WEEK 03 || REST AND IDENTITY IN JESUS - What Rest Is For || Matt 15:21–28 & Isaiah 56:1, 6–8

Kia ora and welcome to the St Francis Church

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us. Our prayer is that as you listen, you would

encounter God's presence. Be refreshed in your

faith and equipped for everyday life with Jesus.

As a church, we are learning to faithfully follow

Jesus by practicing His way at His pace. For

more info about who we are and what God is doing

among us, head to stfrancis .co .nz. Grace and

peace. Morning everybody. So today, as Gwen has

read out, we hear in Matthew's Gospel that Jesus

left Gennesaret, so that's a bit small here,

but there's the Sea of Galilee at the bottom.

Gnessaret is on the Lake of Galilee, and he left

to go northwest. And he went to the area of Tyre

and Sidon in modern day Lebanon, which is about

an hour's, sorry, a day's walk away. So up to

that time, Jesus had concentrated his mission

on what's modern day Israel, and now he shifts

to a very different territory where Gentiles

live, non -Jews live, called Canaanites. And

these Canaanites were viewed with great suspicion

and disdain by the Jewish people looked down

upon. And what happened in Canaan that day marked

a significant shift in Jesus' ministry. Because

what Jesus did was effectively to challenge one

of the most deep rooted human characteristics

and that is tribalism. So that's the belief that

one's own country or race or culture or society,

or politics, or religion, are better than anybody

else's. We are the best. And the psychological

drive for this is the innate need for support,

safety, and community. But as we know, tribalism

can lead to closed -mindedness, an us -versus

-them mentality, injustice, discrimination written

large in South Africa to the law, conflict as

we see in the Middle East. And the way Jesus

dealt with tribalism of his own people provides

a lesson for us all I think. So now I enter this

Canaanite woman. So what did she say? Well her

loud voice certainly made her presence felt.

But curiously for a Gentile woman living outside

Israel she respectfully calls Jesus Lord son

of David. She asked Jesus to have mercy on her

with this heartfelt plea for her daughter who's

tormented by a demon. And in those days by a

demon could mean deafness, blindness, some other

problem within the child. Like one of my grandchildren

has eyesight and deaf problems, deafness problems.

Similarly could have been seen to be possessed

by a demon. So objectively, how could Jesus resist

this call? Jesus who had preached kindness, love,

especially for children, how could he possibly

resist this call from this woman? But Jesus knew

that one thing stood in the way of a positive

reception, and that was the tribalism of his

own people. The Jewish people saw themselves

as the chosen race. Everybody else was inferior.

What does Jesus do? He doesn't get on a soapbox

and preach at his disciples. What he does is

gently lead them through four steps to a better

realization of where the truth should lie. First

step, Jesus simply stays silent. Says not a word.

And in the silence, he allows space for his disciples

to play out their tribalism. Send her away, she's

a lesser being, send her away. for she keeps

shouting at us. Jesus' response is not to send

her away, not explicitly reject her plea, but

neither does he scold or correct his disciples

openly. Second step. Jesus presents to the woman

his formal commitment to his own people. I was

sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,

like a lawyer sticking to the letter of the law.

Again, he doesn't explicitly reject her plea.

And she is then prompted to reinforce her respect

for Jesus and her humility before him. She comes

and kneels before him, repeating, Lord help me.

Third step. Jesus uses a rather playful image

and teasingly says to the woman that it's not

fair to take the children's food, the Jewish

people's food, and throw it to the little dogs,

Canaanites. Again the woman is prompted to show

her courage and her humility and she says, yes

Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall

from the master's table. So what did Jesus do?

He allowed the beauty of this woman's humanity,

humility, personality to be on full display to

his disciples. How could they then resist her?

So Jesus could then comfortably take the fourth

step. Woman, great is your faith. Let it be done

for you as you wish. And the daughter was healed

from that moment. This is the great breakthrough

that Jesus had led his disciples gently towards.

That Jesus' loving, healing mission is to reach

out to all people. And remember that Matthew's

Gospel ends with the direction of Jesus. Go therefore

and make disciples of all nations. Just last

week in court I was shown in a very small way

a path beyond my own tribalism, my own comfort

zone. I had to hear a case where a school principal

asked for a restraining order against a man who

posted a series of videos on social media about

the principal. So in preparation for the hearing,

I watched the videos. I heard the man shouting

abuse in a very strange voice about the school

principal. So my immediate reaction from my English

culture, which stresses quiet and civility and

being polite to people, was to react against

the way this person was operating. So we came

to the court hearing. As a judge, I have to listen

in silence, like Jesus did. What emerged then

that the man as a boy had been subjected to bullying

when he was a child at school because of a speech

defect? It also emerged that the man's son who

had a close relationship with his father had

recently had a really scary experience by being

apparently bullied at the hands of another boy.

The principal had investigated the matter, had

prepared a letter of apology, But by mistake,

this was never sent to the man. So what did the

man think? He thought that his child had been

bullied as he had, touched a very vulnerable

spot, and that the principal had then ignored

it, condoned it possibly. So this man's cry like

that Canaanite woman was a cry for help, reaching

deep down in the personality. And in court last

week, I felt Christ's mercy flowing beyond my

own tribalism, my own prejudice.