Sermon Tone Analysis

/Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!/

Text: *Matthew 15:21-28*26[Jesus] answered, "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."

27 She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Jesus traveled a lot.

So much of the Gospel accounts tell us of Jesus walking from place to place, disciples in tow.

When he was done walking, he’d stop and teach.

That’s another thing he’d do a lot.

And if he wasn’t teaching, he was healing.

The lepers, the blind, the deaf, the lame, the demon-possessed: Jesus healed them all.

So when we hear Matthew’s account in our text today, it almost seems like a slam-dunk, where we can simply tune out and concentrate on something else.

Jesus is walking, needy person comes up to him and asks for healing, Jesus heals, and they continue o…

But, wait a second[DS1] .

There’s something different this time, isn’t there?

This woman comes up to them and cries out for mercy, and Jesus just walks on, as if he didn’t hear her.

What’s that all about?

Has Jesus ever ignored a plea for help?

Has he ever refused to heal?

This, from the guy who helped even when the biggest problem was being out of wine at the party?!?[DS2]

After a while, even the disciples intercede for her, apparently asking Jesus to simply grant her request and make her go away.

Evidently, she’s beginning to cause a scene, and that’s not good for a group who wants to keep a low profile.

He tells the disciples “no,” and it isn’t until she kneels down right in front of him that he finally acknowledges her, and his answer is still “no,” even calling her a dog![DS3] 

How can Jesus be so different from the One I met in Sunday School, or from the “Friend” we sing about in favorite hymns?

Are we really seeing a different side of Jesus, as if he changes when he’s outside of Judea and Galilee?

How can he refuse to help this poor woman who begs him on bended knee, for the sake of her daughter?

Upon reading this text, the question looms over us: /Why does Jesus initially refuse to help this woman?/

As much information as Matthew gives us in this account, we don’t get to see into the mind of Jesus.

We’re left to try and answer that question on our own, with what we know about Jesus from the rest of Scripture.

For people like us, who are familiar with the Gospels and many of the accounts of Jesus’ healing acts, we can rule out quickly some of the simpler answers: it’s not because he didn’t have the power, it’s not because he couldn’t control the demons, or that the woman couldn’t pay some required fee.

This question is just not answered that easily or neatly, and it leaves us wrestling with our text.

ŒAs we struggle to find an answer to this question, it’s important to remember just where we are, where Jesus comes into contact with this woman: he’s traveled outside of his usual territory, to the region of Tyre and Sidon[DS4] .

Here, far from where he usually spent his time, he is approached by a Cannanite woman.

That’s right, from the land of Canaan, of a pagan people.

This woman is not a Jew, not one of Jesus’ own people.

Aha!

So that’s why Jesus didn’t help her, right?

Perhaps he had reserved his miracles for just the Jewish people[DS5] .

Was it just that she wasn’t born into the right nation?

After all, Jesus states out loud and clear: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Mind you, this question is near and dear to my own heart, as it probably is to many of us here today[DS6] .

I, for one, have no Jewish blood in me at all, and am purely Gentile.

If Jesus’ work and healing are only for those born Jewish, I’m in eternally big trouble.

So when I read this and the facts start to point toward the “Jewish-only” answer, I start to get a little nervous, to say the least.

But for someone to assert that Jesus was only interested in the concerns of the Jews, they’d have to miss quite a bit of the Gospel accounts, to say nothing of the writings of Paul and Peter[DS7] .

Even just looking at Matthew’s Gospel, we’ve already met a Roman Centurion in chapter 8, a Gentile of Gentiles, for whom Jesus healed a servant from a distance.

We’d also have to overlook the great numbers of sick and demon-possessed, most or all of whom were probably Gentile, healed by Jesus in chapters 4 and 8.

This is also the same Jesus who commanded before He ascended into heaven, recorded in chapter 28, that the Good News should be preached and taught to /all nations/.

That doesn’t sound like someone who was only concerned with Jewish matters or people.

So with the precedent that’s already been set in previous chapters, as well as the insight we get by skipping ahead some, we see that Jesus is certainly not refusing this woman on account of her heritage.

It’s not because she’s not “in the club” that he won’t grant her request, and that’s comforting to us today as well.

Jesus, by healing and helping all people, and showing concern for the baptizing and teaching of all nations, declares that His love and grace go beyond all national and ethnic boundaries.

But, it still leaves us with our question: if it wasn’t because of her nationality, then /why does Jesus refuse to help this poor woman?/[DS8] 

In His years of public preaching and teaching, our Lord used a number of methods to get His point across to the people.

So there are some who would suggest it was because he wanted to teach her a lesson[DS9] .

She rushes up to him, shouting at him and following them until she can get her way.

Did she simply see him as a means to an end, a wandering miracle-worker who could heal her daughter?

Perhaps Jesus was playing a part, hoping that his refusal to help this woman would build her resolve and test her, putting her spirit into the fire of the kiln, knowing it would come out shining like gold[DS10] , and be stronger than ever.

For sure, this potential answer makes sense, while it also makes us nervous and just doesn’t sit right[DS11] .

If one were to read just these few verses, it might give an impression that Jesus is cold and hard, showing “tough-love” to those who would follow him.

The woman would have to prove her faith by enduring this test and show herself worthy of Jesus’ help before he would deign to heal her daughter.

Perhaps he’s just dangling the cure in front of her like a treat in front of a dog, getting her to jump ever higher?

Some of us, as we’ve struggled with our own issues in life, may have felt like this: like we were being stretched, like the answer was just out of reach, and we were constantly being made to jump higher to try and reach it.

Once again though, even a cursory reading of the rest of Matthew’s Gospel, to say nothing of the rest of Scripture, flies in the face of this potential answer and shuts it down in a hurry.

In many instances, as we read of people coming to Jesus for help, there’s no hesitation, no conditions, nothing expected for payment.

Someone cries to Jesus for help, and he has mercy on them.

Jesus never plays the actor in the Scriptures, never pretends to be something that he’s not.

He doesn’t play around just to make a point, and doesn’t hold off what people need so they can overcome him and change his mind.

He speaks the truth, even when people don’t want to hear it, or when they’ve shut their ears to it.

There’s no duplicity in him, not even for some test of faith.

ŽIn fact, it’s Jesus’ concern for the truth that starts to bring this question into the light so we can start to see just what’s going on here.

[DS12] Jesus did indeed grant countless petitions for healing in the Gospels, and many more that aren’t recorded for us, even when the Gentiles asked Him for help, as long /as there could be no misunderstandings/.

While he traveled through Jewish lands, the occasional help granted to a Gentile person did not threaten to cause any problems.

But as Jesus walked through pagan, Gentile lands, things were placed in a different perspective.

Jesus tells us that He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and this is the truth.

God’s plan of salvation did not happen by coincidence, and was not left to chance.

He specifically worked in the Jewish nation and not elsewhere.

Jesus came as a Jewish man in Palestine, and this was not chance.

Even though his own nation had rejected him, this was still the plan of God, and it was out of concern for this eternal plan that Jesus initially refused to grant the petition of the Canaanite woman.

Were he to quickly grant her daughter healing, it might have caused people to think that God had forsaken Israel.

Instead, Jesus speaks of Israel as his sheep, and his children.

In this, he shows his love and kindness toward /all/people.

/That/ is the truth which is so precious to our Lord that He’s willing to pass by a woman on bended knee, pleading for healing for her daughter.

Jesus has come, living, healing, dying and rising, so that all people of the world can be saved.

He came for the Jew, the German, the Norwegian, the African-American, the Asian and the Swede, just to name a few.

He came for the cheater, the thief, the homosexual, the murderer, so that /all/ could be forgiven and live a new life in Him.

Jesus came so that you and I, “Chief of Sinners Though I Be,” could be washed clean and live eternally with Him.

All three readings today say it loudly and clearly: Our God loves His whole creation, the Jews and the Gentiles alike, and calls all of us by His Word so that all can be covered by His grace and brought back into His fold.

Our heritage is precious to us, but it’s not the reason we’re saved.

It’s not Jewish-ness or Gentile-ness that matters.

No one will be admitted into the Kingdom because they were born of a certain family or line or nationality… we’re admitted to the Kingdom because we’re /reborn/ by the Word of God and are saved by His blood.

Curiously, after this account we hear of no further miracles done by Jesus in this area.

So what makes this woman different?

[DS13] Notice how she answers Jesus when he remarks about throwing the children’s bread to the dogs.

Never does she appear offended, nor does she balk at apparently being called a dog.

Instead, she shows wit, humility, and faith: she actually agrees with what Jesus says!

She takes the analogy farther, using it to describe what she understands about her place.

The children of Israel must be taken care of, as we all are; they are His people as well.

But, even the dogs are not without their place, and the ownerwill take care of them.

They come around the table, confident that their master will feed them in the prescribed way.

They’re confident that there /will be/food given to them, as there always is!