Just when you think you have your life routines down pat, settled and secure, something comes along and upsets the whole pattern.
Just when you think you have your life all organized, something comes up to discombobulate it!
Just when you think you know the rules by which you govern your life, somebody brings in another point of view, and the old rules don’t work any more.
I am a very task-oriented person. I begin each day compiling a priority list of things to be done. I make lists. That’s who I am! Have I ever told you this before?
Yes. I know I have. I read it right there on my list of things to do. "Tell the congregation about the list of things to do!"
But, the trouble is, the list won’t stay put! It won’t always work. I have to break my own rules, quite often. I have to bend my otherwise rigid plans, because other things clamor for attention, things I didn’t expect.
The phone call that comes in the early hours. Pastor, I need you. The person who stops in the office while I’m writing another of my famous five-page memos to the deacons, and says, "I don’t want to bother you, but ... "
Just when you think you have your life’s routines down pat, settled and secure, something comes along and upsets the whole pattern.
Just when you think you have your life all organized, something comes up to discombobulate it!
And, most of all, just when you think you know the rules by which you govern your life, somebody brings in another point of view, and the old rules don’t work any more.
What a surprise to find out that the same thing is true with Jesus! We think we know Jesus, but even Jesus seems to break the rules! We think we know what to expect of Jesus, but He surprises us! We love to quote the Scripture that speaks of Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, today, and forever; but there are times when even the eternal Jesus appears to break the rules.
What else do you make of this passage?
Matthew 15:21-28
What a monkey-wrench this incident throws into our works!
We think we know the rules. We think we know Jesus’ rules.
We think we know that Jesus’ rule was to extend compassion to all people, regardless of their race or creed. We know the story of the Samaritan woman at the well; we have memorized the Great Commission about going to all nations. But here Jesus seems to reject a woman just because she is from Syrophoenicia and she isn’t Jewish. What do you make of that? He broke His own rules!
We think we know that Jesus’ rule was to be caring of women and children in distress. We can recall the woman who had hemorrhaged for twelve years; we can see Him rebuking the disciples for turning away children. But here Jesus at first does not even answer a woman who is crying out for mercy for herself and for her daughter. What do you make of that? He broke His own rules!
We think we know that Jesus’ rule was to treat people with respect. He is the one who taught us that even to say "You fool" to someone is to be in danger of punishment. But here, in this passage, we hear a testy nastiness. We hear a snarl! Can you believe it, that He would imply that this woman is like the dogs that prowl around picnic tables, grazing for scraps? How is it that in this story, the lord Jesus, compassion incarnate, seems to break all of His own rules?
Different Bible scholars have suggested different ways to read this passage. As you might expect, students of the Bible do not agree on what it means. It is a real puzzler.
What I am going to do this morning is to introduce you to several differing interpretations. And I am going to suggest that in each case, in each different interpretation, there is something which helps us understand why Jesus broke His own rules. More than that, in each different way to understand this passage of Scripture, there is also something which teaches us about how to help humanity. Read this passage any way you want to; any way you slice it, there is still something to learn about when to break the rules.
I
The first possibility. Some Bible students say that Jesus was deliberately leading this woman on in order to test her faith. Some readers of the Bible believe that Jesus was playing a game with the Syrophoenician woman. He wanted to pull out of her a full expression of faith, not just a short-cut faith. In other words, it was not that Jesus was unfeeling, it was not that He intended to insult anyone. This interpretation says that Jesus wanted to lead the woman into expressing a saving faith, not just a "give me what I want" faith.
So: He broke a rule. He broke the rule that says, "give people what they want". He broke that rule in order to give people what they need. The world’s rule is, "Give people what they want". You can see that in politics all the time. But you can break that rule if you break it in favor of leading them to see what they need, not just what they want.
So often, people want help only on their own terms. I mentioned two weeks ago that the typical person who comes by the church asking for money wants only money, and doesn’t want anything else we might have to give. Never mind prayer or counseling or job ideas. Just give me what I want and give it to me now!
Now when that happens, I have two choices. I can follow the ordinary rules. I can hand out some cash. And sometimes I do exactly that. The church has rules as to how much and how often a person can get financial help, and I can follow that rule.
But I also have the choice of breaking that rule. I can decide that I will take time with this person to help him find a better answer than begging from churches. I can decide that I will pull out of this person something deeper. I can choose, as Jesus did, not to listen; not to listen only to the plea for a few dollars or for a bag of groceries. I can choose to ask for more than that.
On the mission field, they speak of rice Christians. Do you know what a rice Christian is? A rice Christian is someone who comes to church and says all the right things and sings all the right songs until bags of free rice are handed out; then he disappears. That’s all they want. Well, sometimes, if you just give people what they want, they are like rice Christians. They know how to say what you want to hear long enough to get out of you what they want.
The woman shouted, "Have mercy on me …” But He did not answer her at all. He provoked her. He probed her, until she found, in her own heart, a response of faith. You can break the world’s rule that says, "Give people what they want", if you will lead them to ask for what they need, to ask for the way of salvation.
II
But there is another way to read this story. Not all scholars agree that Jesus was leading this woman on. Some students of the Bible feel that He did what He did for the benefit of His disciples. Some think that He was trying to teach and train them. He wanted to nudge them to think about what they were doing.
According to this interpretation, Jesus didn’t respond to the woman, because He wanted to see what His disciples would do. In this view, when He did speak to the woman, He did so with another audience in mind. He used her as an instrument to teach and train others how to help humanity.
Some of us have a rule. And it is "I gotta bear this burden alone." Some of trap ourselves into thinking that when a need presents itself, we are the only ones who can respond.
But you can break that rule. You can break that rule if you will teach others how to help. If we take the time to teach others, then we lay the foundation for an expanding ministry in the future. But if we insist on doing it all ourselves, feeling that nobody else can do it right, we are setting ourselves up for failure. If your rule is, "I’d rather do it myself”, it’s time to break that rule and teach someone else.
I had a pastor friend who was a genuine workaholic. Day after day, night after night, he did it all. In fact, he was the only pastor this church had ever had, and so the whole thing was his creation, from the ground up. He did everything, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks of the year) for thirty years. He published materials, he arranged the furniture, he visited the hospitals, he selected menus. He did it all. They say that when it came to helping people in need, he did all of that too. Not only did he find the money, but he also bought the groceries. And not only that, but he delivered the food to their homes, and then stacked it on the shelf. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he stayed around and cooked it too! My friend was such a compulsive workaholic, such a just-do-it-myself kind of person that he once boasted to me that the only day he had taken off from work was the day his house burned down! I don’t know, maybe the Lord struck it with lightning to get his attention!
Why did he do all this? What was his reason? "These folks won’t do it right. They don’t understand how to do ministry." Well, of course not! Who had ever stopped to teach them?!
Now, when my friend’s thirtieth anniversary came, what do you think the reaction of the people of that church was? How did they celebrate his thirty years of diligent service? Did they give him a big feast? Did they award him a vacation cruise or an overseas holiday? No, after he gave them thirty years of uninterrupted service, they gave him an uninterrupted vacation! They fired him! And then they enjoyed ... that’s the word they used ... they enjoyed a couple of years with no pastor, so that they could do some things for themselves!
What a mistake we make if our rule is, "I’ll just do it myself"! How shortsighted it is if we do not use every opportunity to motivate and to train others! It’s possible, it’s just possible, that what Jesus was doing was provoking His disciples so that they would learn how to minister.
The usual rule is, if you see a need, fulfill it. But break that rule if in serving someone you can show others how to do it even better than you do it!
III
There is another interpretation of this passage. There is a third way to read it. I have said to you that some Bible students think that in this incident Jesus was trying to get the woman to express her faith fully. And so you can break the rules about giving people what they want if you are trying to help them gain something even better.
And then I have said that other Bible scholars think that in this story Jesus’ real audience are His disciples ... that He is making them think about their mission. And so you can break the rule about doing everything yourself if you are trying to train others to serve.
But there is a third interpretation, there is another way of reading this passage. Some scholars say that Jesus was at this time struggling with his own priorities, struggling with how and where to spend His energies.
If you read the entire context, you see that Jesus has just come from a serious conflict in Jerusalem, a conflict in which His energies had been drained. Jesus goes off into the villages of Phoenicia to retreat for a little while. A little while in order to get His priorities straight.
You can hear the struggle, if you choose to read the passage this way. Here is this foreign woman, this pagan. She comes up while he is on vacation and intrudes, "Have mercy on me, Lord." Part of what kicks around in His mind, is, "Do I have to respond to her, too?" "Is she part of my responsibility?" "Do I have to be on duty all of the time?" And so He says, "I am come only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
You may not like how Jesus said it, but give Him credit. He is struggling with His priorities. He has limited time and limited energy. Where does He invest it? Where does He give it? Does He run all over the map, giving it wherever He is asked? Or does He conserve it and use it where it can do the most good?
One way to read this story is to see Jesus at work, deciding how best to spend His time.
You see, some of us are infected with an inordinate sense of our own importance. We think we can do anything, anytime and any place. And we have not stopped to count the cost or to set our priorities. We are too caught up in self-importance.
Let me tell you how good I am at sinning at this point. Last Sunday you were invited to attend a special afternoon service at another church, a service in which I was to bring one of the several messages.
I’m so glad hardly any of you went! Thank goodness, to the best of my knowledge, only one person from our church went! And guess what, that one person wasn’t named Smith! I didn’t go! No, I had had a full weekend, doing everything from preparing and rehearsing the drama sermon to working in the hot sun out here edging these sidewalks. I had taught Sunday School and worked with a committee through a long agenda. I had made some hospital visits and had written a couple of letters. And so I went home mid-afternoon, grabbed a bite to eat, and then sat down with a Bible and some notepaper to get ready for this five o’clock service.
The next thing I knew my wife was answering the phone, taking a call from the one person who did go over to Zion. I went to sleep and missed the whole thing!
What is the point? If I had set my priorities right, I would never have agreed to go in the first place. If I had thought through where my responsibilities really lie, I would never have responded to an invitation to go all the way across town to get my ego stroked for preaching! I was operating by the rule, "I’ll go anywhere, anytime, any place to help". But I had not thought through what it was really all about. It was more for my ego than for anybody else. It was more for my need to be needed than it was for anything real.
If your rule is, go anywhere, do anything, anytime, any place, is that for others or is that for you? Is that for someone else’s good, or is it for yours?
When it came down to it, in the end, what the Lord Jesus did was to choose compassion. After He had debated His own priorities, He found that it was time to break the rules and do the caring thing. And He healed her. He healed her. In the end, He knew who He was and he helped humanity. He knew when to break the rules. You break the rules to heal.
Friends, our church is getting into many new areas. We are actively pursuing a strategy of multiplying our ministries. From enriching younger marriages to reclaiming troubled youth; from making evangelistic visits to hosting impaired adults; from restocking a mission center to opening an after-school enrichment program, we are undertaking many things. Somewhere in there is a priority for you. Somewhere in all of this is a place you can serve.
Where in all of this is your priority? What is your calling? Somewhere in there, if you sort it out, you will find something a compassionate God wants you to do.
For it is never against the rules to heal a wounded heart.
It is never against the rules to feed a hungry mouth.
It is never against the rules to speak an encouraging word.
It is never against the rules to tend a weary soul.
It is never against the rules to win a soul to Christ.
Go ahead. Break every rule in the book to reach a burdened spirit.
And the only ultimate, unbreakable rule is this: "Great is your faith! It will be done for you as you wish."
