whatever? so

00:54:37.85
Nathan Pile
What about you, my friend? How does Jesus challenge your understanding of faith?

00:54:42.94
Kevin Shock
Well, I, I think

00:54:47.38
Kevin Shock
it goes back to, and we've talked about this before, that, that notion of desperation. Desperation is a way that faith um

00:54:57.47
Kevin Shock
exhibits itself or displays itself. um I think about...

00:55:09.75
Kevin Shock
I think a lot of times when we, when we talk about faith in, you know, common conversation in the church, people think, and myself included, think, um, that we're talking about our system of belief.

00:55:28.28
Kevin Shock
But if we, um you know, kind of like the, I mean, I've heard people talk about like the, the defending the faith, like there we're talking about, we're talking about our, our systems of theology and belief.

00:55:37.39
Nathan Pile
Mmm, yeah. Yeah.

00:55:43.11
Kevin Shock
Um, but faith here, I think is really about, um, trust. And, um, and so it challenges me to think about, um,

00:55:59.77
Kevin Shock
or Jesus challenges me in a way that has me thinking not about faith as something that I cling to because it's important to me, but, but putting, kind of casting off all of the stuff that sometimes I can confuse for faith, ah in order to trust and rely fully on Christ himself.

00:56:19.02
Nathan Pile
Hmm. Hmm.

00:56:25.21
Kevin Shock
um And I think, I think part of that goes back to what you said that to being open to whatever the spirit may be leading you or showing you um not just looking for well not just looking for confirmation of what we already believe whenever we're reading scripture or worshiping or something like that but, but even looking for ways that

00:56:57.91
Kevin Shock
we might be open to new ways of thinking um to consider what God is doing ah among us in ways that are unexpected um where, where those openings might be, I, like I think that, that that woman the Canaanite woman provides an opening um to Jesus and to the disciples I think Jesus is prepared for her opening. I think Jesus knows that, um yeah, that there's going to be an opening, but the disciples don't know that.

00:57:35.03
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:57:35.74
Nathan Pile
Well, we would... Our human tendency would be

00:57:44.18
Nathan Pile
to,

00:57:47.29
Nathan Pile
you know, to turn our back completely on the woman, right? Because we're, you know, because send her away because we've, well, she's bothering us and, and she's from, she's an outsider.

00:57:50.00
Kevin Shock
Well, right. Send her away. She's bothering us.

00:57:58.14
Nathan Pile
And yet, and so like we read this passage 2000 years later and are like, does Jesus get a little bit of egg on his face here? And, and, and for us getting egg on our face is a bad thing for Jesus.

00:58:05.55
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:58:09.82
Nathan Pile
He doesn't care.

00:58:11.75
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:58:12.44
Nathan Pile
Like that's, that's the piece that I think gets, gets like that I'm not good at, like as a human being, I don't want egg on my face. So I'd much rather play a tug of war with the Canaanite mother than I would be like, okay, yeah, I'll heal your daughter.

00:58:32.37
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:58:35.06
Nathan Pile
You know, because we, again, for, and maybe it's just because I'm looking at this from human eyes, but my way of, a part of this passage is that, like, ooh, we wouldn't, we wouldn't, I wouldn't want to have this kind of a, what feels like a backpedal in our world.

00:58:55.61
Nathan Pile
It feels, from a human perspective, it feels like, oh, I must have been wrong. And we have a very powerful, part of society and in our culture that says, don't be wrong.

00:59:10.71
Nathan Pile
but I have conversations all of the time, you know, and I feel it for myself, but I have conversations with my young adults here at camp who are on our summer staff of, I don't want to be wrong.

00:59:21.82
Nathan Pile
I don't, I didn't do anything because I didn't want to be wrong. And I'm like, who, like, we're just talking about cleaning a toilet here.

00:59:24.98
Kevin Shock
Oh, yeah.

00:59:31.13
Nathan Pile
Like this isn't even, big stuff. Like, so, but like, right.

00:59:35.28
Kevin Shock
It's not even consequential.

00:59:37.56
Nathan Pile
Like, Ooh, Ooh, you're right.

00:59:37.75
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah.

00:59:40.18
Nathan Pile
You didn't do this toilet. Right. Or no, I just, I didn't do it at all because I wasn't sure how to do it. Right.

00:59:46.07
Kevin Shock
Oh, boy.

00:59:46.26
Nathan Pile
Um, you know, and so, but like that, that that's very human for us, right?

00:59:46.63
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:59:50.70
Nathan Pile
Like we just, our culture has convinced us to believing that this is the way we have to live. And, and, And so maybe that's, you know, and Jesus doesn't seem to be able to follow, Jesus doesn't let those human limitations get in his way of what he's gonna do.

01:00:11.72
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

01:00:14.32
Nathan Pile
So, you know, in, in our, yeah, so I appreciate your your sentiment of this and, and, and especially saying the things that we trust in

01:00:31.42
Nathan Pile
and, And a lot of times that trust is in us, in ourselves, as opposed to the, into, into Christ, into God and the spirit that that lives and dwells in us that might be calling us to something else.

01:00:45.88
Nathan Pile
So, yeah. Anything else there, my friend?

01:00:54.49
Kevin Shock
I don't know. I don't think so.

01:00:57.07
Nathan Pile
there'd be, Obviously, we could talk on and on here, where've but, but where we've gotten, kind of, to our hour.

01:01:00.12
Kevin Shock
Right.

01:01:01.11
Nathan Pile
So additional texts for you to look at, Isaiah 56, verse 1 and verses 6 through 8, a house of prayer for all peoples.

01:01:12.92
Nathan Pile
Psalm 67, let all the peoples praise you, o God. Romans chapter 11, Verses 1 to two a and then verses 29 to 32.

01:01:26.42
Nathan Pile
God's mercy to all Jews and Gentile, um, Gentiles. Again, you can see how some of those kind of fit with what we've just talked about here in the Gospel of Matthew. And then the, the summer readings where we try to they where they try to connect the Old Testament a little bit more closely.

01:01:45.27
Nathan Pile
fully and and succinctly over the course of the summer season. Genesis chapter 45 verses 1 through 15, Joseph reconciles with his brothers. And Psalm 133, how good and pleasant it is to live together in unity.

01:02:00.73
Nathan Pile
um As always, Kevin, I appreciate your reflections and our opportunity to breathe in the calmness of God today.

01:02:10.94
Kevin Shock
Indeed.

01:02:11.64
Nathan Pile
so um and always, again, always give thanks for the passages of scripture and and today's translation that you selected kind of helped ah inspire me in that process. So thanks for that.

01:02:25.18
Nathan Pile
ah We hope to tend our faith with you again soon. a Grace to you.

01:02:30.10
Kevin Shock
in peace.