Gentile Dogs
Matthew - Masterclass • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 32:03
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· 3 viewsGentile Dogs Jesus recognizes the faith of a Canaanite woman and heals her daughter. Jesus also confirms the chosen nature of the house of Israel with some harsh language. Thank God we are adopted and grafted in to the Chosen family.
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Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus recognizes the faith of a Canaanite woman and heals her daughter. Jesus also confirms the chosen nature of the house of Israel with some harsh language. Thank God we are adopted and grafted in to the Chosen family.
Choosing Teams
Choosing Teams
We are going to dive into the Word today, some hard words from Jesus.
But I want to set the scene a bit by playing some dodgeball.
In just a moment you can all line up, and we will have team captains. James and AJ, maybe? They are both awesome at dodgeball.
And one by one they will choose.
And maybe you haven’t had this feeling in awhile. The “when do I get chosen” feeling? You get chosen first, you feel a bit smug.
You see that guy chosen before you… wait, what? There is no way they are better at Dodgeball.
And there’s this calculus going in the team captains. They want to win, so they are picking that way. But they also want their friends on the team. And, depending on their level of empathy, they are trying not to hurt anyone.
But this is inherent in the process: someone will be picked last.
Anyone ever had that feeling, that moment? Not me, but I’ve heard that it’s really sad.
It’s enough that they rarely do this in schools anymore, they try to avoid this method of picking teams because it leaves some folks feeling bad, and maybe not wanting to play at all.
But I get this feeling from the text today. It’s kind of a hard one, so let’s lean in. I don’t want to miss anything that Jesus is teaching us.
Jesus Goes to the Beach
Jesus Goes to the Beach
21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
Where are Tyre and Sidon?
Cities on the Phoenician coast. Fun story: Tyre was an island (as mentioned by Ezekiel) and thought they were safe from Alexander the Great. Alexander built a causeway to get to it… and now it’s a Peninsula to this day.
35 and 50 miles away, respectively. Modern day Lebanon. That’s a long walk, up and over the mountains.
So basically Boulder and Longmont, from here. Walking. But instead of the mountains to the West, there is the Mediterranean Sea. Jesus has gone to the beach.
22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.”
23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.”
Why does Jesus ignore her? For so long that it annoys the disciples into saying something, into begging Jesus to respond.
It doesn’t tell us what they are doing, or where Jesus is. Is he off praying / meditating? Is he at the beach sunbathing? Mark tells us he tried to enter a house incognito to avoid crowds but word got out.
Reminds me of the persistent widow Jesus uses to teach about prayer. This woman is desperate and persistent… and apparently knows enough to know that Jesus can help. Lord, she calls him, Son of David.
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Only to Israel? That’s bad news for the Gentiles among us… which is at least most of us if not all of us.
What does Jesus mean here? That this earthly for-now ministry is just to the house of Israel… but he has already ministered to other Gentiles.
25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
26 And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
Okay, wow.
This makes me uncomfortable. He isn’t directly calling her a dog, but the metaphor is pretty direct. He is the bread, his healing, his words, his attention are the bread, meant for the “children of Israel”… not the dogs.
Who are the dogs? This appears to be a common phrase for Gentiles. Gentile dogs!
And not lovable well trained Labradoodles… for the most part dogs were seen as unclean feral beasts. The references to dogs in Scripture are not loyal hunting companions but a symbol of contempt, of filth.
1 “But now they laugh at me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.
Goliath says “Am I dog, that you come at me with sticks?”
They are unclean animals.
So Jesus responds first with painful silence.
Then discouraging words, to the house of Israel first.
Then painful veiled insults.
I wish we had Jesus’ tone. It all seems out of character, the same Jesus who so welcomed the Centurion, who touched the Leper.
The New Bible Commentary 13:53–16:20 Further Responses to Jesus’ Public Ministry
Perhaps cold print conceals an element of irony, even playfulness, in Jesus’ tone. At any rate, he was confronting her with the sort of language a Gentile could expect to hear from a Jew, and her faith rose to the test.
Perhaps he disarms the objections of others by speaking them first. Perhaps knowing the quality of this woman… and that her faith would rise to the test.
27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
What a come-back. She doesn’t defend herself, she doesn’t respond out of pride, she responds with “Yes, Lord.”
This is humility… likely born of her desperation. She picks up Jesus’ metaphor and humbles herself.
And, if you humble yourself, you will be lifted up.
Jesus addresses her now, not as a dog, but as a woman of great faith.
28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
Great is your faith. How many people has Jesus said that of? Just her and the Centurion… another Gentile (Matt 8:10).
And, again similar to the centurion, Jesus heals from a distance. Her daughter, who doesn’t appear in the story and we assume she wasn’t there in person, healed by the Word of Jesus wherever she is.
House of Israel
House of Israel
aka Chosen
We, Gentiles, thousands of years later can underestimate the “chosenness” of the people of Israel. This is a defining theme throughout Scripture.
God chooses Noah. Not a perfect man, I don’t think. The Bible calls “blameless in his generation” and I suspect that’s a comparative phrase. Compared to the rest of his generation. Maybe he’s better than I give him credit for, but still, he is Chosen by God and that’s what saves him.
Abram, chosen by God, for no apparent reason. He listened to the promise, faith accounted to him as righteousness… but the Promise came first. He was Chosen first.
Isaac: Chosen, child of the Promise, yes, but Abraham had like a dozen other kids. Ishmael before, a whole bunch after. It is Isaac, chosen.
Jacob, 2nd son, Chosen over Esau, despite his conniving. It is Jacob, Israel - “God strives” - that’s the “House” that Jesus is talking about. The History of Humanity is a history of God choosing out individuals, families, crafting a nation a people… The Chosen.
The plan was always to bless all humanity through those Chosen. Pretty obvious with Noah, but from the start with Abraham “”in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
God chooses judges and prophets… and the reasons for His choices aren’t always clear. But it is His Story, it is His Choice, and He works all things according to His purpose. Working out salvation on the pages of history through His Chosen.
How incredible is it that any of the people of Israel still have familial, genealogical identity 2000 years after Jesus. More than 4000 after Father Abraham. It is literally miraculous.
Now that feels like God playing favorites, doesn’t it? It feels that way, because in a very real way, it absolutely is. God chooses. And as Creator of the Universe, He gets to choose however and wherever He pleases.
He is the Team Captain and the ref and the inventor of the sport.
He has his Chosen people… and He does not un-Choose them ever.
I really now want to read all of Romans 9-11 and Paul unpacks this “mystery”.
Jew to Gentile
Jew to Gentile
It is true that, in Christ, there is no Jew or Gentile:
11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
But Paul goes on, in the rest of the chapter and really all of Romans 11 to be sure we understand. It is NOT that God has ever or will ever un-Chosen the people of Israel.
God preserves a remnant, of which Paul is one, a remnant of the Chosen people who know and declare the Messiah.
But he has made “room on the vine” for us Gentiles. Like being grafted back in to the vine.
It is him extending the Chosen-ness to us.
But there is coming a day when God will bring His Chosen people back to Him:
24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
25 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And in this way all Israel will be saved…
29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
So we are seeing this beautiful move of God’s salvation to the world.
And this begins in Jesus’ own ministry.
Jesus’ strange encounter with this woman is NOT the final Word to the Gentiles. He doesn’t wait until after Resurrection to show Peter in a dream that “Gentiles are kosher now” in Acts 10. He shows them:
Jesus’ Ministry to the Gentiles
Jesus’ Ministry to the Gentiles
29 Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. And he went up on the mountain and sat down there.
That sounds like he went back home, but Mark gives us an important detail. This is the South East side of Galilee… where the Gentiles live. The Decapolis, 10 cities, chock full of Gentiles. Modern day Jordan.
31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.
And in that place, not for the first time, but it is no accident that it comes after this challenging encounter with this Gentile woman of great faith.
Hear Jesus, not just bringing scraps from the table, but presence and service and life and healing.
30 And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them,
31 so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.
Here come the great crowds… and Jesus heals the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute… Gentiles healed… and glorifying the God of Israel.
And then, the second feeding of the crowd, the feeding of four thousand.
This was the seven fish - few fish one… and the crowd that had been listening for three days.
Now we have some important context we didn’t have before. Who is in that crowd?
Gentiles.
People like me.
So hear the Word of Jesus.
You are Chosen
You are Chosen
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
And when Jesus chooses you: that changes everything.
It isn’t about what order you got Chosen in. This isn’t about who is best, or most worthy, or can dodge a ball. There is no priority or seniority here: none of us are Worthy… we are in because he chose us. Holy and blameless because He is, not because we are.
It isn’t like being Chosen to play for the team, it’s more like being Chosen to go on the best trip every. Okay, I’ve got a Chartered flight leaving for Hawaii in 5, and here are the list of people going with me.
Do you care if your name is first or last? No! You care that you get on that plane and go to Hawaii.
We are headed for eternity, for heaven, for life now and forever JUST as it should be. Righteousness and Joy and Peace Shalom forever.
You are Chosen.
This is Jesus’ final word over you.
Before you did anything, He made this your identity. Being before Doing. You are Chosen.
You, sanctified by Jesus’ sacrifice, sealed by His Spirit.
Your, forgiven by His blood, alive by His grace.
You are Chosen. Grafted into the Vine of Christ, adopted into the family of Israel, the family of Abraham, the family of God.
Welcomed to the family table.
I’ll close with a picture of what it looks like to be the Chosen of Christ:
Here on Jesus’ team:
11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
