Matthew 15:21-28, “Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from the vicinity came to him, crying out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.’ Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, ‘Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.’ The woman came and knelt before him. ‘Lord, help me!’ she said. He replied, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ she said, ‘but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ Then Jesus answered, ‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed from that very hour.”
Today is mother’s day it is the day that we celebrate not just our literal mom’s but the wonderful ladies who have been a part of our lives everywhere. I’m sure that if we were to open the mike that we could spend the better part of the day listening to people share about how the women who have impacted their lives for the better. Ladies you do so much for so many people with the care and the nurture you provide. One of the greatest things that a woman can give to those she loves is the persistence of her faith. We’re going to be looking today at a woman who became a living illustration of that. We are not even told her name but look at what Jesus said about her and did because of her faith. Verse 28 reads, “Then Jesus answered, ‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed from that very hour.”
Of all the things that God can say about us, this is one of the greatest complements we could receive, for God to look at our lives, to look at our actions and to say that we have great faith that is the result from this woman in this unlikely and let’s be honest difficult story. This is a story where we see Jesus respond in just about every way possible to this woman’s prayer. Perhaps you’ve heard a sermon or a lesson before on prayer that said that God always answers prayer, it’s just not always the way that we want Him too. Sometimes, He says ‘yes,’ sometimes He says, ‘no’ and sometimes He says ‘wait.’ By the way, the silence of God is sometimes an answer as well. We’re going to look in a moment at what I believe Jesus was saying with His silence to this woman.
As we look at this passage though, when we just read it, it is a difficult story because the actions of Jesus, or in this case in inactions of Jesus, are so unexpected. We are used to understanding that God is love. We’ve been taught the miracle stories of Jesus. So when we read that someone came up to Christ and asked Him for help, we just assume that He will give it. So when we read a story about someone asking for help and He doesn’t do it right away we wonder why? Maybe we even feel bad for the woman because we have been in her shoes. Oh maybe we don’t have a daughter who has been demon oppresses but we have been there. We have prayed fervently for God to answer our prayers and then the answer that we wanted didn’t come or it didn’t come in the timing that we wanted and we wonder why. Well this story is for us.
As we look at this woman, this mother of great faith, let’s also recognize her great courage. You understand that there were several obstacles she had to over come in order to ask Jesus for help. The first is a matter of setting and attitude in this case this involves Jesus. Look at verse 21, “Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.” The key word to understanding this is “withdrew.” This is something that Jesus did when He was tired and needed rest. As we read Matthew 14 we see Jesus trying to withdraw, but the crowds won’t let Him, people keep following Him. Then this chapter finds Jesus in Jerusalem, where He is confronted by the Pharisee’s and then He has to teach His disciples. Wherever He goes in Israel people are following Him. But the human part of Jesus needs rest, since He can’t find it in Israel He withdraws to the Gentile regions. So Jesus had withdrawn to this area most likely He was looking for rest. If you are wanting a miracle from God this is probably not a good time to ask for it. But if you are this woman, this is the best time you are going to get, so despite the seeming inopportunity of the moment she takes it.
She also has to overcome the fact that she was a woman and a Canaanite. It’s not that Jesus was either sexist or racist, but at times His culture was, there were certain lines that just we’re supposed to be crossed and she was crossing them. A woman was not to make a request like this. And Jews and Gentiles just tended not to speak with each other or to get along. This is an unlikely pairing. According to her culture she should not be making a request like this and Jesus would not be expected to give it to her. But again, this may be the best chance she has. It may have been that she was a single mom, it may have been that her husband did not share her faith that Jesus could or would help their daughter. Whatever the case, she is the only one who can go ask for help for her daughter at this time, this is going to be her best chance, she loves her daughter and so she goes, despite the odds, she goes.
Then perhaps we come to what may have been the biggest obstacle of all, she wanted more for her daughter, than her daughter wanted for herself. The daughter was demon oppressed, she was in a bad place, we don’t know what she was doing, but she isn’t here. This woman has come on her own, she is the only one mentioned by Matthew as being here. The disciples only want the woman sent away, they don’t mention her mother. The mother she asks Jesus for her daughter, the daughter doesn’t come, she doesn’t ask, if she’s under the spell of a demon then realistically she doesn’t want or even realize that she needs help. But her mother does, and so she goes and asks for it on behalf of her daughter.
How many of us can relate to this woman? Let me ask you this question, what obstacles do we face today when it comes to our kids and the people we love? We see someone and we know that they are in trouble, or maybe not in trouble, yet, but they are on a path to achieve and live a life that is so much less than what they could have, and of course what wee feel they deserve? I love this list about mothers that I found,
4 Years Of Age - My Mommy can do anything;
8 Years Of Age - My Mom knows a lot! A whole lot
12 Years Of Age -My Mother doesn't really know quite everything.
14 Years Of Age -Naturally, Mother doesn't know that, either
16 Years Of Age -Mother? She's hopelessly old-fashioned
18 Years Of Age -That old woman? She's way out of date
25 Years Of Age -Well, she might know a little bit about it
35 Years Of Age -Before we decide, let's get Mom's opinion
45 Years Of Age -Wonder what Mom would have thought about it
65 Years Of Age -Wish, I could talk it over with Mom
When we love people we want the best for them, that is the mark of love, and the mark of true friendship. When your friends and the people that you love do well, it makes you happy, there are no feelings of jealousy. When it comes to our kids and those that we love it’s even greater than that, we want so much for them. That is okay it is the mark of a good parent. Now we need to temper that with the reality that they are going to lie their own lives and sometimes their desires are different then areas. But when it comes to things that are truly harmful we’re going to seek to help them, and in all things we can pray for them. You understand that is what this woman is doing. I know that the literal thing is she is talking to Jesus, sometimes face to face and sometimes to and through His disciples. But of course you realize that on a deeper level Jesus is God so she is praying, she is asking God for help. This we can always do and we always should do. It may sound strange to some of you, but Linda and I already are praying not just for the man that Sarah will marry but for any and all the relationships she has in between, we want the best for our daughter. We don’t know what or who that is yet, but God does and so we do the only thing that we can, the best thing any parent can do, we pray for her.
So understanding those obstacles lets then look at how this scene plays out. Verse 22, “A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession. Jesus did not answer a word.” The woman comes the first time and Jesus doesn’t respond. What do you do with that? She asks for help, not just asking for help, she is crying out, “Jesus please help my daughter, Jesus I need you.” She’s crying out in a loud voice, she’s probably drawing attention to herself, but she doesn’t care, she wants help. This is her opportunity, she takes it, and Jesus doesn’t even respond. Ever feel like you’re there with her. You’re desperate, you ask for help, and God doesn’t seem to answer. That’s what happens to her the first time.
So she comes the second time, to the disciples their response is to ask Jesus to send her away. They don’t see the mother in need, they don’t see the hurt and the desperation. All they know is that she is annoying and they want her to leave. Notice they don’t say to Jesus, ‘Lord heal her daughter so that she’ll stop.’ They say, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” How many people here think that this was not the response she was looking for? But not only that we see a distinct lack of compassion by the disciples, they don’t relate to her, they don’t empathize with her need they just want her to go. May that never be our response, where we see the needs of hurting people, when we see the opportunity to help them and we way, and we say, ‘Lord send them away, for they keep crying out after us.”
The disciples want her sent away, but look at the response of Jesus, His response to the disciples is a matter of priorities not a rejection of her plea. Notice what He says, verse 24, “He answered, “I was sent only to the last sheep of Israel.” Jesus had a mission, He knew what it was, and He did His best to stick to the mission. His mission is our mission, who was He sent too? He was sent to the lost sheep, which is what He said.
We have a mission as a church, our mission statement comes from His words in Luke 19:10, we’re here to seek and to save. That’s not our only priority, but it is our first priority, we need to be telling people about their need, not just for Jesus, but specifically for the grace of Jesus. Our God didn’t just rise from the dead, He did it so that when He forgave our sins that meant that we could enjoy life, with Him, starting right then. Like Christ, sharing that news is our first mission. Jesus knew who He was supposed to share it with, in His case it was Israel, the whole nation. We are called to a group of people, everyone’s group is different but you’re called first to the people around you. That is the concept of “Oikos” the 8 to 15 people that God has supernaturally place in your life to share His grace with them. That is our first mission. Jesus here show’s us what it is to be on a mission. He understands what His first priority is and He acts on it. It’s not that He is rejecting this woman, but He has withdrawn so that He can rest and then go back to the people He has been called to reach. He is not rejecting her plea, He is simply stating what His priorities are.
But notice what He didn’t say, He didn’t say “no.” I’ve talked with people about this passage. I’ve studied it before and I’ve heard it referred to as the passage where Jesus says no. But notice He never says that. He doesn’t respond at first, and we take it as a rejection. Just as we do in our own prayer life when we pray and we don’t get an answer, we feel like God is ignoring us. Here is an important truth in life, we view the reactions and words of others through the lens of our own perceptions and experiences. When we read the passage, if we think that Jesus is saying no at the beginning we are reading that into it. Jesus doesn’t say, “no” He just doesn’t answer and there is a big difference. That difference can be summed up in one word, “persistence.” God wants us to be persistent in our prayer.
Have you ever wanted something desperately for someone that you’ve loved, gone to someone who had the ability to give it to them and it really wouldn’t even cause that person more than a moments notice, you ask for it, and they so, “no.” Do you take that for an answer? I doubt it. If you need something for someone you love, I mean really need it and they say, “no.” You ask again, or you ask to speak to someone else. Depending on the depth of your love and your desperation you’ll keep asking and trying until someone says, “yes.”
Guess what the same thing in prayer. If we really understand that in this world is as much unseen, as seen, if we really believe that God can help us and does answer prayers, then we won’t pray just one time, or a couple of times, we will ask and keep asking. When we pray for our children and loved ones we are in a battle, it won’t be won with one prayer we need to be persistent.
Look at this woman, she cries out to Jesus, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” And He doesn’t respond. She starts hounding His disciples, looking for someone, anyone to help her, their response is to try and get someone to sent her away. They go to Jesus, and He tells her that He was sent to the lost sheep of Israel instead. How many of us would have given up? She doesn’t she just keeps going. Remember there were obstacles to her even being here. Jesus has withdrawn, she is a gentile woman, and her daughter doesn’t come with her and she can’t make her come. She has to come alone on her daughter’s behalf. And still despite all that, here she is, and we we’re going to see that she’s still not going to give up, she’s going to try again, she is persistent in her prayer.
If you take one word from this sermon that is the word that I want you to remember, we have to be persistent. In our prayers and in our lives, those times when you pray and you don’t hear and answer remember this woman. The silence of God is not a “no.’ In this case it was a keep praying, keep asking. Be persistent.
It’s one of the greatest lessons we can teach our children and those we love not just in prayer but in life. The story is told of a teenager who had decided to quit high school, saying he was just fed up with it all. His father was trying to convince him to stay with it. “Son,” he said, “you just can’t quit. All the people who are remembered in history didn’t quit. Abe Lincoln didn’t quit. Thomas Edison didn’t quit. Douglas MacArthur didn’t quit. Elmo Cringle didn’t quit.” “Who?” the son burst in. “Who is Elmo Cringle?” “See,” the father replied, “You don’t remember him because he quit!”
Mom’s, Dad’s too, all of us who seek to be an example for others, who want more for someone then they want for themselves, we have to be able to give them the gift of persistence in life, so that they can see it, and in prayer so that they can feel it. We don’t know much about this woman, we don’t know her name, we don’t know if she was married, we don’t know her daughter’s name or if she had more then one child, but we know she was persistent. In her desperation, when she realized there was hope in Jesus, she didn’t let obstacles stop her, she didn’t accept silence as rejection she just kept asking, until we come to her final plea.
Jesus tells her that He was sent to the last sheep in Israel, and look at how she responds, Verse 25, “The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” What would we have done? Jesus has seemingly ignored her, His disciples have rejected her, and yet rather than getting angry or indignant she show’s great humility by calling Him Lord and kneeling. It’s funny some people may wonder at her reaction. Some people may think that she should be upset, but she isn’t. I think it is because this Canaanite woman got a concept that so many people miss today. It’s simply this, God is God. He doesn’t have to answer us He doesn’t have to help us. He does it because of His, love, His grace, and His mercy for us. He doesn’t owe us, we owed Him, but He paid the price for us so that we could come to Him. He doesn’t owe us so He loves us. Sometimes, when we don’t hear from Him, it may just be that He’s trying to teach us to be persistent, don’t give up, keep praying and when He gives us an answer, when we realize we’ve got His ear, it’s not the time to act like somehow He owes us something, it’s the time to realize that the Lord of the universe, the ultimate source of real hope is Lord, and He can help us and He can save us maybe not in our time, but always in His perfect time.
So she kneels and asks Him for help and look at his response, verse 26, “He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” Ok let’s be honest how many of us would have been offended by being compared to a dog? Two things I can think of here, one is that it was noted in the commentaries that this refers to the loved domesticated dogs that were allowed in the house. The other thing is that in this culture, given the relationships between the Jews and the Canaanites, this was not that unusual of a comparison, it was one that both races made back and forth to each other. So while we may have been offended she wasn’t. As a result look at the wisdom of her answer, verse 27, “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” She doesn’t object instead, she then acknowledges His greatness.
Think about what she is asking for here. She’s asking Him to drive out a demon. Some people would call this a power encounter the power of Christ verses that of the demon. She is asking for a pretty major thing, but look at what she says, she basically says, this is the equivalent of a crumb. Understand He’s reinforcing the concept of being sent to the lost sheep of Israel, here He says basically I’ve got to pay attention to the children I was sent to, and she says, but Lord this great and mighty thing is just a crumb to you. She was right, do we realize that the mountains in our lives, aren’t even stairs to Jesus. He can and work His will in our lives and in this world. Sometimes He may require that we are persistent in our prayers but if it fits His will for our lives and His plan there is nothing that we can ask for that He can’t deliver.
She is persistent in her prayer, humble in her response, she recognizes that His greatness and the result is that Jesus responds to her faith. Verse 28 we read it again, “Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed that very hour.” What a beautiful picture of the difference a person of faith can have. If took courage, but she was willing to do it, and she knew the one do go to.
Do you know the one to go to? If you’re here and you’ve never accepted Christ, He is the source of hope that you can always turn to. Maybe you’ve been in a place where you needed help and you wondered where to turn to, you can always turn to Christ, it may take a while, but never give up on Him because He will never give up on you and you can never go so far from Him that He can not or will not help you.
