Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
My friends, there was no parable!
Our reading this morning from the gospel is a rich and complicated story, one I have heard many times before. But the detail that jumps off the page at me is that there is no parable. I went back and read through all of chapter 15 in Matthew to be sure. In fact, the last time a parable appears in Matthew is two chapters before, at the end of Matthew 13, and the next parable to appear after this reading is several chapters later in Matthew 18.
So why do Peter and the other disciples pull Jesus aside to ask him to explain the parable in our reading? Is it simply a textual mistake, a scribe so accustomed to writing about parables that it slips into the story, even where no parable exists? Or is it an example of two stories in scripture getting mixed up or combined, leaving a bit of a textual seam where the merger took place?
The longer I sat with the question, however, the more I dismissed those possibilities. No, I think something much simpler is happening. I think that Peter is assuming that there must be a parable hidden in Jesus’ words. Why does Peter assume this? Because the teaching is a difficult one! Explain this parable to us! Confronted by Jesus’ shocking words, Peter finds it easier to assume that the message must be cryptic, because otherwise it is too hard to accept.
Explain this parable to us, indeed.
The Pharisees had been questioning Jesus about why his disciples ate without ritually cleansing their hands, as was the social custom and the pious religious practice. By way of answer, Jesus launches a tirade against them, calling them out for breaking God’s command in service of tradition, for teaching human precepts as divine doctrine. They are so concerned with custom and tradition that they have confused social norms, values, and prejudices with God’s word.
It is not what we put into our bodies that keeps God’s word nor makes us unclean, Jesus teaches. Rather, it is what comes out of our hearts, our words and deeds, that either keep the law or defile us.
If we do not share in Peter’s discomfort with these words, then we are probably not paying close enough attention. My friends, we are just as guilty of this today as were the religious leaders in this encounter two thousand years ago. We are just as ready and eager to take our own values, our own norms, and our own prejudices and dress them up as divine law.
It was not that long ago that our society taught that white skin was preferable to dark skin and that white people were the natural head of human society and that it was appropriate to keep black people in slavery. And we looked to scriptural scraps and tidbits to justify this practice, assuring ourselves that it was a reflection of God’s divine order.
It was not that long ago that our society taught that it was men that mattered more than women, that men were the natural heads of family and the expected decision makers, leaders of communities, and heads of nations. And we turned to our faith, barring women from leadership positions and ordination, assuring ourselves that so did God ordain it when God formed the first humans from the dirt and the dust.
And it was not that long ago, indeed I still get anonymous letters and emails about in the office to this day, that society taught that LGBTQ people were disordered, perversions of the natural order of things. And we backed up our claims, assuring ourselves that God saw anything but a heterosexual relationship within the strict confines of a traditional marriage, as a sinful and worthy of expulsion or even death.
My friends, it continues to this day. I’ve watched online as so-called Christian health influencers pedal eating “biblically,” which is as stupid as it sounds—involving only eating foods mentioned in the Bible—as the way that God wants us to eat and as a path towards a healthy and godly life.
I’ve watched as so-called “trad wives,” which takes a housewife, combines it with anti-feminist conservatism, and mixes it in with a touch of a homesteading/frontier fetish. The result is bonnets, starched dresses, wood-fired stoves, as a soft-spoken women assuring the listener that this is the godly way to care for their family and serve their husband.
Indeed, the entire Christian Nationalist movement takes the practice of conflating human values, norms, and prejudices with God’s command to new heights. The movements biggest voices unashamedly proclaim that their particular political believes, their preferred economic systems, their political leaders, their stances on health care or guns or reproductive health, are all extensions of the one, true faith. That they are the only faithful expression of Christ’s teachings, even when they are in direct odds with those same teachings.
And if we are truly honest, if we are truly sincere with our own introspection, then we find that each of us is guilty of the same. Each of us has fallen into this age old trap at some point or another in our lives. Each of us adds our voice to Peter’s question.
Lord, this teaching is difficult. Explain this parable to us!
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Take comfort, my friends. We are not the only ones who found Jesus’ words difficult.
After his confrontation with the Pharisees, Jesus picks up and leaves for the region of Tyre and Sidon. Why does he decide to travel there? Scripture doesn’t say, but I like to think that it was the work of the Holy Spirit. I like to believe that, having heard Jesus’ teaching, the Holy Spirit drives him out to be tested.
And tested he was.
Almost immediately Jesus is confronted by a certain Canaanite woman, who recognizes him and cries out for mercy, for her daughter is tormented by a demon and she knows that Jesus can heal her. In a move that has troubled the faithful for generations, Jesus does not meet the woman with mercy or grace. Rather, he first ignores her. Then he dismisses her. Finally, he insults her.
After all, the Jews and the Canaanites did not mix together and they did not view one another favourably. Everybody knew that socializing with a Canaanite was not done, would be met with judgement and disapproval of others, would make you unclean. It was against the divine order; it was not keeping with God’s law.
Jesus told her as much. God did not mean for Jesus’ work and ministry to be given to anyone but the Israelites. It would be wrong to feed the dogs with the food that was meant for God’s children.
In his dismissal, in his rudeness, in his reaching for divine justification for his beliefs, Jesus is confronted by his own teaching. Jesus falls in to the same trap as the Pharisees, letting his own cultural norms and prejudices become mistaken with God’s command.
And the Canaanite woman was having none of it. Taking the same position that Christ had just taken himself in his confrontation with the Pharisees, she assures Jesus that there is enough of God’s mercy, enough of God’s grace, enough of God’s healing to go around for all of creation.
I like to imagine that as he heard the Canaanite woman’s rebuttal, Jesus also heard Peter’s question playing in his memory. This teaching is difficult; explain this parable!
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Just last week we heard the story of Peter’s faith and his struggle to believe as he stepped out onto the water to meet Jesus as he walked across the sea. The closeness in these two stories is not an artifact of the lectionary, last week’s story takes place just a few verses before where our reading this morning picks up. And for textual reasons that are too long to get into right now, we know that the author intended this set of stories as a theological unit. We are meant to read and hear them in relationship to one another.
Jesus’ proclamation to this certain Canaanite woman, “Woman, great is your faith!” is the other side of the coin from his question to Peter last week as he helped pull him up from the waves, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
The author intends for us to consider her faithfulness, as compared to Peter’s as he walked upon the water. Peter hesitated when faced by wind and wave, and he began to sink beneath the waves. But the storm she faced came not of gale and swell, but of Jesus’ own words. And yet, she did not hesitate, she did not falter, and she did not sink beneath the waves.
The faith of the Canaanite woman is the faithfulness of calling God to account, of pushing back when God falls short of God’s promise. And in that way, she takes her place in a long line faithful people in scripture who are willing to push back and confront God. Abraham, who challenged God to greater mercy when he talked God down from destroying Sodom. Jacob, whose story we heard just two weeks ago, as he wrestled a stranger by night and was renamed Israel, because he had striven with God and humans alike, and has prevailed. And so many others, Moses, Job, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, and even Jesus himself, as he wrestles in the garden with the path before him in his final hours before the crucifixion.1
My friends, this is what great faithfulness looks like. It is demanding justice in the face of injustice. It is demanding grace and mercy even when our cries to God are met with silence. Especially when they are met with silence.2 For we are a people who are called to wrestle with God and never let go.
The promise of our reading this morning is that God can handle our anger. God is strong enough for us to wrestle. God will not topple over when we push back. And God will not be deaf in the face of our calling to account.
Indeed, God will hear us and rise to meet us with mercy and grace, proclaiming, “Great is your faithfulness!”
1“Crumbs, Dogs, and a Mother Who Would Not Quit: Commentary on Matthew 15:21-28,” Faith Element, accessed 2026-08-13. https://faithelement.net/crumbs-dogs-and-a-mother-who-would-not-quit-18-33/
2Russell-Jones, Iwan; “Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3,” pp.928
Preached by the Rev. Adam Yates