The Second Sunday of Lent
Matt. 15:21-28
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I.
Today’s reading from Matthew for the Second Sunday of Lent is brief enough that I will read it to you now. Also, I realize that in preaching from the traditional lectionary, many of you will not be hearing these same readings if you are attending a church that is using the Revised Common Lectionary.
Matthew 15:21-28:
21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 And he answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
The story describes a request from a Canaanite mother to Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter. It is saying that the woman’s faith is the key to her request being granted.
This story comes 21 verses into Matthew 15. We need to know what the first 20 verses are about in order to place Jesus’ harsh words to the Canaanite woman in context.
Jesus is in an ongoing struggle with the Pharisees for the heart of Judaism. In Matthew 15:1-9, Jesus condemns the “tradition of the elders” by which He is likely referring to the oral tradition, or Oral Torah, which was later written down, becoming what today we call the Talmud. The Talmud is the authoritative text of Rabbinic Judaism.
Jesus condemns this oral tradition in no uncertain terms. To this day, Rabbinic Judaism teaches that the Oral Torah was verbally communicated by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai alongside the written Torah, but Jesus says that is not true.
He says in Matthew 15:6,
“So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God.”
Jesus is even more specific about the lack of divine inspiration for the Oral Torah in verse 9:
“In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.”
Incidentally, Adin Steinsaltz, a legendary rabbi who died in 2020 after spending over 50 years translating the Talmud for modern readers, corroborated Jesus’ words saying:
“The Bible is the record of when God talks to Man. The Talmud, though, is Man talking to God.”1
Thus, even a famous modern-day rabbi can admit that the Talmud is the work of men, and whatever authority it has is based on human inspiration, not divine.
One of those precepts of men, at least according to the New Testament, was the supposed ethnic advantage gained by the blood descendants of Abraham when it came to currying favor with God.
John the Baptist, whose mission Jesus took over and fulfilled, had this to say about that blood precept. Addressing the Pharisees and Sadducees, John said:
Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”
Addressing the Jewish followers of Jesus in Rome, Paul acknowledges the reality of this blood bond, referring to Abraham in Romans 4:1, as “our forefather according to the flesh,” but he quickly disavows any merit in this precept of men, adding that it was Abraham’s faith in God that God counted to him as righteousness, making Abraham “the father of all who believe.”2
II.
The story of Jesus healing the Canaanite woman’s daughter is an illustration of this saving faith. By rights, this makes the Canaanite woman a daughter of Abraham. She is a believer. So, let’s take a closer look at her faith.
Verse 1 tells us that Jesus has decamped to Tyre and Sidon, which is Gentile territory. He is not in Jewish lands anymore. The pagan woman begs Jesus to heal her daughter. At first, He ignores her (but also ignores His disciple’s request to send her away) and then says,
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
In placing this story here, after recording Jesus’ condemnation of the Jewish oral tradition, Matthew is using this account of a miraculous healing once again to discredit the Pharisees.
Keep in mind, all of the gospel writers and Jesus Himself are Jewish. When we read the New Testament, we are reading the story of several competing Judiasms, each vying for the right to be called Abraham’s offspring and the children of God.
Matthew and the rest of the New Testament authors argue that only one of these competing Judiaisms is authentic, the one Paul calls in Galatians 6:16, “the Israel of God.”
The “Israel of God” are all the children of God, who, through faith in Jesus Christ, become the offspring and heirs of Abraham.3
Now, why would Jesus travel to Gentile country, only to say He wasn’t sent to them in the first place after a Gentile woman, understandably (because of all she has heard about Him), begs for His help?
Clearly, Jesus knew where He was and what He was doing.
Jesus traveled to a Gentile city because He wanted to confront the Gentile mind. In doing so, He is pitting the Gentile mind against the Jewish mind, the former as a foil to the latter. But here is the thing: both minds are depraved.
(You can learn more about the depraved mind in last week’s sermon.)
The Gentile mind suppresses its innate knowledge of God. By contrast, the Jewish mind is schooled from infancy in the knowledge of God. This is why Paul can say in Galatians 2:15 that he along with Peter, “are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners.”
Even Jesus acknowledges this Jewish superiority, both in knowledge of God and in holiness, when He says in Matthew 15:26 that:
“It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
Who are the children here? The children of God.
Who are the dogs? The pagans, the heathen, including this Canaanite woman, and her demon-possessed daughter.
But this Canaanite woman shares something with Abraham that many of the Pharisees do not.
This woman has faith that Jesus can heal her daughter.
III.
Let’s continue to look at this woman’s faith.
“And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.’”
First, she begs for mercy. She is aware of her sinful condition. She does not dissemble or cloak it.
Second, she acknowledges Jesus as Lord.
Third, her faith is messianic. She uses the messianic title, “Son of David.”
Fourth, she asks Jesus to help her with a particular situation in her life that she cannot deal with herself.
This woman is already born again. She no longer possessed a depraved mind. It has been regenerated.
The Holy Spirit is at work in her, as Paul tells us it must be in 1 Cor. 12:3, because:
“No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
Yet, Jesus rebuffs her. He refuses, initially, to make any contact with her. His disciples, steeped in the precepts of men, ask Jesus to send this woman away because she is crying too much and that is grating. Besides, she is a Gentile. They probably don’t want to be in Tyre and Sidon all that much in the first place.
Jesus confirms them in their Jewish prejudice saying:
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
The woman now assumes a posture of humility, and kneeling, again calls Him “Lord” and pleas:
“Lord, help me.”
Jesus responds coldly:
“It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
To which the woman finally replies:
“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
The woman does what no depraved mind, Jewish or Gentile, will ever do. She acknowledges that without God she is no better than a dog.
The Gentile mind cannot do that, and the Jewish mind is too busy acknowledging that the Gentiles are, in fact dogs, to acknowledge its own morbidity.
Jesus addressed this peculiar blindness of the Jewish mind (which He calls hypocrisy) in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7:3, asking:
“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”
Both the Gentile mind and the Jewish mind are dead. Why do I say that? Am I being harsh?
See for yourself.
To the Jewish mind Jesus says in Matthew 8:22 to a would-be disciple:
“Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”
Paul describes the Gentile mind in Colossians 2:13 writing:
“You, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh.”
But the mind of this Canaanite woman is not dead. It is alive. How can we tell? Because she has knowledge, both that Jesus is Lord, and of her former condition — that she was no better off than a dog.
However, quoting from Colossians 3:9-10, we can tell that her mind was:
“…being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”
It is her renewed mind that is able to perceive Jesus for who He is, as Lord and Messiah, and it is her renewed mind that is effective in interceding for her daughter.
Think about that for a moment. It is only the mind that has been renewed, regenerated, born again that is able to intercede — to pray is really the word we are looking for — effectively and on behalf of others.
Jesus says:
“‘O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.”
This means that prayer is so much more than “thinking good thoughts,” or “positive vibes,” or, worst of all, “energy.”
Good thoughts and positive vibes had done nothing for this woman’s daughter.
Coming into close contact with God did.
By now, I hope that I’ve made the frame of this story clear. Despite Jesus’ initial rebuff of the Canaanite woman, it is Jesus that has gone to Gentile lands to confront the Gentile mind in order to establish contact with it and to redeem it.
Matthew also means this frame as a damning (and sad) comment on at least one version of the Jewish mind, the mind cultivated by the Pharisees.
IV.
Jesus makes contact with the depraved mind, both Gentile and Jewish, through particulars.
In this case, we read about a particular Canaanite woman, with a particularly sick daughter.
This is why an appeal to universal truths such as beauty, truth, and love, seldom convince anyone of anything.
If I tell you that “God is love” (which is true, by the way, see 1 John 4:8) you are likely to reply, “That’s nice,” and go about your day.
But if tell you (as the Canaanite woman surely did later tell her friends and family) that “Jesus loved me so much that He healed my daughter,” now that is particular enough for you to start paying attention.
What specific acts of love might God have in mind for you and your family?
May you decide that it is worth putting your faith in Him to find out.
Paul writes in Romans 8:28,
“We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.”
By contrast, the Pharisees put their faith in an abstraction, the “tradition of the elders,” which, when they tried to particularize that abstract body of oral laws, Jesus tells us in Matthew 23:4, that those particulars became:
“…heavy burdens, hard to bear, and [they] lay them on men’s shoulders.”
In contrast to the Pharisees’ precepts, Jesus says:
“My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”4
That is because each yoke is particular to the disciple who wears it.
Christ comes to us in the particulars of our lives, and often confronts us in the very sins that have destroyed them, and the lives of those around us.
After all, it is the particular sins we commit that the Holy Spirit will use to convict us, so that we see ourselves as no better than dogs, in need of mercy and of God’s help.
V.
I can think of three objections that the Canaanite woman, if she were still possessed of her depraved Gentile mind, might have made to Jesus calling her a dog.
First, she might have objected that she was not so far gone as to be called a dog, but merely lacking in one more gifts from God:
“Look, Lord, I admit I’ve made some mistakes, but you and I are really not so different. After all, you are a man, and I am a woman. We are both human beings. However, God has clearly given you many more gifts than He has given me. All I am asking is for you to make up for what I lack and, in fact, for what I was never given in the first place. You’ve had such advantages being born both a man and a Jew — advantages that us Gentile women have never had.”
In this way, her request to Jesus becomes one of asking Him to give her something she has been deprived of, through no fault of her own, by virtue of her birth as a woman and a pagan. Something, in fact, that justice now tells her she is owed.
Second, she might have objected that it was unreasonable to call her a dog when she is no such thing:
“…though I think I understand what you’re getting at, Jesus. You are trying to say that I’ve behaved foolishly, like a dog who won’t eat the food his master gives him. I see it now, Lord. I’ve been so ungrateful. Every day you set a table before me, and I never noticed. Or, when I did, and ate and had my fill, I never thought to thank you. But I’m thanking you now, Lord. Especially since now I need your help.”
In this way, her request to Jesus is her way of finally accepting the free gift of God’s grace that’s been hers for the taking all this time, she just never bothered. After all, things had been going just fine until her daughter started acting weird.
Now she understands. It’s all up to her to take the initiative. She just needs to have a little faith. God has done all He’s going to do. After all, He would never think of forcing or coercing her into accepting His love.
Finally, she might have objected that if, in fact, she is no better than a dog, then what was God’s reason for making her in the first place? After all, there’s nothing you can do for a mad dog. You just need to put it down.
“A dog, Lord? Is that how you see me? Need I remind you that you made me this way? If I’m a dog, then whose fault is that? Us Gentiles have been kicked around for centuries by your so-called chosen people. Us Canaanites remember what Joshua and the armies of the LORD did to our people when they invaded the so-called Promised Land. It was our land first, you know.”
In this way, her request to Jesus would deny all possibility of contact between God and her Gentile mind. This is a mind that has died and is beyond resuscitation. Not even the Author of Life could bring it back from the dead.
Each of these objections, had the woman made them, not only would have shown the lack of faith, but also the lack of knowledge that are inherent in the Gentile mind.
Sadly, these are objections that many of us who are Christian still make. Maybe you even found yourself making them as you listened to this woman’s story.
The first objection mistakenly sees the Gentile mind as fundamentally sound, but simply at a deficit. These are the famous dwellers of Plato’s Cave. All they need from a savior is for that savior to loose their chains and point them in the right direction.
What they don’t understand is that their minds are only capable of understanding shadows. They would not even see the real things.
The second objection mistakenly sees the Gentile mind as sovereign, capable of making free choices that will determine the ultimate outcome of things.
Such minds do not know that “in everything God works for good” because the god of the Gentiles is happy to leave their fate in their own hands so that they can choose their own good (or evil, as the case may be).
This Gentile god’s offer to loose our chains and point us to the light will stand until the end of time, but when it comes to saving those who actually need saving — those who love and prefer the shadows — this Gentile god is weak and powerless to help them.
In fact, he is cruel, because even though he sees the chaff marks and the bleeding from their irons, he will never break them open. If they love the shadows, then who is this Gentile god to judge?
Instead, this god of the Gentile mind can only taunt his cave-dwelling devotees with the shadow play of a failed savior, hanging on a cross, who can do nothing for them.
The third objection mistakenly sees the Gentile mind as irredeemable, because in its depravity it has lost touch with God. What this objection fails to understand is that God the Creator can never lose contact with any of His creatures, even those who have died, even those who are in hell.
(This does not mean that those who are in hell can been saved. There is no hope for them. Part of their punishment is that they know God still knows them and all they want is to be forgotten.)
This is what it means to be a creature. A creature’s entire existence is determined by his Creator, in the same way a dog’s life is determined by his master.
Such a God can save such a creature as a dog when it is His pleasure to do so. Such a God is:
“Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.”5
This was the nature of the Canaanite woman’s faith: confidence that from the beginning it was God’s pleasure to know her and to heal her daughter.
There is an important lesson for us to learn from this encounter between Jesus and the Canaanite woman when it comes to proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
This encounter tells us that we must not dumb down that proclamation or reduce it to something more palatable.
Jesus is silent when the Gentile mind tries to address Him in its own right. When He does speak, He speaks as one speaks to a dog, because that is the correct estimation of the Gentile’s state of mind.
But the Gentile mind, and, for that matter, the Jewish mind, is not without hope. The Holy Spirit which made them both, can renew them both.
The sign of that renewal, the evidence that it has taken place, is when a person finally calls Jesus Lord, begs for His mercy, and acknowledges the depravity from which Christ has saved him. Amen.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
1. ____________ is key to the Canaanite woman’s request being granted.
2. Jesus is in an ongoing struggle with the Pharisees for the heart of ____________.
3. Explain why Jesus condemns the “traditions of the elders.”
4. Faith makes the Canaanite woman a daughter of ____________.
5. All of the gospel writers and Jesus Himself were ____________.
6. The New Testament is the story of several competing Judiasms, each vying for the right to be called Abraham’s ____________ and the children of ____________.
7. Give evidence that the Canaanite woman is born again and that her mind has been regenerated.
8. Both the Gentile mind and the Jewish mind are ____________.
9. Jesus has gone to Gentile lands to confront the Gentile mind in order to establish ____________ with it.
10. Jesus makes contact with the depraved mind, both Gentile and Jewish, through ____________.
11. The three objections the Canaanite woman might have made to being called a dog are that her Gentile mind was (1) fundamentally ____________, (2) ____________, or (3) ____________.
12. God the Creator can never lose contact with any of His ____________.
Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Do one or both of the following: 1) Count how many times the word mind is mentioned. 2) Discuss with your parents why communication is sometimes difficult. Have you ever tried and tried and just not been able to get someone to understand you?
(1) Faith; (2) Judaism; (3) because they are the precepts of men and lack divine inspiration and authority; (4) Abraham; (5) Jewish; (6) offspring/God; (7) she begs for mercy, she acknowledges that Jesus is Lord, she knows Jesus is the Messiah; (8) dead; (9) contact; (10) particulars; (11) sound/sovereign/irredeemable; (12) creatures
Bibliographic Note
This sermon’s title subhead is a quote from Cornelius Van Til in Cornelius Van Til, and K. Scott Oliphint, 2008, The Defense of the Faith, Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Pub, p. 114.
The hypothetical objections of the Canaanite woman in Part V draw on Chapter 6, “Christian Apologetics: The Point of Contact,” pp. 90-117 and correspond to the three “deformations” of Christianity identified by Van Til. Objection 1 corresponds to Roman Catholicism (pp. 92-101), Objection 2 to Evangelicalism (pp. 101-103), and Objection 3 to what Van Til calls “Less Consistent Calvinism” (pp. 103-112). Throughout this sermon I have tried to expound what Van Til calls “The Reformed Position” (pp. 113ff).
Emily Langer, 2020, “Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, Who Brought the Talmud within Reach of Millions, Dies at 83,” Washington Post, August 24, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/rabbi-adin-steinsaltz-who-brought-the-talmud-within-reach-of-millions-dies-at-83/2020/08/12/4e7756de-db01-11ea-8051-d5f887d73381_story.html.
See: Gal. 6:16; Gal 3:26, 29.
The Gentile Mind