Matthew 15:21-28
Somewhere on the borders of Galilee and the Gentile cities of Tyre and Sidon…Jesus meets the unnamed woman…a Canaanite.
- This is not the only time we find Jesus operating on the border…
- Literal borders…between nations and cultures…
- Or metaphorical borders of risk and challenge…on the boundary…at the edge.
- In Luke 17 we find Jesus traversing the borderland between Israel and Samaria…where he cures ten men of a skin disease…
- And only one…a Gentile…a foreigner…an outsider…returns to say thank you.
And so…we find him today…traveling by choice…in the district of Tyre and Sidon…
- Along the border between Jewish and Gentile territories…
- And this border is…a sometimes hostile one.
- He is confronted there…by someone from the wrong side of that border…
- A Gentile woman…a Canaanite.
- Canaanites were not only foreigners and outsiders…but Israel’s traditional enemies…
- The native inhabitants of the land displaced by Israel’s occupation centuries earlier.
Jesus is confronted by a Canaanite woman…who is shouting at him.
- She does not take him to the side and quietly beg his pardon or try to persuade him.
- She is shouting…demanding healing for her daughter…who is possessed by a demon.
- Jesus surely cannot ignore her.
- She is shouting…but he does not…at first…say a word to her.
Well…Jesus disciples urge him to send her away.
- What is it…exactly…that they want to see him do?
- Do they expect him to run her off…and let her and her daughter suffer?
- Maybe they want him to give her what she wants…
- Not out of any compassion for her suffering…but as a passive-aggressive way of getting rid of her.
- Otherwise…Jesus would not have answered them the way he does…
- When he says: I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel…
- He is talking to the disciples…explaining to them exactly why he does not just heal the woman’s daughter.
- His mission…at this point…anyway…is to Israel…and not to foreigners…Gentiles…outsiders.
But…bless her heart…she will not go away.
- She comes up close and kneels before him…calling him Lord…
- And openly…asking for help.
- Jesus gives her…one-on-one…the rationale he gave to his disciples…
- Only more forcefully…concluding it with an insult:
- It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. Ouch!
- That word!
- Literally small dogs…like puppies or house dogs…
- But still an unflattering term often used for gentiles or enemies.
The woman…fearless…comes back with a yes-but.
- Yes…but…Lord … even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.
- And Jesus changes his mind.
What leads him to change his mind?
- It is the woman’s great faith that leads Jesus to change his mind…
- Where…he is in the borderlands…the human-made dividing lines between Gentile and Jew…
- Samaritan and Jew…outsider and insider…foreigner and native…Us and
- What we see here…before us…in Jesus…whom we call Lord…is a reversal brought about by the woman’s resolute faith.
The Gospels demonstrate that…for Jesus…faith is everything.
- The hemorrhaging woman…in Matthew 9 is told…your faith has made you well.
- The centurion in Matthew 8 whose servant is mortally ill…is told…let it be done to you according to your faith.
- A paralytic in Matthew 9 on a stretcher is healed when Jesus sees the faith of the friends…
- Who knocked a hole in the roof and lowered his stretcher down on ropes…
- Because the crowd was too thick for them to get him in the door.
- Two blind men…also in Matthew 9…are told…According to your faith…let it be done to you.
- In John 4…a man who believed the word that Jesus spoke to him…
- Headed home to find his little boy…who was sick to the point of death…healed when he arrived home.
- It is faith which draws a positive response from Jesus.
- It is almost as if Jesus cannot help but respond affirmatively…when he is approached…in faith…by anybody.
In the situation before us today…the Canaanite woman’s faith leads Jesus to rethink and redefine his mission on the spot.
- Some might think he is only making an exception here…in the face of her shouting…and her refusal to go away.
- But the many other instances of healing…shows this to be the rule…not the exception.
- Do we want healing from Jesus?
- Come to him…in faith…call him…in faith…shout at him…in faith!
- He cannot help but respond!
What becomes of this woman?
- We know that her daughter was healed from that moment.
- Beyond that…we know nothing.
- She disappears from history.
Peter…however…does not…disappear.
- He keeps showing up…from the Gospels’ beginnings until now.
- We have twin models of faith…here:
- Peter…he of little faith…the sinking Peter…during the walking on water scene…why did you doubt?
- And this shouting Canaanite woman: she of great faith.
The point here is that faith gets Jesus’ attention…
- Faith that draws forth his healing power…
- Be it the little faith of Peter…or the great faith of this unknown…unnamed Canaanite woman.
And what about us?
- Do we find ourselves on some kind of border between doubt and faith?
- Are we confronted by an ailment we cannot seem to shake?
- It is faith that will give us release…
- Be it the little faith of Peter or the great faith of the Canaanite woman.
One does not have to be a bold and persistent shouter.
- There can be a persistence…whether we are shouting as we go…or plodding along…just because it is what we do.
- Buried in all that brings us here…week after week…
- Where is the faith that saves…the faith that heals?
- What pushes us to seek Jesus…be we shouting or timid?
- Our hope and prayer is that we are not afraid of our own needs.
With this Canaanite woman…this foreigner…this outsider as our guide…
- Let us not be put off by the outsiders…the poor…the immigrants…
- Who come through our doors uninvited…shouting their need.
- What would we have Jesus do?
- What might we do?
- Run them off?
- Or offer to them…despite being aware of our own borders…
- The healing that they need.