Sermon Tone Analysis

Maybe you’ve been there.

You just bought a gift – some assembly required.

No problem, right?

Just sit down, start putting things together, and hope you don’t have too many extra parts.

It could be a desk, a tool caddy, or a bicycle – something you could use around the house.

Only trouble is, that item came in a cardboard box, with a hundred different pieces.

Although some projects are easy enough to figure out without directions, there are some items where we need to follow the directions.

Trying to put a new purchase together and not following the directions can be a costly mistake.

Why don’t we look at that instruction sheet?

It’s probably printed in six or seven languages – if you don’t want to read in English, then perhaps you could read in Japanese or French.

How often don’t we just think “Well, I can do it by myself – I don’t need those directions.”

We just grab the pieces, start putting them together…and sit there, an hour later, wondering why our bicycle doesn’t look the same as the picture on the box.

Was it arrogance?

Were we smug, confident in our own abilities?

Did our pride prevent us from simply walking through that instruction sheet, step by step?

In more than one instance, our own attitudes can hinder us from successfully putting together a project.

In today’s account, Jesus is teaching about the attitude of faith.

The Jews in his day were arrogant in their own righteousness, thinking that their own deeds would get them to heaven.

Now, we consider the question: what is great faith?

We see that faith does not have an attitude of arrogance; rather, great faith simply clings to Christ in humble perseverance.

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre & Sidon.

Jesus wanted to get away from Palestine for a while.

Some of the religious leaders from Jerusalem had recently come up to Galilee, in order to test Jesus.

They had insisted that Jesus’ disciples undergo certain traditional washings before eating.

These washings had not been commanded by God – they were mere traditions, instituted by humans.

Jesus preached harsh law to those leaders.

Those leaders put their own rules above God’s commands.

They loved to have people see their pious actions – but those leaders harbored arrogance and selfishness in their hearts.

Those very leaders thought that mere religious action, without faith, was enough to save them.

Now Jesus wanted to get away from the Jewish crowds, in order to make sure his disciples understood that an attitude of humility shows greater faith than mere outward acts of religion.

Jesus and his disciples walked out of Galilee and went northwest to Tyre & Sidon.

This wasn’t a Jewish region – it was a pagan region, filled with people who worshipped idols of wood, metal, and stone.

The disciples may have been a bit shocked that Jesus wanted to get out of Israelite lands.

After all, to the Jewish mind, Gentiles were excluded from God’s kingdom.

These disciples may not have seen Christ’s purpose in leaving Israel.

Jesus had seen the people of Israel.

He had lived among them for 32 years – the last two of which were his preaching and teaching ministry.

The religious leaders had come to him, time and time again, trying to prove him wrong.

They had come with arrogance in their hearts, thinking that God loved them because of the seemingly pious things they did, or that God loved them merely because of being Abraham’s physical descendents.

This account is a serious warning for us.

We’re Christians.

Many of us have been Christians for a long time.

Yet, do we harbor that same attitude of arrogance – arrogance that seeks to make us right with God by our own actions?

Perhaps we look to our worship attendance.

“I’m a good person – God must love me, because I make it to church every Sunday.”

Perhaps we become proud about the offerings we bring, or the charity we do: “I bring food for the food drive, I put my offerings in every week, I volunteer regularly.”

The temptation is strong – the temptation to look to our own actions, our own deeds, as the reason and proof that God loves us.

“I do this; therefore, God must love me – at least, love me more than that person.”

The sinful attitude of arrogance that Jesus saw among the Jews is the same sinful attitude of arrogance that tries to seize our hearts.

This should be no surprise, of course; each of us must daily struggle with our lifelong enemy – that sinful nature in which we were conceived.

This very sinful nature rears its ugly head, time and time again, seeking to ruin every Godly thought, Godly deed, and Godly action.

Our sinful hearts cannot be rid of that attitude which Jesus condemned – “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

Our sinful hearts attempt to let arrogant attitudes rule our lives.

This lesson is a stern warning to us – avoid the attitudes of the arrogant.

But if mere outward action doesn’t show great faith, what is great faith?

Listen now as Jesus points out great faith – faith that clings to Christ in humble perseverance.

Jesus finds such humble, persistent faith in today’s lesson.

A Canaanite woman, a Gentile by birth, finds Jesus in this region of Tyre & Sidon.

This woman follows him, crying out for compassion.

As a Canaanite, she wasn’t even supposed to exist.

The Israelites were supposed to have killed all the Canaanites when they entered the Promised Land, centuries and centuries earlier.

God had wanted the sinful Canaanite race destroyed, both as a punishment for their idolatry and in order to protect Israel from those very idolatries.

But this Canaanite woman comes crying out at the top of her voice: “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Why does she call Jesus the Son of David?

This was a term which only Old Testament Jews or converts to Judaism would have known.

This term wouldn’t mean anything to her, unless she had heard or read some of the Old Testament promises.

The Jewish leaders didn’t even call Jesus the Son of David – why was this Gentile, this Canaanite woman, calling him that?

This woman is confessing her faith in Jesus – she puts her trust in Jesus, the Son of David – Jesus, the promised Messiah.

The prophet Jeremiah spoke of the Messiah when he said: “In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land.”

Someone had told her of this promised Messiah – this Messiah who would come from David’s family and be the Son of David.

Then there’s her request.

“Have mercy on me.”

The very phrase she uses is the same phrase which the poor beggars would use as they sat by the roadside.

This woman knows that she deserves nothing from Christ –and yet, she cries out because she knows Christ can and will help her.

What humility of faith – faith that relies upon God’s promises and seeks help from the only source of true aid.

She looks solely to Jesus as the one who can heal her daughter.

This woman cries out in faith.

She recognizes that Jesus was Israel’s promised Messiah, even when the religious leaders of Israel refused to believe in Jesus.

The religious leaders had demanded that Jesus follow their traditions or provide miracles, while this woman faithfully relied upon God’s own promise about this Messiah.

Jesus knows the faith of this woman.

He knows that, perhaps, she’s led a difficult life – a Gentile believer, living in the middle of a pagan society.

But Jesus doesn’t answer her request right then & there – rather, Jesus appears to ignore her.

This woman persists.

She follows after Jesus and the disciples, crying out over & over again: Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!

The disciples get tired of this incessant crying, and they say to Jesus: “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

Perhaps they didn’t like the strange looks they were getting from the other people along the road.

These disciples wanted nothing to do with that Gentile – a woman who was, in their minds, outside of God’s family.

She wasn’t a Jew, so how could she be a believer?

The disciples had asked Jesus to send this woman away, so Jesus finally gives her a response: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

Although it sounds like Jesus is telling this woman to go away, Jesus is giving the perfect response for this woman to hear.

Jesus doesn’t want her to give up – rather, Jesus is letting her put her faith into action and display her humility and persistence.

This woman perseveres against the new challenge.

Her faith clings to Jesus and she comes, humbly kneeling, before him.

Why does she continue to follow Jesus?

Why doesn’t she just give up?

Perhaps she had heard the words of Isaiah, recording God the Father’s own words to Jesus, the promised Messiah: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept.

I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

This woman knew that the Messiah would also come to bring God’s love to Gentiles, as well as Jews.

Or maybe she had heard the words of the prophet Micah: “In the last days the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it.

Many nations will come and say, ’Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob.