08.20.2023 - Serving the Least of These

Scripture: Matthew 15:10-28

Matthew 15:10–28 NIV

10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” 12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” 13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” 15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.” 16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.” 21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” 27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” 28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

8/20/2023

Order of Service:

Announcements

Kid’s Time

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Serving the Least of These

Getting Your Hands Dirty

In my daily scripture reading this week, I read several psalms that celebrated the Laws of God. As Christians, we often celebrate the stories of God and the promises of God, but the Jewish people have always had a special place in their hearts for the Laws of God. I don’t know too many popular hymns on that subject specifically. There are some old children’s songs about that, but we typically don’t sing them as worship songs because they don’t always have the same reverence as our other worship songs.

The closest comparison I can think of is the song “Thy Word,” one of those classic praise songs, one of the very first worship songs to make it into secular pop music playlists in 1984. Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith wrote that song together at a ranch in the Rocky Mountains. Michael wrote the chorus based on David’s psalms, and Amy wrote the verses after getting lost on that ranch after dark and finally following the light to her cabin.

Just like Amy’s experience that birthed that song, the psalmist tells us that we say we love God’s Law, but no one follows it. We don’t follow it. As the prophet Isaiah wrote in 53:6,

“We like sheep, have gone astray,

Each one of us has turned to our own way.”

And we move quickly past that to the part that says, “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” I think we have a greater love for being found than for following God’s Law, and, according to the psalmist, humanity has always been that way. We have a very human habit of picking and choosing what parts of the Bible we pay attention to and what parts we ignore. The things we ignore, we forget. The things we forget we do not teach to the next generation, and within a few short generations, the living memory of that truth disappears from the earth.

Reading and hearing God’s Word can sometimes feel like putting a puzzle together when we only have half the pieces. We are tempted to tape pieces together that don’t fit or make up our own pieces to fill the gaps because it is easier than doing the hard work of finding out what we are missing. We notice it more in the difficult passages, and it also happens in the easy passages we think we know well.

We believe, no, we know that Jesus sees and cares for all who seek Him. This scripture challenges that understanding, so today, we will dig into this passage and see how and why Jesus sees and cares for all who seek Him and what that means for the way we serve today.

Seeing Like Jesus

The Pharisees challenged Jesus because His miracles and ministry did not always honor the traditions they upheld. It was unclear if each of the 5,000 families washed their hands before they ate fish sandwiches together in the wilderness. Many had been sick with diseases before they came, and Jesus touched and healed many of them. Did Jesus ensure He was physically and spiritually clean before breaking the bread and fish to share with everyone?

There were probably shepherds and farmers out in those fields as well. Shepherds and anyone who worked directly with livestock were notoriously unclean. As they traveled from one pasture to the next, they often laid down with the sheep to protect them, making their body a kind of “door” into the sheepfold. I have read that the practice of counting sheep to go to sleep may have started with those young servants who were not allowed to sleep until all the sheep made it into the fold.

It was hard for shepherds to stay clean because they were always working with the animals. Working with people can be messy as well. As our lives touch, the messes we bear become the messes we share. But Jesus had a different perspective on what it means to be clean or unclean. He said it is not what goes into our bodies but what comes out of them that makes them dirty. More than food and eating practices, Jesus was teaching about our lives. Being in an unclean world does not make us unclean. Our responses to living in this world make us clean or unclean.

We, as Christians, often take the rules and toss them out, replacing them with the idea that if we are good and kind people, we don’t have to worry about anything else. And that makes this second part of the passage so challenging for us to understand.

After leaving Galilee and heading into Gentile territory, they encountered a local Canaanite woman begging Jesus to heal her child of a demon that caused her to suffer terribly. Regardless of the personal prejudices of the disciples, this put them all in messy territory. She was a pagan. When was the last time she washed her hands? Had she touched anything profane? Had she come to Jesus after worshipping one of the pagan idols, finding no help there? Would they all become unclean just by being in her presence?

Usually, the disciples tried to follow the example Jesus set for them, but He seemed to ignore the situation. In their frustration, they asked Jesus to send her away. Instead of sending her away, Jesus told them this:

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

I could read much into this powerful statement about who Jesus is and what He will do for me. It might make me feel like I am not worthy and make me feel like giving up. But not this woman. She had her own lost sheep she was fighting for. So she dropped to her knees and begged from her place of powerlessness.

Even then, Jesus did not concede. Instead, He told her it was not right to feed the house pets the food that belonged to the children. Wow! That is harsh! But the woman did not relent. Even the pets get the crumbs from the table, she replied. She had faith that Jesus could and would free her daughter if she persisted, and she was right.

In the past three weeks, we have heard ways Jesus dealt with the needs of others. Each time, Jesus received requests from people, including the disciples, that expressed some need that was not explicitly connected to the mission God gave Jesus. And the disciples were not on the same page as Jesus each time. All three times, Jesus went above and beyond the call of His duty to minister to the needs of those people in specific ways, and He did it without losing His focus on God.

How did He do it? By focusing on His promises.

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How we see People

Jesus was born into our world because God promised His people a savior. Who are God’s people? Anyone who seeks Him. When God gave Moses the Law, He expected people to see God in His people and want to join them, so He made the way clear for them to do so. They promised to be His people, and He promised to be their God.

Jesus, in His treatment of this woman, did not ignore her plight or look down on her. Instead, He showed us the importance of making and keeping promises. Jesus pointed out that as we follow God’s example, we must keep our current promises before going off and making new ones. We would question any household that boasted of having the best-fed animals while their children starved. We become hypocrites like the Pharisees when we claim that we can reach all the lost sheep but cannot care for those in our own sheepfold. It is the same hypocrisy that says, “I have never let unclean food pass my lips.” while using those same lips to lie, cheat, and harm others.

God had a plan, and additional work was needed to reach those without a relationship with God. Jesus is not the hired hand who counts sheep before He goes to sleep and thinks success means having more sheep in the pen. Jesus is the good shepherd who knows every sheep by name. He knew this woman and her poor tormented daughter too. He knew He was their only hope.

But Jesus is not a slot machine that you can beg enough times to get your way finally. He only makes promises He will keep. And He expects us to do the same. It is not God’s will for us to be distracted from our duties by the needs of the multitudes. Nor is it right for us to be distracted from God by the needs of one.

How we see Ourselves

How do we know what to do when we are trying to serve and are unsure if this is what God wants us to do? Here are two things to consider.

First and foremost, as followers of Jesus, we serve God, not the world. It doesn’t matter if the world gives us the best explanation of how we should spend our time, energy, and resources. If God tells us otherwise, we always follow Him. We are going to find out more about this next week.

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The second thing to consider is that Jesus did not treat people as if they were problems to be solved. He treated people like people. No, He treated people like His beloved brothers and sisters. And so should we.

It didn’t matter if it was this Canaanite woman, the Samaritan woman, or Peter’s mother-in-law. Jesus knew who they were and wanted far more than to give them healing or deliverance. He wanted to spend eternity with them. When we see people and try to serve them, do we see them as Jesus does? Do you see them as the people you want to spend eternity with? When you are the person receiving help, you can tell the difference.

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That’s a tall order, but it all comes down to loving God first and then loving others as you love yourself. We can get into trouble when we see ourselves as problems for God to solve instead of the children He wants to spend eternity with. Rather than being continually frustrated with us, God is willing to do anything to be with us. He sees more in us than we see in ourselves, and He loves us better than we can, even at our most selfish moments. He sees through our sins and finds something worth growing when He looks at us.

To serve the least of these, we have to stop looking at ourselves like the least of these, or else we will treat everyone God sends to us like the least of these. But what if God wants to do more than give us a one-time blessing? If He wants to make us part of His family, we may be able to see how He wants to do that for those around us still seeking Him. We can do more than offer a simple blessing ourselves. If we learn to see others like Jesus, we can invite them into our true family: His family.