8/14/22 Matthew 15:21-28 “Jesus Is the Heart of Worship”

12 Aug 8/14/22 Matthew 15:21-28 “Jesus Is the Heart of Worship”

8/14/22   Matthew 15:21-28   “Jesus Is the Heart of Worship”

I remember that I once happened across a very interesting article about why the churches today and in the future will fail and it is not for any of the reasons that you might think.  I don’t remember who the author was but the idea of it went something like this.  Many people leave a church because of the church’s stand on homosexuality.  People leave because the church is too mission oriented or too evangelical.  People leave because the church supports abortion.  Many go because the music isn’t what they like.  Some think that there is no worship during the services.  Some go because they don’t like the new pastor.  I hope that you are starting to get the common thread that runs through all of this.  None of these reasons will be the down fall of the church.  The modern church will fail because we are only focused on ourselves.  Our focus is on ‘what can I get out of it?’  What is in church for me?  You see, church has nothing to do with any of these things and it is most definitely not about you and what you can get out of it.  Our modern church needs to get the focus off of me and onto other people and Jesus.  Christians are about others and not us and this one of is the biggest problem we have today.  Today, we are going to look at a very hard, confusing and wonderful passage where we find a woman full of worship.  Let’s see if we can get some tips for life from this controversial passage.

Doug Koehler tells a story of a young man who went to a counselor one day because he was having feelings of great failure and inadequacy.  He told the counselor that he wanted to go to college but he just had too many strikes against him.  He poured out his heart to this counselor telling him of his deepest desires and all of his hurts.  Never once did this man hear any words that remotely resembled encouragement.  Finally, the counselor told him what he should do.  Instead of words of encouragement, the man got just the opposite.  First the counselor told the man that college was far too expensive and he would never be able to afford it.  Then he told him that there was no way that he was smart enough to attend college and he would probably have to drop out after the first year.  Finally, he said, “You would be better off finding something else to do with your life.”  I think that most of us would probably fire this counselor even though I think that we need the hard truth sometimes.  However, this might or might not have been the occasion to tell it.  That’s up to you.

What makes today’s reading to be such a tough one is that it appears that Jesus is doing the same thing that this counselor did.  As a matter of fact, we find that Jesus rejects this woman 4 times, directly and indirectly.  The first time is when He makes like He doesn’t hear her or He doesn’t answer.  After all, this woman is from the region of Tyre and Sidon.  She is a Canaanite.  She is not Jewish and she is not one of them.  All these things are mentioned in the text but I don’t think that these are the reasons as to why He didn’t answer.  I think that the answer lies in that this is a teaching moment for the disciples about who God really is.

Just prior to this Jesus had been showing the disciples and others what clean and unclean really meant.  Being clean has absolutely nothing to do with what you eat.  Being clean has to do with what comes out of your mouth.  It is our words that make us clean or unclean.  It is our thoughts and our actions that make us clean and unclean.  This would be quite a revolutionary thought for those days and the ruling Jews were quite upset by this.  Now Jesus and the disciples are traveling in a pagan area and they come across this woman.  Jesus begins by not answering her.

This is something that happens to us quite often.  There are two points I would like to make here.  The first is that Jesus doesn’t answer the woman.  If you think about this for a moment, not answering is also an answer.  Anyway, how many times have you gone to prayer and you feel like Jesus is not answering you?  Have you ever been in a drought where it seems that Jesus is far away and not listening?  These are pretty normal things to have happen in our prayer life, our spiritual life.

I think that Jesus always answers our prayers but they are not answered in the way we want them answered.  Sometimes the answer is ‘no!’  Often times this is an answer that we do not want to hear.  Too often we think of our prayer time as a time when our wishes will be granted.  Here is something to keep in mind when you start to think like this.  God runs the whole world and you are a part of it.  If it is God’s will that something is supposed to happen over here but it can only happen if He denies your prayer request, then it will be denied.  The answer is ‘no.’ The answer could also be ‘later’ or even ‘yes.’  We need to remember that God answers only in ways that are helpful to the Kingdom.

The second point I would like to make here is this.  How often do we see one of God’s people begging for food or money or shelter and we just drive on by?  We don’t answer them.  This is just like what Jesus did to the woman.  You know that one of my favorite sayings is that we are the hands and feet of Jesus in this world.  Then the question becomes ‘how can we be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ when we ignore those who are needy?’  It is not our job to feed the whole world but we could try feeding the people in front of us.  This is a number that is growing every day.  We need to be more aware of our surroundings.

The point of Jesus not answering may be that He is showing them that He is God and God will do what is best for everyone and not just you.  You are not to be focused on you!  There are other things happening around this woman that need to be addressed first.  There are other needs around you that have to be addressed first.  As I stated in the opening, being a Christian is not about ‘me.’  It is about helping others and Jesus.

The disciples also want her to go away.  Let’s face it she is becoming a bit of a pest.  So, Jesus through the disciples is telling her to go away.  The disciples however have a whole different take on the situation.  They don’t see the big picture so they want her to go away for the sake of the disciples and Jesus.  Once again, they are only thinking of themselves.

The third rebuke comes when Jesus says that He has only come for the Jews and she is not Jewish.  Jesus is really playing hard ball here.  Or is He?  It would almost sound like Jesus is not for us but only for the Jews.  But this isn’t what Jesus is talking about here.  He is showing the disciples true worship through this woman.

The last rebuke from Jesus is when He calls her a dog.  We don’t like to read this part because it hurts us.  The Jews of the time hated dogs.  They were considered to be vile and unclean because they would eat anything as do dogs of today.  So, the Jews stayed away from dogs and they never owned dogs.  However, the ruling class had dogs.  They would have fine dogs like poodles and toy Pomeranians.  These were not like the wild dogs that roamed the streets.  If dogs could be domesticated, then these were what the royals had.  The ancient language had different words for these two kinds of dogs.  In our language a dog is a dog.  We have adjectives that go before the word dog to describe the dog.  But basically, a dog is a dog.  The ancients were a little different as they had two separate words for dog.  It is like the Eskimos have several different words for snow and we only have one, although in North Dakota we could use more than one word!  This makes translation more difficult.  Keep this in mind as we talk about this.  Jesus did not call the woman a dirty dog from the street but rather a royal dog that has and knows its master.

How often have these last two rebukes happen to us?  We like to exclude people from our groups.  If we just look at our churches, we have white churches and we have black churches.  We like to tell ourselves that all are welcome but they really are not.  Most churches do not welcome the really poor with open arms.  These kinds of churches for the poor are only in places where the poor live.  Heaven forbid if a poor person should ever infiltrate an affluent church in suburbia.

And along with this, is the tendency for us to call people who are different from us, names.  All races call people from other races names.  They are all guilty.  We are all guilty.  If you are physically different you are called a name.  Even in the church we look down on all other denominations.  I hope you get what I mean here.  We all call each other dogs of different sorts.  So, what does all of this do for us?

Let’s take good hard look at this woman.  She is a foreigner.  She is a woman.  She is not Jewish.  She knows nothing about the Jewish laws and customs.  But she has heard about Jesus.  She has heard about the wonderful things that He can do.  It is also important to notice that she doesn’t come for herself.  She screams out, “This is not about me.”  It is about her daughter who is suffering from terrible demon possession.  She cries out to Jesus to help her.  I wouldn’t doubt that she would have thrown herself before Him.  She is hurting severely because her daughter is hurting so badly.

This is worship in a very pure form.  She comes to Jesus because she needs help.  She follows the disciples and they consider her to be a pest.  She bothers them nonstop because she wants to get to Jesus.  She doesn’t know anything about Him except that He may help her out with her daughter and life.  There is something about Jesus that she knows is good.

Several years ago, Sharon and I were attending a Sunday service in the lake country.  It was just a normal service until a man burst through the doors.  He runs through the church to the altar in front and he throws himself down before God.  He is shouting all kinds of things as he does this.  This man was really troubled and he was in trouble, but he knew where to go.  He knew that Jesus was in this church and he knew that Jesus would help.  And that is just what Jesus did for this man and the woman in our reading.

This is very hard for us to remember when we are in a crisis but it is Jesus who we should first turn to for help.  It is us who should be running to the altar.  It is us who should be falling to our knees.  This woman in our story is not to be pitied, but rather she is to be copied.  You should never give up trying to get in touch with Jesus.  You should never quit praying about things.  You should never stop your worship no matter what is happening.

Even when this woman is called a royal dog, she doesn’t quit.  She knows that the royal dog is faithful, loyal and obedient to its master.  She knows that Jesus is her master even if she knows nothing about the religion.  Jesus is her master and she will keep on coming to Him, being faithful to Him and obeying Him.  She will not stop no matter what happens.  This woman is unstoppable in her worship.

This is faithfulness and worship in a very high form.  This is what Jesus wants you to see from this passage.  When you come to Jesus, just by being in the very presence of Him, you will be elevated above your problems.  Your problems may be your focal point right now but that is not what Jesus wants.  Notice that the daughter is healed after all this takes place.  After all the worship and faithfulness by the woman, the daughter is healed.  Jesus wants to be your focal point at all times and this includes the times when you are in trouble.  It includes the times when terrible things happen to you and it includes the times when great things happen to you.  This passage is about faith and worship.  This is the primitive faith and worship of a woman who is different from us.  This is what Jesus wants from you.

But we have to remember that Satan owns this world.  He is all around us and he will only tell you lies.  He will tell you to give up trying to be good because you are going to go right back and do the same sins again and again.  He says you might as well look for another career because you aren’t good enough to make in this one.  He tells you to quit college because you are not smart enough.  He tells you to leave this church because we will never get it right.  Then he tells you to leave the next church also.  He tells you to quit praying because it doesn’t do any good.  He will also tell you that you only have to pray for something once.  You might as well give it all up because Jesus doesn’t want to hear from you.

Well, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Satan only tells lies.  Jesus never wants you to give up on anything that He deems good and that furthers the Kingdom.  But you also have to remember that Jesus doesn’t just have another solution.  He isn’t just another helper.  He isn’t just another problem solver.  Jesus is the only problem solver.  He is the only helper that you will ever need.  He is the only solution to any problem.

My prayer today is that we wake up as a nation and know God.  This woman knew more about worship than most of the people in this country.  Let’s go to Jesus with anything and everything.  Let’s praise the Lord that He first loved us.  And thank you, Jesus.  Let’s pray.