MAY 10, 2015 THE WALK She Took Them to School Scripture Lesson: Matthew 15:21-28 Dr. Victor D. Pentz Senior Pastor Jesus movement is not doing well these days. In many places where his name appears, Jesus people lack their founder s passion. Where do we go to get it back? Let s go to the source the person of Jesus. Watch Jesus dazzling people skills as he loves people and makes them believe there is actually a God who knows us. Talk a walk with Jesus. Would you have followed him? Parents have lots of pressure. Of course the more children you have, the more pressure you feel. I don t think anyone has ever expressed the pressure on parents better than a man named Jim Gaffigan. Let s watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gebzry0g9pi Isn t that hilarious? But sometimes parenting isn t funny. This morning we meet a woman who comes running to Jesus in sheer desperation. Her world is coming apart. We meet her in Matthew s gospel, the fifteenth chapter, verses 21-28. Here s the story: 21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly. 23 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. 24 He answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. 25 The woman came and knelt before him. Lord, help me! she said. 26 He replied, It is not right to take the children s bread and toss it to the dogs. 27 Yes it is, Lord, she said. Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master s table. 28 Then Jesus said to her, Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted. And her daughter was healed at that moment.
2 The Walk SHE TOOK THEM TO SCHOOL What a scripture for Mother s Day! Here s Jesus being rude to a mother. A frantic mom came and hurled herself at his feet only to have Jesus give her the cold shoulder. Our reading says, Jesus did not answer her a word. Is this a typographical error? Was Jesus having a bad day? Should I quickly see if I can find a different scripture for our Mother s Day sermon? Here s the thing. Jesus was a teacher, like my mother, my grandmother, and my mother-in-law. What do teachers do? They give tests. Tests are not always pleasant, are they? Like the man who arrived one day at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter said, Before you enter heaven we have a simple test we re giving people before they enter heaven. Spell God. G O D, the man replied. That s great; go right in. Another man came. Spell God, St. Peter said. G O D, spelled the man. Perfect, go right in. Next came a woman. And St. Peter said, Before we let you into heaven we have a little test we want to give you. The woman was indignant: My whole life I ve had to jump through hoops for men. In my job they ve gotten promotions ahead of me they didn t deserve; I ve worked in a chauvinist male dominated profession. And now wouldn t you know I get to heaven s door and here s another male making me jump through another hoop. Now, listen, there s no reason to be upset; we just have a little test we re giving everybody. I d like you to spell Czechoslovakia. Great teachers don t just test our spelling. They test our lives. Jesus was a brilliant teacher who had a favorite way of testing people that Walter Wink calls deliberately induced frustration. Remember how Jesus one day gave his disciples five loaves and two fish and pointed to a crowd of 5,000 people and said, Hey, guys, go feed those folks. Another time he told them to cast out a demon he knew they couldn t cast out. Then there was the time he fell asleep in the back of the boat knowing that a huge storm was about to hit. Jesus loved to throw people in over their heads as a way of showing them where they were on their learning curve. For sheer brilliance there has never been a teacher like Jesus, as you are going to see this morning as he tests two sets of people: his disciples and this Gentile mother. Let s see who aces the exam and who gets an incomplete. I want to thank John Ortberg for his helpful insights into this text. One day Jesus and his disciples escaped up into the far north of Israel for a little R and R, into the region of Tyre and Sidon two Phoenician cities on the Mediterranean coast. It s an area populated by Israel s bitterest adversaries. As the Jewish historian Josephus wrote, The people of Tyre are our bitterest enemies. While they were there, out of a crowd stepped one of them a Canaanite woman who instantly had three strikes against her. She was a gentile (not a Jew); she was a pagan (not a God worshipper); and she was a woman (not a man) in a day when socially women were supposed to know their place. She was on the wrong side of the tracks of every social, cultural, racial, and sexual barrier of her day. She was the most unclean of the unclean, and she had no business approaching any righteous, pious person, let alone the great rabbi Jesus. But if you think that was going to stop this woman, you had better think again. A Test of Faith, and a Test of Love Why? Because she was a mother. Lord, Son of David! My daughter is suffering terribly. Oh my, we know this kind of mother, don t we? We see her at Children s Health Care of Atlanta, Piedmont, and Northside, or over at MD Anderson in Houston, and up at St Jude s in Memphis. Pushy is not the word. Doctors duck behind doorways when they see her coming. She won t let up. Why?
3 The Walk SHE TOOK THEM TO SCHOOL Verse 22 says it all: My daughter is suffering terribly. Someone has said to have a child is like having your heart walking around outside your body. Your heart goes to school. Your heart doesn t make cheerleader. Your heart gets made fun of. It gets in cars that go too fast. When it comes to our kids it s hard to tell where we leave off and they begin, isn t it? They are the we of me. When they hurt, we hurt. We love them so much. This mother s daughter is possessed by a demon. She s in total domination by and bondage to Satan. But this mother did what you and I would do. She came running to Jesus. Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! she cried. My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly. There. She had done it cast all her cares upon him. And what does our reading say? Jesus did not answer a word, says verse 23. Utter silence. Is that rejection? Indifference? No. Welcome to Part One of the test. Will she stay or will she go? How desperately do I want this healing for my daughter? Just how far am I willing to go in trusting this man I just met? This is Part One of the woman s exam a test of her faith. Now this in turn triggers Part One of the disciples exam. Only the disciples test is a test of their love. The disciples weren t the slightest bit surprised that Jesus wouldn t speak to this woman. No rabbi would. But even as Jesus was ignoring this woman, out of the corner of his eye he was monitoring the disciples and their reaction to her, watching to see what his disciples would do. Their test was: did they have any grasp or understanding of the width of God s love? Multiple choice: Is God s love a) this wide or b) this wide or c) this wide or d) this wide or e) all of the above and infinity in both directions? The disciples answered, A, this wide. Beat it, lady. Verse 23: Send her away. You have to chuckle at their ego strength. They said, She keeps crying out after us, as if they re the ones she expected to heal her daughter. One of the things I like to point out in favor of the authenticity of the New Testament is how the disciples are often portrayed as such doofusses in the earliest documents of the church. Later those disciples became the leaders of the church and they could have gone in and doctored the documents and prettied up and improved their image. A number of years ago we did a history of Peachtree and if you read that history you won t find a single negative thing about me because I made sure you wouldn t. But these disciples did not erase the transcript that showed how they failed their test of love on that day. Scripture even says another day they told little children, Go away! Scram! Jesus doesn t have time for you. It s not pretty. Part Two of the Test But now watch closely as we segue into Part Two of the disciples exam. When the woman came up the disciples said, Send her away. Then Jesus said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. This is phase two of the disciples test as Jesus pretended to agree with them: You re right, guys. She s nothing. I ll get rid of her. But then he did not send her away, did he? He pretended to agree with them, all the while watching and thinking, Are you kidding me? Don t any of you understand my mission? Are all of you really this clueless? Won t even one of you stand up for her? And Part Two of their exam then became Part Two of the woman s exam. As she stood there, from Jesus lips she heard, Look lady, I don t do Gentiles. I m sent as the Messiah of the Jews.
4 The Walk SHE TOOK THEM TO SCHOOL You re not in my job description. Why would I ever want to get mixed up in your problems? Part One she passed with flying colors. She was still there, still clinging to hope. Then she was told to buzz off. Don t let the door hit you on the way out. You re not one of us. Again her test was, How much do I love my daughter? How much am I willing to put myself through in hopes of getting her healed? Will I lose my dignity? Will I put up with insults? Will I trust my everything to a total stranger? Someone has said there are cowards and there are heroes and then there are mothers. A mom does whatever it takes. This lady had no place else to go. Now our text says she knelt before him. She dug in. She was not going anywhere, and she cried Lord, help me. Back to the disciples: do you feel their tension? Don t tell me there isn t a tug of war going on between their heads and their hearts? Up here was this cold theological system and down here were the wracking sobs of a heartbroken mother crying out for her beloved daughter who is in emotional and spiritual agony. Is God so little that he was trapped inside their prison of prejudice? There would come a day when these very disciples passed this test, but today was not that day. In that day, as the book of Acts explains, the floodgates would open when Peter had a dream and the Spirit would reveal God s love for all people of all races and all lands and Peter would embrace and welcome into the church a Roman Centurion gentile named Cornelius and the rest would be history. But for now, the tension just ratcheted up even higher, with Jesus looking at his disciples, testing their reaction as he said crueler and crueler things. Then cruelest of all, it seems, came a racial slur from Jesus: It is not right to take the children s bread and toss it to the dogs. In our world we love dogs. Before Becky and I had children our dog was like a child to us. In that day dogs were wild, dirty, filthy scavengers. Next to pigs, dogs were the most unclean of all. Of course, most of us here in this room are gentile dogs. So Jesus pushed his disciples: Is that what she is really? Is she a dog? Really? Is this what you want? Do you really want me to send her away? Don t any of you have an ounce of compassion in your little finger? Won t one of you speak up for her? Will you love her? Okay, disciples. Time is up. Close your booklet. End of test. Final grade: zero. Or wait, let s say an I. You re not there yet. Someday you ll get there. You will learn to love. In the meantime, you get an incomplete. They were lacking God s compassion. Their cultural blinders wouldn t let them see the wideness of God s love that extends and the deep value of every human, even a gentile, pagan woman. Someone said you could add up the mountains, the oceans, the galaxies, the tallest buildings, and the money from every bank account in the world, and still not scratch the surface of the value of a human being. For us Jesus came and for us he died. In the Bible you can tell the value of anything by looking at the one who made it. A couple of weeks ago, I had a birthday and received some nice cards and emails but nothing comes close to this this handmade masterpiece from my three-year-old granddaughter June, who lives in Chicago. It has the hill where Jesus died with a cross and a tree. You ll instantly see the influence of Gaugin and the French post-impressionists in her work. To me this is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. You could not pay me enough for this or for some
5 The Walk SHE TOOK THEM TO SCHOOL the crumbs that fall from their master s table. Yes, Lord, I know I don t have a place at the table, and I know I don t deserve one. But don t you have just few measly crumbs for me? I love the fact that she didn t use the word for an adult dog. Literally what she says is, Sure, go ahead and feed the children first, but don t the puppies get a few leftovers? This is one of the most remarkable scenes in the New Testament. This woman said, Yes, I am a dog. Bow wow, Lord. I am unworthy to be in the presence of God, but I have not come out of my goodness. I have come for your graciousness. Her love for her daughter is so deep and her trust in Jesus power is so strong that there she is with her stubborn bulldog faith. other crayon masterpieces I have on my refrigerator, which I deem priceless, not because of their street value but because of the pricelessness to me of the little girl who made them. The same is true of us. Every new baby is a fresh work of art still wet from the Creator s hand. Our value is not in who we are ourselves or what other people tell us. It s that as Psalm 8 says: God made us a little lower than the angels and crowned us with glory and honor. What s true of us is true of every human including that sadly tormented daughter of a gentile Canaanite woman. So the disciples flunk. So now back to the woman. What did she do? Did she shout her own racial slur back at Jesus? Did she slink back into the crowd with her tail between her legs like a dog? What she did is amazing. She said, Yes, Lord (verse 27). That s the third time she called him Lord. You re still my Lord. And then this: But even the dogs eat Imagine those disciples standing there watching. Their mouths fell open in wonder. Never had they ever seen a human put such total trust in Jesus or have such amazing, stubborn love. When this woman walked up, they thought they were looking at their inferior, the very bottom of the spiritual barrel. Now here she was interacting with Jesus with trust and intimacy and boldness that put them to shame. As we say in sports, this lady sent those disciples to school and us, too. One lesson here is Never get between a mother bear and her cubs. More important is, Never underestimate a mother s love. The biggest lesson is, Never get between Jesus and a mother in need. Mothers, your biggest fan is looking down upon you from heaven this morning. I believe our Lord has on his desk a special red phone labeled Calls from Moms. You have a direct line. I am walking evidence of my mother s prayers. Grading the Test Finally Jesus turned to face this woman. He tore off his mask. The test was over, and it was time to pass out the grades. Jesus exclaimed,
6 The Walk SHE TOOK THEM TO SCHOOL Woman, great is your faith. Your prayers are answered. Your daughter is healed. Go to the head of the class. You have been my daughter all along. If you d like to meet a mother a lot like her, for your summer reading pick up a book called The Color of Water by James McBride. It s about his mother, who faced quite an endurance test. In the story told by her son, this mother has 12 children. The daughter of Jewish immigrants who moved to the United States from Poland in the 1940s, she came to the U.S. with her rabbi father and severely handicapped mother. When her father began sexually abusing her, she ran away and fell in love with a black man who later becomes the pastor of a black Baptist church in Harlem during the 1950s. She also became a Christian. She and her husband had 12 children; then he died suddenly. Here she was, a white woman with 12 black children and no money in a small apartment in Harlem in the 1950s. Of course we all know how that script was supposed to unfold from there. These troubled kids were supposed to fall under the power of Satan, like this girl in our story, and get into drugs, become addicted, and develop criminal records. For a while it seemed that was going to happen. James McBride says it took his mother ten years to recover from her husband s death. He said his mother would disappear for hours and nobody would know where she was. She couldn t make a decision. He writes, I went to gym class, opened a paper bag from home where I d put my gym clothes, and found my mother s underclothing inside. She d stand for hours at the kitchen sink washing one pot. Well what about the kids? you ask. What drugs did they take? What gangs did they join? Well it turns out, today her kids don t take drugs. They prescribe them. Their gangs have names like Yale, Columbia, and Harvard. Let me introduce her children: Andrew Dennis McBride M.D. University of Pennsylvania Medical School, then Yale University, today is Director of the Health Department in Stamford, Connecticut. Rosetta McBride, Staff Psychologist for the New York Board of Education. William McBride, MD Yale University, MBA Emory University. David McBride, PhD in History from Columbia University, today is a Department Chair at Penn State. And on and on through twelve children. The author James McBride, boy number 8, until recently a Washington Post reporter, closes by saying, My mother and I would like to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for his love and faithfulness to all generations. This mother was confused about everything in life but Jesus. Somehow if you get Jesus right, the rest seems to fall into place. He is the answer. You can pass the love test and you can pass the faith endurance test. You know the answer to the test, the answer for all of us, especially moms. You can even spell it: J-E-S-U-S. (I want to thank John Ortberg for his sermon Passing the Test which provided me much insight into this text.) Then he writes these words: Mama was utterly confused about all but one thing: Jesus.Jesus gave Mommy hope. Jesus was Mommy s salvation. Jesus pressed her forward. Each and every Sunday, no matter how tired, depressed or broke, she got up early, dressed in her best and headed for church.
7 The Walk SHE TOOK THEM TO SCHOOL Prayer: Lord, you are the answer to the test that each of us is facing today. Some of us are facing a test of love. We are in relationships that are really hard. Some of us are facing a test of faith and we wait and we wait for an answer. Help us to learn the lessons that you have for each of us. How we thank you that Jesus is the answer not only for mothers, but for all of us. Encourage each of us, especially mothers, and give our love to those who are there with you in heaven until the day we reunite with them in glory. For we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
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