Gentile Woman's Faith

Good morning.

Today's reading is from the book of Mark, chapter 7, verse 24 through 30.

Mark 7:24–30

And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre in Sidon.

And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.

But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came down and fell at his feet.

Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

And he said to her, Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

But she answered him, Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

And he said to her, For this statement you may go your way.

The demon has left your daughter.

And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

I think uh today's text needs no explanation.

Uh a woman needs a healing.

Jesus uh says, I you're a dog.

And she says, Maybe.

And then she and then her daughter gets healed.

I feel like this is self-explanatory, you guys.

We don't need to preach on this.

Um thanks for joining us this morning.

As you can tell, we've got a couple of differences.

There's construction going on on the east half of the building.

A Montessori school is getting built.

And uh there's some delays and permitting issues.

And many of you are all too familiar with these sorts of things.

They're a part of your life.

They make me never want to build anything.

Um the uh so because of that, our children are meeting in just behind us in this L-shaped garage back here.

I spent Friday afternoon hanging lights, so it looks like a cafe or something.

Um, like a Parisian cafe, the city of lights, um in there.

So that's a that's a wonderful thing.

Um but the uh uh i if you're considering it, and actually this morning I'll I'll say a quick prayer, but we want to pray for for uh completion of this project.

Um uh so that uh once it's done, then the Montessori school will be able to open, which isn't ours, but it seems good for them.

And uh likewise our children will be able to meet in those classrooms on Sunday mornings.

So there's kind of a a perk for us as well.

Um, you know, we're praying because there's something in it for us, right?

Um so that's just some some kind of news on what where we are and where where your children are.

Um I was away last week, uh, so he's not here, but I'll say it just thanks to David Rapp, who filled in.

Uh, he's uh relatively new to Colorado, but going to be planting a church in Golden Um and is part of the PCA, which is a denomination that we're aiming to join in the not too distant future.

I just need to finish seminary.

So also a lot of prayer requests this morning.

Pray for me learning Hebrew.

Turns out it's in the it's it's right to left.

So I wish they'd told me that day one.

Gotta go redo everything backwards, you know.

Turn my book upside down and over.

So uh yeah, so that's uh all in the works here uh at RCD.

So let's pray, and then we'll move into today's text.

Holy Father, thank you for bringing us together this morning.

Lord, I pray that we would be able to see this interaction between you, our Lord, and this woman whose name we don't know, and understand the dynamics of it, all that's at stake in this conversation for her personally, that we might be inspired by her and her faith.

And Lord, that we might see you and understand what it means that you are the one who has accomplished our salvation, that you have come as a fulfillment of your promise to a particular group of people, but because of that promise to this particular group, this one family, Lord, we all get to share in your salvation.

I pray that we might see the freedom of your grace.

And Father, that we might be inspired by the small faith of a woman who doesn't know hardly anything about you, and see the effectiveness of that because of you.

Lord, we pray that you might continue to be glorified in this story.

Lift that up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So, as I said, um, this is one of those passages that raises the deep theological question: did Jesus just call that woman a dog?

By a show of hands.

If you were listening this morning, I'll read it for you just to refresh your memory.

Uh says, the woman falls down at Jesus' feet, Gentile Syrophoenician.

She begs him to cast out a demon from her daughter, and he said to her, Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

Ah, gentle and lowly, he is meek in spirit.

No, that's a strange interaction, right?

This is not typical of what we expect to hear from Jesus.

So if it feels like there's something missing from our understanding of this passage, there there is, and hopefully we can fill in some of those blanks this morning.

But what I want us to see in this woman and understand her in the in the category of is she is she is in this category of these great women of faith in Scripture.

We can consider her among the woman who uh had uh a bleeding that she had experienced for 12 years and then reached out and just knew that if she just touched the fringe of Jesus' cloak, she would be healed.

And by that faith, she was healed.

Or the old woman who is poor and gives just her last two coins into the offering plate.

And because of because of that, she Jesus says she gave more than anyone else today.

Or the woman who breaks the alabaster jar and pours it out over Jesus' feet before he goes off to his crucifixion, she anoints him for his burial, and she's uh uh she's slandered because of that action, even by some of Jesus' own disciples.

And yet Jesus says this is a glorious thing that she did.

Now, this woman is counted in that same category.

In Matthew, when the story is recounted in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus exclaims, Oh woman, great is your faith.

An exclamation like that is only other uh the only other place that it's given is when the centurion, who you may remember, asks Jesus to heal his servant.

And the centurion says, You don't I'm not even worthy of you to come into my house, but I know what it's like to have people that work for me.

I have about a hundred that work for me.

You can tell by my name.

And the centurion has uh the centurion then says, uh, just just give the command and it will be done.

Your servants will go and they'll accomplish this healing.

And Jesus says, I haven't seen faith like this anywhere.

This woman here today, this woman who Jesus calls a dog in the strange interaction, she's in that category of these great people of faith.

So let's look through to see this story, because what we'll see is that the dynamic of this conversation is revealing the order that our that Christ's redemption moves into the world.

And that order is explained throughout scripture as to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

This order we see laid out throughout scripture, which is the same as the promise to Abraham.

The promise to Abraham is that through your family, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

So the promise is to Abraham's family, the promise is to the Jewish people, but the implications of that particular promise are to the whole world, such that we can share in it now.

And all of those dynamics of the particularity of that promise and of its general implications are all at play in this conversation between Jesus and this woman.

So let's begin moving through this text, and we'll start by getting just our geographical context.

Mark 7, 24.

And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon, and he entered a house and did not want anyone to know.

Yet he could not be hidden.

So this is uh the a bit of context for where we are.

In the past two weeks, um, I began, and we saw Jesus was in Capernaum and just on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, and he is uh pursued by Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem, and they came out to enter into conflict with Jesus, and they were searching and looking for ways in which they could accuse Jesus of falling outside of the law.

They weren't able to find that, but they were able to see Jesus' disciples falling outside of their own tradition, the tradition that they had developed, the tradition of their elders.

And they accused them of not washing their hands and being impure and of not honoring the traditions of the elders.

They were looking for this conflict.

So I covered that two weeks ago, David Rapp explored the implications of that as Jesus teaches about this false teaching of the Pharisees and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

So we see that Jesus in this predominantly Jewish town of Capernaum is faced by this constant conflict as people are literally leaving Jerusalem in order to oppose Jesus and his proclamation of the kingdom of God in Galilee.

So finally, apparently, Jesus says, enough is enough.

And this period is often referred to as the Jesus' retirement ministry.

Uh, not like, you know, he's finally collecting on his 401k or something.

He's uh he's retiring, he's resting.

This is a time where Jesus leaves this Jewish territory and he moves to Tyre and Sidon, and that's a gentile area.

This is north uh in north of Israel in a purely gentile area.

Tyre is a little coastal island that's also a town on the mainland, and Sidon is north of that, and it's just this gentile region.

And his expectation there is look, I've been doing ministry just in Galilee.

So I'm going to go to a Gentile area where I can finally hide out and get some rest.

Now, it's not as though Jesus was afraid of conflict.

I mean, let's consider his whole ministry is aiming towards the crucifixion.

It's aiming towards the cross.

He's bringing his ministry to a point of absolute conflict.

And it's not as though he didn't, you know, win every time he entered with the Pharisees.

They're like, you didn't wash your hands, and he exposes of them.

You don't even worship the Lord, and you use your traditions to deny the very law of God who you claim to be worshiping.

So the Pharisees walk away from that and it's like, uh, it didn't go as hot as we expected.

So it's not as though he's afraid of conflict with these people, but he understands that this is not the best use of the time.

I could be constantly just standing here at this point of conflict and just arguing back and forth all day with the Pharisees.

But that's not what I came here to do.

I have disciples that I need to get direct time in influencing and uh teaching and bringing them into understanding.

And so we need retreat in order to be able to do that.

Jesus is fully man.

He is fully a human, just like you are.

And you know how this feels, you know, to be a human?

You're all familiar.

He felt that same way.

And so he understands I need rest.

I need a time to come out from just this constant conflict, and I need to create actual space of respite.

Now, Jesus does this, and he enters a house and he says, Okay, no one will know where we are.

But then a woman does.

And uh in a classic Marken phrase, immediately she does, because he can't, he can't be hidden.

He's become too famous.

It's like the first time that David Hasselhoff went to Germany to get away.

And he realized this is where I'm really famous.

And I think he's there to this day.

That is Tyre and Sidon for Jesus.

So he arrives and uh he cannot be hidden.

So what this means, now there's an interesting thing about this already.

He's been just around Galilee preaching to Jewish people in synagogues and teaching them from their own law.

But the news of this peculiar Jewish prophet and healer is his fame is all over the region, even in the Gentile spaces.

He's already, his fame is already crossing this seemingly impermeable border between the Jews and the Gentiles.

Okay, so this woman comes and finds Jesus during this time of respite.

Mark 7, 25 to 26.

But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him, and came and fell down at his feet.

Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

So this woman hears, Jesus is, you know that Jesus who we've been hearing about?

He's in town.

I think he's actually in that house.

That house?

And so she comes and she falls down at his feet.

The language is it's falls down at his feet, it's probably generous.

It's like she falls into him, you know?

She kind of pins him down and falls down at his feet, holds him down.

So she's touching Jesus because her little daughter has an unclean spirit.

Perhaps some sort of demonic possession that her daughter's experiencing.

I don't know what the symptoms of that were.

And so she begins begging him to cast the demon out of my daughter.

She begs him.

Cast the demon out of my daughter.

In Matthew, this woman isn't just described as a Gentile, a Syrophoenician, she's called a Canaanite.

And this is a typical way for Jewish people to refer to Gentiles.

Now, a Canaanite is a way of saying she is the arch enemy of the Jewish people.

She is in the category of the arch nemesis, you know, the ultimate rival of the Jewish people would be the Canaanites.

That's why she would be labeled in that term.

And so this arch enemy of the Jewish people comes to, just upon hearing about this Jewish teacher, she comes to this Jewish teacher, falls down at his feet, and says, please, I'm begging you, cast out this demon from my child.

And it makes you wonder what else had she tried.

Many of you are parents.

When my wife and I were on vacation this past weekend, we were sleeping in a strange place, strange to my daughter.

It was an ordinary cabin.

And my two-year-old daughter was just like not sleeping.

And that is that's the worst thing that there can be.

And we were trying all these tricks, all of the stages of grief, denial, bartering, uh, anger, and I don't know what the other stages are, but we went through them.

Tiredness.

Megan and I, my wife and I tried, well, what if we just fought with each other?

Maybe maybe we weren't critical of each other's tactics in front of her enough for her to finally fall asleep.

So you try all, you try all these things.

Look, this was like two nights of difficulty sleeping.

Her daughter, who knows what this demon possession meant.

And you you've got to consider what the pattern of that was.

A couple of sleepless nights.

Uh and then finally, no, I think this isn't, uh I think this isn't, you know, just sort of I ate something strange.

Uh there seems to be something else going on here with my daughter.

And then finally, you say the words.

I think this is a demonic possession.

I think there's something demonic happening to my little girl.

And her husband is nowhere mentioned in this, which gives us reason to think that she is, she is likely a widow.

And so she comes to this realization where she finally names it, my daughter is demon-possessed.

And then what did she do to relieve herself of that before Jesus had shown up?

What did she do to relieve her daughter?

Did she go to other people in the area?

Did she go to, you know, local healers in Tyre and Sidon?

And they were unable to help her.

Did she try and perform some sort of rituals or some sort of practices or utter some prayers that were ineffective?

See, she was powerless and had only encountered people who were powerless.

This was operating in a realm in which she had no authority or ability to help her daughter.

So she gets word of this rabbi who isn't typically around here.

We just heard rumors of, and now he's in that house.

So she runs to him, falls down at his feet, and begs him to heal her daughter.

Now, Jesus was also sought out when he was in Capernaum.

When he crossed the sea and he arrives in Capernaum, says that the scribes and the Pharisees had come from Jerusalem to seek out Jesus.

Now just look, these stories are back to back in Mark's gospel.

So we have to keep them back to back in our minds.

That the last time that we saw Jesus sought out in a Jewish community where he's coming to his own people, they are seeking him out in order to accuse him, in order to find these particular small little faults of you're not following these traditions and you're undermining these things.

And you, Jesus, obviously don't know the law of God effectively enough.

These masters of the word of God, masters of the word of God, would who would put me to just such utter shame, in part because they knew it was from right to left.

It was, you know, seek out Jesus in order to accuse him.

Here, entire and Sidon, this Gentile country, this woman just hears of Jesus.

What does she know of him?

What does she know of the law?

Nothing.

But she knows I have this absolute need that I am powerless before, and perhaps, perhaps Jesus, this one, could help my daughter.

So she falls at his feet and she begs him.

How much more did she know than the Pharisees?

How much more did she know than these masters of the law?

And then we see this strange response from Jesus.

Mark seven, twenty seven.

And he said to her, Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs, falling at his feet.

Begging.

Now in Matthew, it's even stranger because we see more of the interaction.

She falls at his feet, says, heal me, and Jesus just ignores her.

He doesn't say anything and just kind of, you know, tries to like shake her off and get back with the disciples.

And then the disciples actually say, Jesus, just get rid of her.

Just get rid of this woman.

And then after that, Jesus turns to her and actually engages.

And then he says this phrase that's recorded that's recorded in Matthew, let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

This is such a strange scene, isn't it?

So let's try and unpack what is it that Jesus is saying in this metaphor about feeding children and feeding dogs.

In Matthew, Jesus also says to her, I have only come to the lost sheep of Israel.

This is Jesus' mission.

Jesus' mission was to come and proclaim the kingdom of God as the Messiah to this particular group of people.

That is the lost sheep of Israel.

He is their Messiah, the Messiah of and for the Jewish nation.

And so he is sent to them and he makes this clear to her.

So we see that when he's talking about the children, let the children be fed first.

What children means is the lost sheep of Israel.

I've came, I've come here to gather my own.

I'm taking a break because you know how kids can be.

A little pharisaical.

And I'm here in this Gentile country, but it's this is just to rest.

And then I'll be heading back to my children.

And you can see, look, it would be wildly inappropriate of anyone.

Just consider the circumstances.

Here's we're eating at the table, there's a limited amount of food, and I take the food that's for my children and I give it to the dogs.

You see how inappropriate this would be.

Paul writes, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Now that's a scripture that we we read, and I I've often read and known for a long time.

And I think I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

And I own those parts of that scripture, and then I say to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Because what does that mean to the Jew first and also to the Greek?

Why are we talking, why are we talking about this priority here?

Well, what is that scripture to the Jew first and also to the Greek?

Let's put some meat on that.

Let's put some flesh on those phrases.

What does that phrase, the gospel, the power of God for salvation, to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, what does that priority look like in a story?

It looks like this interaction.

Here Jesus comes to his children, to his people first.

Then the Greeks will get to share.

Now, what is it that the Jewish people have here?

They are the chosen people of God.

Now, was it unfair for God to choose from the nations of the world just one for his own possession?

When we've been, as we've been preaching through Genesis and we've followed this covenant trajectory of God choosing and making his promise to Abraham, when you read, and God chose among Abraham, this one man, God chose Abraham among all the nations of the world, and he chose this one man, and you read it, and God says, God says, I will bless you and I will multiply you, and those who bless you, I will bless, and those who curse you, I will curse.

Did it ever cross your mind this isn't fair?

No, you just read it and you hear the wonder, the glory that God chose this one man gloriously to call his own, and this one people to call his son, his precious people, that they could say things like, He is my God.

He is my God.

God could say, They are my people.

See, how else do you get that particularity?

You know, if you're adopting someone, it's it means that you are bringing them into a relationship which by its very nature others cannot participate in.

When you adopt a child, you're at the same time not you're you're not adopting far more children than you are adopting.

And then you're saying to this one child, I will treat you as my child.

Not I will treat all children I ever encounter as my child.

That's neglect, is what that becomes.

But you're saying, I am bringing you into this closeness, this absolute relationship.

This is my promise to you.

And that's what God does for the nation of Israel.

He says, I will be your God, you will be my people.

But that is who the promise is given to, but that is not just what the promise is for.

Because the promise to this particular group of people is always and from the very beginning for the whole world.

It's in Genesis 12 that first time that Abraham is called, where God promises to Abraham, in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

That means God says, In you, Abraham, not your nephew Lot, he's gonna come with you, and they're gonna be, you know, you guys will hang sometimes, and then you'll bail him out a couple of times.

But I'm not choosing him.

I'm choosing you, and in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

You see, the particularity of the promise to Abraham is the very means, it is the mechanism by which God blesses the whole world.

And so you cannot have this general blessing without having also this particular blessing.

You have to enter into this order of God's salvation.

And the order of God's salvation is that he chose from among the nations of the world one by which he would bring salvation to the whole world, and we might be able to participate in that.

This ordering of salvation, this order of redemption is like the order of a dinner table.

The children eat before the dogs because children are in this unique familial relationship, and then the dogs eat.

And so this woman comes to Jesus and begs him and says, Look, I have concerns with my child.

Please heal my child.

And Jesus, in response, says, I have concerns with children of my own.

Children that I have rescued and been with for generations, and it's seen it go astray and then bring them back.

And I have I have given a promise to these children.

I've given a promise to these children, and now I am here, just as I promised I would be.

And when I go to them, yes, they are rejecting me.

And so here I am in some Gentile country to get a breather with my disciples.

But you understand, I cannot neglect the position that I have, that I have made as a promise to these, my children.

So she says, I have concerns with my child.

Jesus says, I have concerns with children of my own.

But once again, this dynamic is not so simple as God helps the Jewish people, and then he neglects the Gentiles, because throughout Scripture, we see that this blessing of the Jews is always seems to be overflowing into the Gentile areas around.

In fact, it matters that we're in this region of Tyre and Sidon.

Because in this region of Tyre and Sidon, it's always not it's always been a Gentile region.

So in 1 Kings 17, Elijah tells the king of Israel, there's not gonna be rain for three years.

And the king of Israel says, I would like to kill you now.

And Elijah says, I think I'm gonna go take a break in some Gentile areas.

And so he goes up to Tyre and Sidon.

It's very similar to this.

Jesus, King Herod.

You know, at this point, just a couple of chapters earlier, we learned that King Herod thinks that Jesus is John the Baptist reincarnated.

And so he's gonna have to double jeopardy John the Baptist by killing him twice.

And Jesus, there's a sense of this, which is a it is a flight for his life up to Tyre and Sidon.

So in the same region, Elijah is met by a widow whose son becomes sick and dies.

And she comes to this Jewish prophet and says, Would you come please and heal my son?

So Elijah goes in, lays down on top of her son, and prays, and it doesn't work because we're not all Jesus.

Sometimes it takes a couple of tries, and then he lays down on top of it again, prays, and the sun, the sun revives, and she gets her son back because this Jewish prophet was there.

Now here's what Jesus says about that interaction in Luke 4, 25 to 27.

He says, But in truth I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land.

And Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon.

That's where Jesus is in our story, to a woman who was a widow.

It continues on, Jesus gives another example.

And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha.

None of them was cleansed, but only Naaman, the Syrian.

Now there's a way of understanding those things.

And I think this is what Jesus is prodding us to see.

There's a way of understanding those rescues, you know, the widow, the Gentile widow whose son is revived by Elijah.

Is this just an exception to the rule that it's to the Jew first and also to the Greek?

No, this is the very pattern of redemption.

They are participating not just in who the promise is to, but who the promise is for.

Do you see that these are nested together?

But the way that these take place is in a very, it's a very strange way that these things take place.

Because just as in the story with Elijah, Elijah is rejected in Israel.

And because of that rejection, this Gentile woman receives a rescue.

Jesus is rejected by the scribes and Pharisees and moves to Tyre and Sidon.

And so we could say, because of that rejection, this Gentile woman participates in this rescue.

You see, this is a very strange way that God accomplishes his order of salvation.

So there are these two things that we need to kind of hold together in our minds in understanding the way that our redemption is accomplished.

One is the promise that God made to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to this nation and this family is a real promise to them.

It is to them first.

And this real promise to them is for us.

For us who are not in that family.

But in order to receive the blessing of that promise, we have to recognize this rest in God's absolute, final, and particular choice.

We have to rest in that.

Look at how this woman does that.

Mark 7, 28, but she answered him, Yes, Lord.

Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

How many responses could she have given?

Should I give my children?

Should I give food to the dogs before I feed my own children?

Dogs?

That's what you're calling my daughter?

Have you seen her?

She's not a dog.

You know, she's has a wonderful singing voice, and she mimics whatever her older brother says.

She could have said that.

Dogs, of course.

You see a Canaanite like me.

You Jews are all the same.

It's going to be like this forever, isn't it?

You're just like everyone else, powerless.

No, she says, yes, Lord.

Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

I understand that there's an order.

I understand that the king of the world is the king of the Jews.

I understand that this is a particular person who I must come to and submit to.

But I understand that that particular person has grace enough for me.

I know that perhaps in this makeup, maybe I'm just a dog, but I know that there is enough for me here.

This is a picture of understanding of how we participate in and receive the grace of God.

The grace of God is not something which we receive once we order ourselves properly.

And then, as though we have our own gravitational pool, we draw it towards ourselves.

The grace of God is something which flows freely from Him.

And she understands this order.

That the grace of God is something which always and only flows from Him.

It is not drawn out by us.

How easily she could have said, Yes, but look at how you've been treated by your own people.

Sounds intense out there.

Look at how you've been treated by your own people.

And look at how I am appealing to you, just humbly.

I'm treating you like you really are the Lord.

No, she says none of that.

Because she understands that the grace flows freely from God, not because of any desert, deservedness on her own part.

It flows freely from Him.

Now, when we get when we get practical and understanding what does this mean?

That the grace of God flows freely from Him alone and completely.

Means that we would expect He did the choosing.

And what is our hope of receiving it?

It is that He gives it.

And so she positions herself not as somebody who deserves the grace of the Lord, but instead she says, the Lord must be good enough.

There must be enough, even for someone like me.

And he said to her, For this statement you may go your way.

The demon has left your daughter.

And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

For this statement.

Yes, Lord.

But even the dogs get the crumbs from the children's table.

Jesus.

You know, Jesus knows what he's doing, right?

That's one of the conceits throughout the gospels.

Jesus knows what he's doing.

And he understands that he's creating a moment here.

She comes and begs, and he says, Look, I'm going to I'm going to see, would she enter into the pattern of redemption as it really is?

And so he lays out this pattern of redemption.

Which says, There is rescue for you, but there is only rescue for you in the king of the Jews.

Which means whatever your kingdom is before this, you have to step into this kingdom.

It's particular.

It is to them, but it is for you.

And if you see that it is to them, then you can receive it as for you.

And so he lays this out, this pattern out.

And she says, Uh, you will be my king.

You will be the one.

I I will I will play whatever role I need to play in your world.

In Matthew, he says, Oh woman, great is your faith.

Oh woman, great is your faith.

Now, this one who is most cast out, most an enemy, most helpless before the Lord is called.

Great in the kingdom of heaven.

This is the strange inversion of the way that God works his redemption in the world.

Because it is one that is freely flowing from him, not that we draw out of him.

So what do we say when we experience a salvation that is so freely from the Lord, so purely from the Lord, our only response can be one of absolute gratitude, of thanksgiving to God.

It's a hard thing to try and grasp this strange relationship between Jews and Gentiles throughout redemptive history.

And it comes to kind of a into sharp focus in a story like this where it's one-on-one, you know, it's Jesus and this one woman.

And we can feel how prickly and strange this dynamic of redemption is.

But what we see is that Jesus brings all of this dynamic into his own story.

In Jesus' own story, he captures the whole dynamic of this dividing line between Jew and Gentile throughout redemptive history.

Because Christ is the fulfillment of the promise to the Jewish people.

He is the fulfillment of the promise of the Messiah and Savior, the one who will reconcile to himself all things.

He is the true Israelite.

But when he finally arrives, he is rejected.

He is rejected by his own, most completely rejected by his own.

Cast outside the city like a dog and killed like a Gentile.

But in this rejection, not just who the promises to, but who the promise is for is fulfilled.

That in Christ's rejection we are all brought in through this one door into the kingdom of God, which is Christ.

That this particular promise to this particular group of people, and what's more particular than one man becomes the doorway for all to come to God by his grace alone.

So that the cornerstone that the builders rejected, excuse me, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

That in the rejection by the Jewish people, we are all brought in.

That they were cut off so that us Gentiles can be grafted in.

And they too can be grafted in as well.

How did God work this salvation?

Paul says it like this He He worked it, he chose this group of people that by, that through them salvation would come to the whole world, and then He bound us all up in sin.

Jews and Greeks were all bound up in sin, so that he might have grace for us all.

So now there is no distinction in Christ.

There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for Christ is all and in all.

He is the doorway.

How is it that God could choose one nation and make his decision for them really matter?

Call them actually his children, and that not be foolish words, but words like the way God uses them, where they are real, and then by them make us all his children.

But what if he were rejected by them?

And then we all rejected him.

And then our pathway is grace alone.

And so then we are saved by faith.

We are not saved by works.

We are not saved by nationality.

We are not saved by genealogy.

All of us, our only hope is to be saved by grace.

And this woman understood that.

Said, My only hope here, no matter what I am, is that there would be grace enough for me.

And Jesus shows, there is grace enough for you.

By his rejection, we are all brought in.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.

It is a wild dynamic, isn't it?

Okay.

Before I run off into my own thoughts, are there any questions?

Why did Mark omit Jesus' comment about her faith?

But in Matthew, he kept the comment.

Probably more than likely, Matthew added the comment.

Mark seems to uh have been a source text for Matthew, and then Matthew would have would have added the comment about the faith being great.

And just a just a bit on the the different ways than the different ways that they wrote, Mark is like almost completely nonverbal.

He's just action-oriented.

And Mark is also Peter's gospel.

And so he would have written the uh this gospel based on Peter's recollections.

And if you read about Peter in the gospel accounts, you'll see that he is very action-oriented as well.

And oftentimes gets ahead of himself because of that.

So I think I think these are these are personality differences and also order order an order of writing.

So Mark would have written this first, didn't consider that detail as important, or perhaps would have thought, ah, it's self-evident, people will get it.

Uh because what Mark does include is she went home and saw that the uh demon was cast out.

And Matthew doesn't include that trip home.

So you can just see it in kind of the action-orientedness of this.

Matthew is more theologically minded and thinking, okay, we're going to need to the bottom line here is that Jesus says her faith is great.

Peter seems to be more action-oriented.

And he's like, bottom line is if the demons cast out or not.

You know, so he bottomlines it like that.

That's the way I would understand it.

Okay.

Let's take communion.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.

That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

The relationship between the Jews and the Gentiles, those who are chosen and those who were not chosen, throughout redemptive history and the narrative of Scripture, I I I could I can barely wrap my mind around these things.

They put all sorts of strange pressure pressure points on my interpretation and understanding of Scripture.

But this story culminates in a new covenant in which Christ is cast out into death.

The one true Son of God is cast out into death, so that we all, Jew or Greek, might be never cast out, but brought in.

There is no group of people who deserved to be chosen.

And the ones who were chosen prove over and over again that it was not because they deserved it.

And God says explicitly to them, it's not because you were the greatest among the nations, you were you were the least.

When he called them, they were no nation.

We ourselves, why are why could any of us consider ourselves to be chosen by Jesus?

And yet we know that we are, as we trust in him.

Consider as you come to this table this morning, you aren't just getting crumbs.

But he's prepared a feast for us by his grace.

We who are not chosen and don't deserve to be chosen, his grace overflows and pours out to.

That while we didn't love you, you loved us, that God demonstrates his own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

For a good man, one might die.

But we were not.

Which means that our rescue hinges completely on the overflowing, incomprehensible, abounding grace and love that you have toward us.

Lord, teach our hearts to rest completely in that and trust in you alone for our salvation.

Nothing in my hands I bring.

Lord, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.