What Proceeds From The Heart

August 16, 2020

Hope Lutheran Church

Pastor Mary Erickson

Matthew 15:10-28

What Proceeds from the Heart

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jesus’ behavior in our gospel story today is more than a little shocking. How can the Prince of Peace, the Lamb of God, use such a nasty tone with this worried mother! If his own mother were there, I get the feeling Mary would have pulled him aside and given him a stern reprimand.

But Mary isn’t there. It’s just Jesus and his disciples. The one who says he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel has left Israel. He’s travelled into the foreign region of Tyre and Sidon. If his mission is so exclusive, why, oh why, has he travelled to foreign territory? Hmm.

And if his mission is limited to only the house of Israel, then why has he already brought healing to the houses of Gentiles? In chapter 8 of Matthew, a Roman centurion approaches Jesus. He has a gravely ill servant whom he asks Jesus to heal. Jesus readily agrees to go to his house to heal the man. But the centurion says, “No, Lord, I’m not worthy to have you come to my house. But if you say the word, I know you can heal my servant.”

Jesus marvels at the faith of this foreigner. “I tell you, no one in all of Israel has such faith!” Jesus assures the centurion his servant is healed, and at that very hour, he is.

So how can the savior who is sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel help the house of Israel’s foreign oppressor? How is it that Jesus can marvel at this foreigner’s great faith?

And why, then, would Jesus soon afterwards head across the Sea of Galilee to the foreign side of the lake? Why would he take his disciples to the region of the Decapolis, pure Gentile territory? And when they pull up on the shore, they’re met by two foreign men tormented by demons.

Jesus brings healing and peace to these two tortured, foreign souls. And then he and his disciples climb back in their boat and return home.

Why, oh why, would the one sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel seem to make a trip across the lake expressly with the purpose of encountering these two foreign men? Hmm. Something doesn’t compute.

As Jesus’ ministry gains more and more traction, Matthew himself understands that Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. And then he quotes the prophecy:

Here is my servant, whom I have chosen,

my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased.

I will put my Spirit upon him,

and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. And as the promised servant of the Most High, his mission extends even to the Gentiles! So why would Jesus tell this woman otherwise?

As Matthew tells the story of these events in Tyre and Sidon, he ups the ante. When Mark relates this story, he indicates that the woman is a Syrophoenician by birth. But Matthew changes the script. He calls her a Canaanite.

There haven’t been any Canaanites for centuries! It’s an archaic term. Abraham migrated to the Land of Canaan and settled there. That was the land God promised to him and his descendants; they settled in the Land of Canaan. When Israel returns from slavery in Egypt, the land they come back to is filled with the indigenous people of that area, the Canaanites. Israel engages them in bloody battles, beginning with Jericho. The skirmishes never stop. Both peoples want the same land.

Even into Jesus’ day, the memory of those old, acrimonious relations lived just under the surface of Israel’s collective memory. They remembered their bitter resentment against their former adversaries. To call someone a “Canaanite” was the most highly charged racial epithet of the day.

Matthew uses “The C Word” to describe this foreign woman. He’s pulled out all the stops to tell this story. How will Jesus respond to this labelled woman?

Jesus’ reputation has preceded him in Tyre. Even in this foreign district, the woman knows exactly who he is. And she has great need. Her child is sick. She behaves as any mother with a sick child would. The welfare of her child is all that matters to her. It eclipses everything and she’ll do anything to help her baby. It pains her to see her child suffer. She wants her daughter to be whole. And now, here comes Jesus!

This nameless woman runs up to Jesus and loudly pleads her request. She calls Jesus Lord. She calls him Son of David. She begs Jesus to heal her daughter.