(Matt: 14:25-33)

This is another of those set pieces that everyone remembers: the disciples see Jesus walking on the water, Peter impetuously joins in, but his faith isn’t up to the task and he is only saved by Jesus’ intervention. “Just like us, so often,” we sigh.

Let’s take a closer look. I will spare you a long block of Greek this time, here’s my “as literal as comfortable” version:

The fourth watch of the night, He came to them, walking upon the Sea. The disciples, seeing Him walking upon the Sea, were agitated, saying “it’s a Ghost!” and cried out from fear. Straightaway Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart! It is I; don’t be afraid.“

Answering Him, Peter said, “Lord, if that is you, order me to come to you upon the water.”

He said, “Come.”

Climbing down from the boat, Peter walked upon the water and came to Jesus. But seeing the strong wind he was seized with fear, and beginning to sink, he cried out saying, “Lord, save me”.

But straightaway Jesus extending His hand seized him and said to him, “Littlefaith, what made you hesitate?“

[ἐδίστασας, from διστάζω, is more like waver or hesitate than doubt in the deep and absolute sense the English word ‘doubt’ often conveys]

And as they climbed into the boat, the wind abated. Those in the boat worshipped Him, saying, “Truly you are God’s Son.”

We don’t know exactly how far off Jesus was from the boat, so we don’t know how far Peter walked; but contrary to the way we usually spin this tale, he did get all the way to Jesus. When he started to sink and cried out, Jesus only needed to shoot out a hand in order to grab him. Peter can’t have been more than two or three feet away from Jesus.

So using this as one more rod to beat Peter with is plain wrong. He walked to Jesus, on the water, on a stormy Sea of Galilee, at night. When you and I have done as well, we will have quite a testimony.

But the way we are reading the story – even now, with my correction above – is still plain wrong. And that is why this post is titled “Peter gets it!” instead of – as you might have expected – “Peter gets wet!”

This was a – perhaps the – Red Letter Day in the training of the disciples, as far as Jesus was concerned; better even than Peter saying “you are the Anointed One, the Son of the Living God.”

You see, for the first time, one of His disciples saw Jesus doing something that was seemingly impossible and thought, “if He is doing that, I should be too” – and got on and did it. And when he lost the plot after the hard bit was done, Jesus didn’t rebuke him at all; the question He asks Peter is a coach’s question. It is literally “towards what did you hesitate?” You can hear Jesus as Peter’s coach saying, “you just walked across the Sea, so think about it: what did you allow to distract you at the end, and why? That’s what you need to get on top of.”

Now, it was only Peter who got it on this occasion (and perhaps without fully realising quite what he had done). The rest of the disciples worshipped Jesus and said “Truly you are the Son of God.” Which He was and is, but walking on the water can’t be the proof of that – because Peter walked on the water too.

In John 14, Jesus tells us that “the one who believes in me will do the same works I do, and greater works than these will he do” (John 14:12); but everywhere in the Gospels, He is making the same point over and over again by His actions and in His words (if only we listened with more attention). To give just one example:

“You give them something to eat.” (And yes, who fed the 5000 and the 4000, in actual fact? The disciples did; they provided the raw materials, and they handed out the food until everyone was fed; Jesus provided the instructions and the blessing.). But like the eleven who didn’t get out of the boat, we are so busy saying “Isn’t Jesus wonderful” that we miss the whole point. Yes, Jesus is more Wonderful than we can begin to imagine, but He was training those guys – and us – to do what He does and moreso.

And on this one wonderful stormy night, when the disciples were all terrified, Peter got it: “if He is out there walking on the Sea, that must be what I should be doing too.”

Jesus was forever asking the disciples, “do you get it?” [συνίετε – understand but in the sense of “put it all together”, maybe even “make the connections”]. One of them finally did.

(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.

(Matt 16:24-25, also in Mark 8 and Luke 9 – not to mention Matt 10:38)

It is one of the best known sayings of Jesus – and yet it doesn’t make sense. “If anyone would follow me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me.”

What do I mean, “it doesn’t make sense”? The statement has been made, endlessly it seems to me, that when people saw a man carrying a cross, they knew he was going out to die. I dispute this – the only reference I have been able to find anywhere of a man carrying any part of his own cross is with regard to Jesus Himself. If men carrying crosses on their way to execution was such a common sight in Judaea, why is it never mentioned (until Jesus carries His?) Nowhere in the Gospels, and perhaps more significant, nowhere in Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum nor in Antiquitates Iudaicae (Josephus being our only real contemporary reference to life in Judaea). Josephus has references to crucifixions, none to cross-carrying.

We don’t notice the strangeness of this saying (as rendered in English) because we, living after the fact, know Jesus carried His own cross. But what did the disciples, living before the fact, hear?

Here’s verses 24 and 25 in Greek:

Τότε ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ· Εἴ τις θέλει ὀπίσω μου ἐλθεῖν, ἀπαρνησάσθω ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθείτω μοι. ὃς γὰρ ἐὰν θέλῃ τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ σῶσαι ἀπολέσει αὐτήν· ὃς δ’ ἂν ἀπολέσῃ τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ εὑρήσει αὐτήν.

The key phrase is this: ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ – “let him pick up his stauros“. And σταυρὸν is simply a pole or pale. I would argue we miss the meaning here because we are too religious and so every σταυρὸν is the Cross of Christ, every γραφή (writing, or even just scratched lines) is Holy Scripture, and every διώκωσιν (being pursued or chased out of town) is Persecution. But ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ simply means “let him pick up his pole”.

Since that makes no sense to a 21st Century person (fishing pole? tent pole? barge pole?) you will be wondering where this is going. But if there is no contemporary model of people carrying crosses, every inhabitant of Judaea would have recognised the reference to a man picking up his pole and following.

In the wake of the so-called Marian Reforms of 107BC, which professionalised the army, and focussed on scalability at speed, Roman soldiers were “turned into donkeys” – at least in the sense of being required to now carry their own equipment, rather than relying on baggage trains.

Each Roman soldier therefore was equipped with a baggage pole called a furca. This pole – in Greek, stauros, remember – was about four feet long and shaped like a capital T – yes, just like the typical stauros of execution – and the soldier’s pack, or sarcina, hung from the pole. Any time you saw Roman soldiers on the march, you saw men with poles over their shoulders, on which were slung their pack, cooking gear and at least some of their weapons. And that is the picture Jesus conjured up when He said ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ – “let him pick up his stauros” – and follow.

So what?

It is kind of important. Jesus was indeed saying that whoever would follow Him needed to be fully committed; and He almost certainly knew that when He came to take up His pole, it would be the pole of execution. (It was still, figuratively, the pole that enabled Him to carry His load – in this case, the sins of the whole world.) But the picture of Christians as those heading for execution, like lambs to the slaughter, is a grave perversion of the Gospel. Jesus died in our place. His death was full and sufficient. There is nothing we can add to that. But if you would follow Him, then listen to what He says:

“If anyone wishes to come after me, let him turn his back on what is his, take up his gear and follow me. For whoever cares for his life will waste it, but whoever wastes his life for my sake, will find it.” (Matt 16:24-25, my translation, for sense; both σώζω and ἀπόλλυμι have a broader range of meaning than simply “save” and “destroy”)

It is not a call to self destruction, nor an encouragement to seek martyrdom. It is the consistent invitation Jesus issues to those He meets – leave what you know, follow me, and find life.

If you want to understand more, look at the context again. Jesus tells the disciples He will be arrested and killed in Jerusalem, and rise again on the third day. Simon Peter takes Him aside to rebuke Him, saying “God bless you Lord, but this will never happen to you.” Jesus turns on Him and says “get behind me Satan, you are my stumbling block. Your thoughts are not of God’s ways but men’s.”

In other words, “of course I don’t want to be arrested and killed, who would, but I am submitted to my Father’s plan and authority – and you are really not helping with your irrelevant sympathy based on your human point of view.” And then He enlarges on this theme to the disciples: “if anyone wishes to follow after me, here’s the deal: like any soldier, you deny what is yours, you pick up your gear and you follow. That is true for me, it is true for those who follow me.”

It is an adventure – possibly a very challenging and dangerous one at times – that He calls us to. It is a call to be as single-minded as soldiers. Not a call to death row.

After all, that’s where we were when He found us…

(Matt 15:21-28; see also Mark 7:24-30)

This is a well known and understood story: the Syro-Phoenician mother comes to Jesus because her daughter is demonised and ill; the disciples tell Jesus to send her away because she is making a big fuss, and Jesus initially tries to turn her away, saying it is not right to give the children’s food to dogs; when she counters that even the little dogs get to eat the scraps that fall from the table, her request is fulfilled.

Here is Matthew’s version…

Καὶ ἐξελθὼν ἐκεῖθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀνεχώρησεν εἰς τὰ μέρη Τύρου καὶ Σιδῶνος. καὶ ἰδοὺ γυνὴ Χαναναία ἀπὸ τῶν ὁρίων ἐκείνων ἐξελθοῦσα ἔκραζεν λέγουσα· Ἐλέησόν με, κύριε υἱὸς Δαυίδ· ἡ θυγάτηρ μου κακῶς δαιμονίζεται. ὁ δὲ οὐκ ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῇ λόγον. καὶ προσελθόντες οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ἠρώτουν αὐτὸν λέγοντες· Ἀπόλυσον αὐτήν, ὅτι κράζει ὄπισθεν ἡμῶν. ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν· Οὐκ ἀπεστάλην εἰ μὴ εἰς τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἀπολωλότα οἴκου Ἰσραήλ. ἡ δὲ ἐλθοῦσα προσεκύνει αὐτῷ λέγουσα· Κύριε, βοήθει μοι. ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν· Οὐκ ἔστιν καλὸν λαβεῖν τὸν ἄρτον τῶν τέκνων καὶ βαλεῖν τοῖς κυναρίοις. ἡ δὲ εἶπεν· Ναί, κύριε, καὶ γὰρ τὰ κυνάρια ἐσθίει ἀπὸ τῶν ψιχίων τῶν πιπτόντων ἀπὸ τῆς τραπέζης τῶν κυρίων αὐτῶν. τότε ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῇ· Ὦ γύναι, μεγάλη σου ἡ πίστις· γενηθήτω σοι ὡς θέλεις. καὶ ἰάθη ἡ θυγάτηρ αὐτῆς ἀπὸ τῆς ὥρας ἐκείνης.

Matt 15:21-28 SBL Greek Testament

…and Mark’s

Ἐκεῖθεν δὲ ἀναστὰς ἀπῆλθεν εἰς τὰ ὅρια Τύρου. καὶ εἰσελθὼν εἰς οἰκίαν οὐδένα ἤθελεν γνῶναι, καὶ οὐκ ἠδυνήθη λαθεῖν· ἀλλ’ εὐθὺς ἀκούσασα γυνὴ περὶ αὐτοῦ, ἧς εἶχεν τὸ θυγάτριον αὐτῆς πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον, ἐλθοῦσα προσέπεσεν πρὸς τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ· ἡ δὲ γυνὴ ἦν Ἑλληνίς, Συροφοινίκισσα τῷ γένει· καὶ ἠρώτα αὐτὸν ἵνα τὸ δαιμόνιον ἐκβάλῃ ἐκ τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς. καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτῇ· Ἄφες πρῶτον χορτασθῆναι τὰ τέκνα, οὐ γάρ καλόν ἐστιν λαβεῖν τὸν ἄρτον τῶν τέκνων καὶ τοῖς κυναρίοις βαλεῖν. ἡ δὲ ἀπεκρίθη καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· Κύριε, καὶ τὰ κυνάρια ὑποκάτω τῆς τραπέζης ἐσθίουσιν ἀπὸ τῶν ψιχίων τῶν παιδίων. καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ· Διὰ τοῦτον τὸν λόγον ὕπαγε, ἐξελήλυθεν ἐκ τῆς θυγατρός σου τὸ δαιμόνιον. καὶ ἀπελθοῦσα εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτῆς εὗρεν τὸ παιδίον βεβλημένον ἐπὶ τὴν κλίνην καὶ τὸ δαιμόνιον ἐξεληλυθός.

Mark 7:24-30 SBL Greek Testament

Mark gives us several details lacking in Matthew’s account – that she was a Greek, born in the Syrian part of Phoenicia (Matthew just calls her a Canaanite), that Jesus had gone into a house hoping no one would hear He was there, and that His answer to her was a little softer than Matthew’s version – “first let the children eat their fill”, rather than just “it is not right to give”. But Matthew does collect one key detail that Mark omits: the involvement of the disciples.

Contrary to the reading favoured by the NIV and most other English versions, I think we have to read Matt 15:23 as the disciples saying to Jesus, “release her [ie give her what she is asking for], because she is crying out after us.”

Why? Firstly because Jesus’ response – “I was not sent except only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel” is a valid answer to some version of “give her what she wants”, but doesn’t make any sense at all as a response to “send her away”; and secondly because ἀπολύω (“I loose from”) is used at least as often in the positive sense of “release, redeem, ransom, deliver” as it is in the negative sense (“divorce, do away with, remove”). It is indeed often used of Jesus “releasing the crowds”, but that is hardly “send them away” in the negative sense that the NIV uses here.

So what, you may ask? Well, it gives us a hook to hold onto, while we understand Jesus’ heart and intentions here; which might be helpful to us as we seek to understand His heart towards us, as well.

If, as I am suggesting, the disciples are saying, in effect, “would you please heal this woman, she is driving us mad”, then Jesus’ response makes it clear that He isn’t swayed by this argument.

Now it is true that in Acts, Paul drives the demon out of a slave girl because she is annoying him – or at least this is what Luke suggests in Acts 16:18, although διαπονηθεὶς δὲ Παῦλος is more like “Paul being worn out [by this]…” than the NIV’s “Paul became so annoyed…” My point is that – like all of us – Paul was rather preoccupied with what he was doing; he could probably have set the slave girl free a lot sooner, but it took being worn down by the irritant before he noticed the obvious: this is demonic, therefore I should do something about it.

In Luke 18:1-8, Jesus Himself tells the story of the unrighteous judge who gives the widow justice “for fear she would black his eye” – but He is making it clear that God doesn’t operate that way; the point He is making is that “if even a godless judge gives justice, how much more will God swiftly respond to His chosen ones?”

So, asked by the disciples to heal the woman’s child so she will stop being annoying, Jesus answers that He was not sent, except only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. As an answer, that is at least as much aimed at the disciples as at the woman herself. “You (the disciples) are asking me to act for your own convenience, but I have a clear assignment and will stick to it.” What He doesn’t say, but everywhere demonstrates, is that He absolutely responds to faith when and where He finds it.

And then the woman, despite what He has said to the disciples, approaches and falls to her knees, saying “Lord, help me.” That is already faith. Jesus then pushes her to prove her faith.

“It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the little dogs (τοῖς κυναρίοις)”

Pause a moment. Healing, and the casting out of demons, is the children’s bread. In Mark’s version, Jesus says “let the children first eat their fill (χορτασθῆναι τὰ τέκνα)”. As Jesus demonstrates over and over again, everyone who comes to Him gets healed and delivered, just as children are given their bread every single day. No parent (except in the direst of situations) answers their children’s request for bread with “yes / no / maybe / only in heaven”, and neither should we be teaching others that God sometimes (ever) answers requests for healing or deliverance that way.

Please don’t let what you have been taught by religion, poison your ability to receive, as a child in, and of, His Kingdom. Like it says: “He …healed all.” (Matt 8:16)

And our Canaanite mother clearly has the heart of a parent, and with the very real nugget of faith she has, is on a roll. That faith allows her to answer Jesus, “okay, so my daughter and I are little dogs: and that is fine because – Lord – the little dogs get to eat the scraps that fall off the table!”

And that is what faith sounds like. Not “if it be thy will” (no one ever got healed that way). Faith says “God is good, and I am having some of that. You can call me what you like, but I am not letting go.” And Jesus said to her, “O woman, your faith is MEGA”

Actually, μεγάλη, but it is “GREAT”, not just “great”.

And yes, her daughter was completely healed at that moment.

Was Jesus really saying He wasn’t going to do anything for those outside Israel. Clearly not. He was saying that His current assignment was to go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. That didn’t stop anyone else coming to Him – as long as they were coming with desire and determination. Faith (πίστις) is, after all, trust in someone else and their ability, not about the person who has faith in the first instance.

So – however far outside the Kingdom you feel, and however much of an outsider you consider yourself to be: who cares? (Actually, God cares, and a lot; but you don’t have to start there). The only questions that really matter are: What do you want? And could Jesus give you that?