(Matt 15-10-20)
The Pharisees approach Jesus and demand to know why His disciples ignore the traditions of the elders, by eating without washing their hands first. And Jesus asks them why they ignore God’s word in favour of their traditions. He then goes on to say this to the crowd:
“Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them [actually, make them κοινοῖ or “common”, as opposed to sanctified], but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
The disciples respond by saying, in effect, “whoa, Lord – don’t you know the Pharisees were really offended by what you just said?”
Here’s Jesus’ reply:
Πᾶσα φυτεία ἣν οὐκ ἐφύτευσεν ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ οὐράνιος ἐκριζωθήσεται. ἄφετε αὐτούς· τυφλοί εἰσιν ὁδηγοί τυφλῶν· τυφλὸς δὲ τυφλὸν ἐὰν ὁδηγῇ, ἀμφότεροι εἰς βόθυνον πεσοῦνται.
“Every plantation (not plant, as the NIV and others have it) which my Heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted (or grubbed up). Leave them alone – they are blind guides of the blind. If a blind man escorts a blind man, they will both fall into an open grave (or anything else that has been dug out).”
The difference between plant and plantation is significant. Jesus isn’t saying the heavenly gardening crew are coming after individuals who somehow haven’t been planted by God; a plantation is a) deliberate and b) generally involves a certain number of trees all of the same kind. In other words, when men band together on their own authority and presenting themselves as somehow representing God, they will be uprooted. This consciously contrasts with the promise of what God will do in Isaiah 61:3, “that they may be oaks of righteousness, the מַטַּ֥ע (matta: plantation) of Yahweh, that He may be glorified”.
Having dealt a (well-deserved) knock out blow to the Pharisees, Jesus then faces a question from Peter. “Make known to us (ie explain) this parable” – meaning what Jesus had said about food not defiling a person, but their words.
And now we understand why every plantation, not planted by the Father, will be grubbed up. They contaminate the thinking of everyone else.
Jesus made a straight forward and entirely literal statement about food and defilement, and Peter assumes it is a parable – because clearly Jesus can’t be saying that the traditions are wrong. Even though Peter may well have been eating with unwashed hands – which was the original complaint by the Pharisees – he can’t believe Jesus would overturn what the plantation has been saying.
Jesus’ reply expresses at least astonishment and probably frustration:
Ἀκμὴν καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀσύνετοί ἐστε; οὐ νοεῖτε ὅτι πᾶν τὸ εἰσπορευόμενον εἰς τὸ στόμα εἰς τὴν κοιλίαν χωρεῖ καὶ εἰς ἀφεδρῶνα ἐκβάλλεται;
“We’re here and now and still you aren’t getting it? Or don’t you know that everything that goes into the mouth is carried into the belly and expelled into the privy?”
In other words, “Why would you think everything is a parable? Pay attention!”
And that is good advice to us, too. It sometimes seems to me that everything Jesus said and did (especially did) gets turned into comforting metaphor; when actually, a lot of the time He is telling us, or demonstrating for us, how the Laws of the Kingdom actually operate.
Peter is looking for a blessed thought in Jesus’ statement about what goes into your mouth versus what comes out of your mouth. Jesus is left having to ask him if he doesn’t understand that food turns into poo. And of course, the point is that what comes out of your mouth – literally – is words, and words are the overflow of what is going on in your heart. And that is where any problem you have with unrighteousness is coming from: your heart.
But the bigger point is that if we approach the Gospels looking, like Peter, for a blessed thought to “carry us through the day”, we are missing everything Jesus intends us to have. And that is a knowledge of how the Kingdom operates; the Kingdom which his Father has been pleased to give us.
So let’s be clear: parables are parables, and they deliberately wrap truth up in a way that both cloaks and provokes for those outside the Kingdom. Everything else Jesus does and says is plain text and we should, perhaps, pay closer attention.
Seeing the Kingdom 