Lent 2 (3)

(NIV)

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.

Jesus says something here that sounds as though he is guilty of discrimination. Discrimination has become something that once was taken for granted but now is considered to be an awful way of treating others. You know what discrimination is. It is when we decide beforehand who is entitled to what and who has rights and who does not based on a number of external factors.

Examples: Gender

The human rights of women throughout the Middle East and North Africa are systematically denied by each of the countries in the region, despite the diversity of their political systems. Many governments routinely suppress civil society by restricting freedom of the press, expression, and assembly. These restrictions adversely affect both men and women; however, women are subject to a host of additional gender-specific human rights violations. For example, family, penal, and citizenship laws throughout the region relegate women to a subordinate status compared to their male counterparts. This legal discrimination undermines women’s full personhood and equal participation in society and puts women at an increased risk for violence.

Family matters in countries as diverse as Iran, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia are governed by religion-based personal status codes. Many of these laws treat women essentially as legal minors under the eternal guardianship of their male family members. Family decision-making is thought to be the exclusive domain of men, who enjoy by default the legal status of “head of household.” These notions are supported by family courts in the region that often reinforce the primacy of male decision-making power.

Race

Race discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because he/she is of a certain race or because of personal characteristics associated with race (such as hair texture, skin color, or certain facial features). Color discrimination involves treating someone unfavorably because of skin color complexion.

Race/color discrimination also can involve treating someone unfavorably because the person is married to (or associated with) a person of a certain race or color.

Discrimination can occur when the victim and the person who inflicted the discrimination are the same race or color.

Religion

It is against the law to discriminate against you because of your religion or belief. This applies:

when you buy or use goods and services

· at work

· in education

· in housing.

What does religion or belief mean

You are protected by law from discrimination because of your religion or belief if you:

· belong to an organized religion such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam

· have a profound belief which affects your way of life or view of the world. This includes religious and philosophical beliefs, or a lack of belief, such as Atheism

· take part in collective worship

· belong to a smaller religion or sect, such as Scientology or Rastafarianism

· have no religion, for example, if you are an atheist.

The law against discrimination because of religion or belief does not cover purely political beliefs unless they are also philosophical beliefs.

You are protected if someone discriminates against you because they think you are a certain religion, when you are not. For example, it's against the law for someone to discriminate against you for wearing a headscarf because they think you are a Muslim, even if you are not actually Muslim.

Discrimination by association is also against the law. For example, it is against the law to refuse to let you into a restaurant because of the religion of someone who is with you.

Age

Ability

Have you even been the victim of discrimination? (Long pause) I was once not allowed to be a part of a study of the Bible because I am a pastor (explain).

24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

It may come as a surprise that Jesus seems to be discriminating against a woman here because of her ethnicity. Consider the situation.

Jesus ventures to Tyre and Sidon (explain where they are). He had traveled there so that his enemies would not have the opportunity to cut short his mission. It was a strategic withdrawal temporarily. He is approached by an unnamed woman described as being a Canaanite. This might remind us that if the Israelites had followed God’s policies to the letter in the Old Testament, there would have been any Canaanites left. (Research) We today call such an approach Genocide. Well, some Canaanites did survive and whether she was called a Canaanite because she was a descendant of those people or because of where she lived, she is not a Jew and part of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And so when she approaches Jesus, she if first of all ignored and then rebuffed.

This is a hard saying of Jesus that needs explanation (research) But “Jesus did not answer [her] a word” (). To the woman Jesus’ answer must have seemed to be No. But through his silence Jesus wanted to test and purify her faith. There was no unwillingness or hesitation on Jesus’ part to help a Gentile. (See ; ; .) Nor would the healing of a Gentile conflict with the divine plan Jesus declared to the Samaritan woman, namely, that “salvation is from the Jews” (). In other words, Jesus, a Jew, would carry out his redeeming ministry among the Jews first, and only then would the message of the Christ’s completed redemption be carried out to all the world. (; ; )

Some, however, find the idea offensive that by his silence Jesus would keep the woman in suspense in order to test her faith. They speak of Jesus “pretending to be hard” and so “torturing the woman with uncertainty.” Then we must also find it offensive that he answered the royal official with a seeming rebuff (), and that he did not go to Mary and Martha, whom he loved dearly, until their brother Lazarus had been dead four days. (, ) Moreover, did God torture Abraham with uncertainty when he let him proceed to the point where he had the knife raised up for the sacrificial death of his only son before he arrested Abraham in his intention? Or was he testing Abraham, as tells us?[1]

The interlude with the disciples must have taken some time. Then Jesus broke his silence. “He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel’” (). We recognize, as indicated above, that here Jesus was enunciating the divine plan for the course of the gospel and therefore also the plan he was to follow in his ministry as the Messiah. He was to conduct his ministry of preaching and healing among the Jews. Among them he was to give his life a ransom for many, for all. But this limitation did not mean that he would not or could not speak the saving word or extend the healing hand to Gentiles, for he did show mercy to them also. Think of the Samaritan woman and many other Samaritans (; ) and of the centurion (). These exceptional incidents, however, pointed forward to the command of Jesus to make disciples of all nations (), to the time when

“The law will go out from Zion,

the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”

().

But would the pleading woman have any inkling of this? Wouldn’t she understand Jesus’ words: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” as telling her: “I have nothing for you, a Gentile?” Here we must not overlook the extent of her Scriptural knowledge. She knew the prophecy that the Messiah would be the great Descendant of David. (). That prophecy included the truth that the Messiah’s kingdom would be an eternal one. Surely, she must have heard the companion truth that the Son of David’s kingdom was to hold sway over all men, over Gentiles like her as well as over Jews. When Jesus thus tested her faith a second time, he was not asking the impossible of her, asking her to pull out of a vacuum something she could not know. On the contrary, he was leading her to fall back on what she knew from the Word, on God’s promises, such as the one that “nations will come to your [Israel’s] light” (). Jesus wanted her to persevere in her plea, not by her own strength, generated from within, but by the strength supplied by God through his gracious word. And Jesus did achieve this purpose in her, as we shall see in a moment.

But first let us note the love of Jesus that breathes in the words: “the lost sheep of Israel.” Though the Jews were lost through their own fault, he longed with all his heart to have them as sheep brought into God’s fold to live under him, the true Shepherd. That loving desire motivated him in his entire ministry among his fellow Jews.

Now hear the response of faith, a faith that the testing by Jesus had taught to rely even more implicitly on his willingness to help: “The woman came and knelt before him. ‘Lord, help me!’ she said” (v. 24). She found no fault with the divinely ordained way in which Jesus was to conduct his ministry. Even the “only to the lost sheep of Israel” did not stifle her trust and her hope. Jesus was the promised Messiah. Hadn’t prophecy pictured the Messiah as the compassionate helper of all the disconsolate? He could, he would heal her daughter and end her own distress. So she simply repeated her plea, “Lord, help me.”

But Jesus, who is divine wisdom personified, judged that further testing was necessary. To the renewed plea of the woman he replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs” (). Perhaps Jesus’ words strike us as unfeeling. But his statement isn’t as harsh as it sounds at first. The Greek word for “dogs” does not refer to the fierce, scavenging dogs that roamed the streets of Oriental villages and towns. It means “little pet dogs.” As Jesus’ words indicate, members of the family, especially the children, made much of these pet dogs. They were even allowed to lie under or near the table. During the meal the children would toss bits of food to their pets.

Yet even so Jesus’ statement would readily have struck the woman as one crushing all her hope for his help. Plainly he was designating the blessings of his ministry as “the bread.” And he was unmistakably identifying the Jews as the children for whom his blessings were intended. Then “the dogs” had to be the Gentiles. Apparently the Gentiles could not hope to share in the blessings of the Messiah. But did Jesus really say that? The woman’s ear—faith sharpens one’s hearing—caught the words which did not allow such a conclusion. Jesus had spoken of the “little pet dogs” that are present under their masters’ table to receive the crumbs tossed to them. The woman’s faith seized upon what this meant: “So we Gentiles are not excluded by God from the blessings of the Messiah! We may receive them through the Jews, to whom God ordained they should first be dispensed.”

Her words bring out beautifully that the woman not only fully understood Jesus’ statement, but that she agreed whole-heartedly with the divine plan. “‘Yes, Lord,’” she said, “‘but even the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their master’s table’” (v. 27). Was it God’s plan to transmit the blessings of the Messiah to the Gentiles through Israel? It was enough for her if she could only share in that grace. Was she a beggar like the pet dogs? She felt no shame, no humiliation in that. She was happy and content to receive God’s grace as a poor beggar, as indeed all sinners must receive it.

“Then Jesus answered, ‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed from that very hour” (v. 28). Here we must be careful to give the right answer to the question: “What made her faith great?” We dare not picture the woman as pumping up out of her own heart the strength to keep on trusting in Jesus despite his seeming rebuffs. We should not present her simply as someone heroically “hanging in there.”

We have already pointed out that Jesus’ statements made her fall back on the divine promises, on God’s word. This word supported and sustained her in her distress and under Jesus’ testing. Her faith was great, therefore, because it understood correctly what God said to her in his word, and it humbly and gratefully accepted what it revealed regarding his saving will for her. This truth is confirmed by the instance in which Jesus pronounced the centurion’s faith “great.” The centurion had a true understanding of Jesus’ word, and he relied completely on the grace and power of that word. (See the exposition of .)[2]

I would say that it is not a matter of discrimination (although some might assume that) but a matter of priorities based on the current circumstances. Certainly, our God does not show favoritism (quote Peter) and he wants all men to be saved. Jesus later would command his disciples not to discriminate. The account of Peter at the home of Cornelius affirms this and St. Paul would confirm this.

This is really nothing new either. We have many passages in the Old Testament in which God favors those whom society discriminated against and marginalized including widows and orphans and the poor and needy. And even though it appears on the surface that Jesus is not going to help this woman, it is better to understand that he had every intention to help her all along and was using this as a teaching moment to show that those who were normally ignored by the Jewish people are not ignored by God.

Application: We may feel at time as though we are treated unfairly by others because of our age, social standing, gender, religion, race, etc. We may even feel that God does not treat us fairly. Well, in a way he does not. In fact, the Bible teaches us that God does not treat us as we deserve. And we confess this at the beginning the worship service. Because what do we deserve? We deserve his temporal and eternal punishment. Jesus teaches on this when he reacts to some local news (tower of Siloam). God shows his grace by saving us instead of condemning us and forgiving us instead of counting our sins against us. He does not ignore our prays nor is he too busy with other matters to concern himself with us. He invites us to come to him with every care for he loves to answer prayer.

The Canaanite woman, when tested, did not give up but showed the genuineness of her faith that Jesus could help. As a result, her daughter was healed, and Jesus commended her faith.

We pray that we may model such a faith in our own lives when we sing:

1. Oh, for a faith that will not shrink, Though pressed by every foe, That will not tremble on the brink Of any earthly woe!

2. That will not murmur nor complain Beneath the chast’ning rod, But, in the hour of grief or pain, Will lean upon its God.

3. A faith that shines more bright and clear When tempests rage without; That when in danger knows no fear, In darkness feels no doubt.

4. Lord, give me such a faith as this, And then, whate’er may come, I’ll taste, e’en here, the hallowed bliss Of an eternal home.

[1] Franzmann, W. H. (1998). Bible history commentary: New Testament (electronic ed., p. 321). Milwaukee, WI: WELS Board for Parish Education.

[2] Franzmann, W. H. (1998). Bible history commentary: New Testament (electronic ed., pp. 322–324). Milwaukee, WI: WELS Board for Parish Education.