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Sermon for Reminiscere
1 Thessalonians 4:1-7 + Matthew 15:21-28
In our racially charged environment, where the color of a person’s skin seems to be one of the most important things to notice about a person, and where we are being taught by society to make no judgments about a person because of their race in some cases, and to make lots of judgments about a person because of their race in other cases, today’s Gospel about Jesus’ encounter with the non-Jewish woman from Canaan gives us the opportunity to say a few things about “race” from a Christian perspective.
First, let’s define racism—properly, not according to the demonic, Marxist definition where, if you’re white, you’re an oppressor and if you’re not white, you’re oppressed. Real racism is the hatred of a person or the mistreatment a person or the assumption of the worst about a person simply because of the color of his or her skin, that is, who that person is descended from. And that’s the key for the Christian. We know very well that we’re all descended from the same man and woman—from Adam and Eve, and again from the same man and woman—from Noah and his wife. And we also know very well that we have all inherited the same sinful, fallen nature from Adam and Eve, the same disease and corruption of our being; that we are all—all human beings—lost and condemned creatures by nature; that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; and that, because of that sin, we all are under the devil’s oppression by nature, and we all die. Black, white, brown, whatever color you want to brand someone. We all die.
But Christians also know that God’s promise to Adam and Eve to send the “Seed” or the Offspring of the woman to crush the serpent’s head and to save sinners from death and from the devil is a promise of salvation for all people. And we know that God’s promise to Abraham is for all people: “In your Seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” We know that Christ sent His apostles out to preach the Gospel to “all creation,” and that they were to make disciples of “all nations,” and that there will be people from every nation, tribe, language, and people standing around the throne of God and worshiping Christ as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the—world! So, regardless of the false teachings that have been spread throughout history, and regardless of the unchristian behavior of some who have called themselves Christians, there is simply no place for “racism” in the Christian worldview.
At the same time, we recognize from Scripture that, for a time—for about 2,000 years of the world’s roughly 6,000 year history—God did make a distinction among men. From the time of Abraham until roughly forty years after Christ’s ascension into heaven, God showed special favor to the people of Israel, to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who are sometimes referred to as the Jews. It wasn’t because of the color of their skin. It wasn’t because their race was superior to other races. It wasn’t even that their race was more godly or righteous than other races. No, it was simply due to God’s gracious choice of Abraham to be the father of the nation that He would teach to know Him rightly by giving them His Word in the Old Testament Scriptures, the people whom He would train and prepare to be the cradle of the Christ, the society and culture into which His beloved Son would be born, so that He could suffer and die for our sins. And for that to happen, He had to keep the people of Israel separate from the other nations until the Christ was born, suffered, died, and rose again from the dead. That involved some strict, burdensome ceremonial laws, and it also involved some special privileges and promises and advantages over the other nations.
For 2,000 years God had been preparing the people of Israel for the birth of His Son, and He had promised to send the Christ to Israel first. That’s why, when Jesus sent out His twelve apostles to go ahead of Him (in Matthew chapter 10), He told them, Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Salvation through faith in Christ was to be preached first to the Jews.
That’s the context in which our Gospel takes place, five chapters later in Matthew 15. But you’ll notice something a little strange right from the beginning. Jesus did come first for the Jews. In fact, His entire ministry was spent in the land of Israel, with only one real exception, which we see in today’s Gospel, where Jesus traveled north of Israel, to the region of Tyre and Sidon, Gentile territory—although it’s likely that there were also Jews living there, as there were Jews living in practically all the cities of the Roman empire. It may have been primarily for those scattered Jews that Jesus traveled to Tyre and Sidon. But as we see, they would not be the only recipients of His grace.
A woman from that territory found out that Jesus was staying there. Her daughter was being tormented by a demon, by one of those fallen angels who had followed Satan in his rebellion against God. We don’t know how they were affecting her, but it was obvious, and it was painful. This woman, although she was a Gentile living outside of Israel, had somehow heard about Jesus. And the word she had heard was enough to convince her that He had power over the demons. So she comes to Him and begs Him, O Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is dreadfully tormented by a demon.
What did this woman know about Jesus? She called Him “Son of David,” which is a very Jewish term, since David was king of the Jews a thousand years earlier, and the “Son of David” was the common title for the Messiah, the promised Christ and King of Israel. That’s far more than the people of Israel were confessing about Jesus. Did she understand Him to be the Seed of the woman promised to Eve? Did she know of the Old Testament prophecies that the Christ would bring salvation to both Jews and Gentiles? We don’t know! But she knew enough to seek mercy from Him.
That’s why it’s a little striking that Jesus didn’t answer her right away. He said nothing. Now, there were two ways for her to interpret that silence. Either, “He doesn’t think I’m worth a reply; He won’t help me,” or, “He’s not sending me away! He’s allowing me to keep asking for mercy, so I will!” And that’s exactly what she did.
Then Jesus’ own disciples asked Him to send her away. Send her away! She is crying out after us! Why would they do that? Was it because she was making a scene with her begging and crying out? Or was it because she wasn’t a daughter of Abraham, and they recalled how Jesus had told them to go only to the people of Israel?
Jesus’ reply seems to reinforce that idea. He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” As I said earlier, Jesus essentially spent His entire ministry among the Jews (and we can a few encounters with the Samaritans, who had some Jewish blood). He had been sent by His Father only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, in the sense that He was to spend His entire earthly ministry seeking them out and ministering to them, and not to focus on the Gentiles. God had promised Israel this kind of special treatment, and He was certainly going to keep that promise to them.
But the woman still hoped that Jesus would extend grace to her. Did she know that He had already helped a Roman centurion earlier in His ministry? Maybe she did, which would have given her hope that Jesus’ mission to Israel wasn’t exclusive. She certainly knew that He had come into her territory. And so, still trusting in His goodness, she knelt before Him and said, Lord, help me! She showed the very persistence that Jesus once taught His disciples to practice. Here she was, a Gentile, doing it all on her own.
Jesus’ reply could sound like a definitive “No!” Or even like an insult. It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. For the moment, the children were the people of Israel, and the little dogs were the Gentiles. (Although in just a matter of months, that would all change!)
In reality, Jesus was leaving the door wide open, on purpose, for this non-Jewish woman to put all the Jews to shame with her faith-filled reply: Yes, Lord. But the dogs do eat from the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table. She could handle being counted among the little dogs, if it meant she could have the crumbs from her master’s table. What humility! She has no sense of entitlement. No chip on her shoulder. She’s looking up to Jesus as her master, as a dog looks up happily to its master, for a little bit of grace from the God of grace, and she was sure that He would give it.
And He did, along with a word of praise. Oh, woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish. Only two people in all of history received this high praise from the Lord Jesus. Both of them were non-Jews: one man—the Roman centurion—and this woman.
Here we see a foretaste of what was to come, of the fulfillment of God the Father’s words to His Son spoken through the prophet Isaiah: It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, that You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth. Soon there would be no distinction between Jew and Gentile. After Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, He sent His apostles to preach the Gospel to all creation. They were to preach it first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. But now that the Gospel has gone out into all the world, all distinctions have been removed. The righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, has been revealed from heaven to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference—no distinction! For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Through the centuries, the devil has taken advantage of the fallenness of our race, prodding people of every race to find things to hate about one another, each one seeking not the good of his neighbor but of himself, each one giving himself a reason to look down on other people. There is racism in the world, and it is practiced by people of every race. And there are also false charges of racism being thrown about left and right. But the message of Christianity is diametrically opposed to racism. For God’s so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Today’s Gospel is just another example of that. We see His faithfulness to the Jewish people as part of His plan to rescue the human race from the power of the devil. We see the Gentile woman’s humility before God and man, and her unwavering faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in spite of apparent rejection. We see her persistence in prayer. And we see the grace and goodness of Christ Jesus, which is now extended to the whole world, without any distinction on the basis of race. Go forth with that Christian worldview, and live your lives accordingly, with unshakable faith in Christ, with the recognition that everyone in the world, including you, is a sinner who needs saving, with the understanding that Christ died for the sins of the world, and with the conviction that God wants all men, including you, including your neighbor of a different skin tone, to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. Amen.
