Border collies are always moving. They are full of energy and about as smart as your average 4-year old child. Once, I caught Mac, our border collie, playing ball with an Australian Shepherd that had gotten loose in the neighborhood. Mac took the ball and threw it at the Shepherd. Then the Shepherd caught the ball and threw it back to Mac. Back and forth, they threw the ball at each other.
Eventually Mac died and we had a little Shih Tzu our son named Brownie, after the legendary little Scottish critter that lives in homes and tears up things if he gets bored. And after Ian went to college and passed Brownie onto Jessie, and after Jessie moved to Alaska and tried to pass Brownie onto Andy – Andy said, “Not MY dog!”, Brownie became Saundra and my dog.
She was good to have around, for she let us know when ever a car arrived in the parking lot. She liked to watch television between the two of us. And if anything fell on the floor – scraps of food, crumbs, etc. – she quickly cleaned it up.
In ancient times, particularly in Israel, dogs were not given the same level of respect and love that they are in modern America. They were not considered companions; they were not considered “man’s best friend”, for breeders and trainers had not developed the specialized hunting and working and pet breeds that we have today, which primarily developed in the last 200 years.
Instead, dogs were considered to be dirty, slinking critters, much the way we think of jackals, or, for those who know them well, as coyotes – mostly wild, ready to take down a valuable animal like a sheep or a goat. They lived mostly outside of human society. When they were kept in a household, they were used by farmers as guards. A few were used to protect the sheep. It needs to be recognized that in ancient Israel, the high population density meant that few people went hunting – and those who hunted were mainly very wealthy. Only those wealthy could afford a luxury like a pet animal – the average family had one or two farm dogs as guards and to sound the alarm. Yet wild dog packs were common and dangerous to livestock. Even today, it is estimated that three-quarters of the dogs around the world are wild, living in the woods or on the streets of cities, avoiding people except for to eat scraps of food or mice or rats attracted by the garbage of people.
One day, after the adventure of Jesus and Peter walking upon the water, Jesus and the disciples were in Galilee, healing people on the northwest side of the lake, when a group of Pharisees and teachers of the law came from Jerusalem to hassle Jesus. Now, the Pharisees were a group in ancient Israel that were very focused upon interpreting the Law Moses had brought from God when Moses had rescued the people of God from Pharaoh and given them the righteousness that comes from following God and God’s rules rather than a man’s rules. The leader of the Pharisees, rabbi’s, or “teachers”, would spend endless hours debating all the gray situations when various parts of the law conflicted, and interpreting questions around the edges of the Law, for then, as it is today, people would often like to see how close to the edge of the Law they could skate and still not break the Law.
For example, in one interpretation, the Law said that no one in the household should work on the Sabbath, which began at sunset on Friday and ran until sunset on Saturday. Clearly, going to the well and carrying back a forty-pound jug of water from deep in the well was women’s work – that was not in dispute at the time. But what if you needed water on Saturday afternoon? Women were not allowed to work! So the ruling from the Pharisees was that it was okay for men to get the water, since this was not men’s work.
In another interpretation from the time, the Law said to “honor your father and mother.” This generally meant that your money and goods needed to be used to support your parents in their old age. But some smart Pharisee who didn’t want to support his parents figured out a way around it. He declared his money as “corban”, meaning “devoted to God”, and thus it was off-limits to his parents.
Eventually, most of these arguments were written down in twenty-five huge volumes known as the Talmud, and this is the basis for much Orthodox Jewish education today, since the Pharisees represent the largest surviving Jewish group today.
On this particular day, the Pharisees and rabbis asked Jesus “Why don’t your disciples wash their hands before they eat?” for this was a Jewish tradition and ritual requirement of the Law. Now this had nothing to do with COVID-19 or other disease, it was based upon commands in Exodus 30 for the priests to wash their hands before the sacrifice so they would be “pure”. And notice that there was no special respect paid to Jesus, he was asked the question as a group of older Bible teachers might ask a young but sharp Bible teacher, trying to put Him in His place.
Jesus threw back the corban idea to them, pointing out that it was very hypocritical of them to complain about the washing of hands when they had ruled you could dishonor your mother and father simply by declaring something "devoted to God."
Then He turned to the crowd and explained to them that things going into your mouth don’t make you impure – but it is what comes out of your heart and out of your lips that makes you impure. Jesus pointed out that character was more important than following ritual actions.
The disciples pulled Him aside and said, “Did you know you offended the Pharisees by what you said?”
Jesus responded, “Of course. Who cares? God the Father is going to take them out one day.”
Then Peter, who was never the sharpest tool in the shed, asked Jesus to explain more about the hand-washing and eating thing, and Jesus did. He said, “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
To which, I might add, there are sound reasons to wash your hands before you eat, but washing your hands does not make you a good person and not washing does not make you an evil person. It is what comes out of your heart that makes you good or evil.
This episode occurred in northern Israel. John the Baptizer, in the Jordan Valley, had called the Pharisees “white-washed tombs”, looking good on the outside, but dead bones on the inside. Which must have reminded Jesus and the disciples of Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, people without skin or flesh or muscles on them, just dead, too dry to even rot. And the disciples must have looked to Jesus as the one who would put flesh on those bones, giving them life and breath again, as King David had built the country and His Son Solomon had built the Temple.
It is interesting that Jesus and the disciples then hit the road after this. They traveled to Tyre and Sidon. These two cities are on the Lebanese coast, northwest of Galilee and south of present day Beirut. At the time, they were great port cities, but they were not in Jewish territory. So why was Jesus headed there? Perhaps it goes back to the days of Elijah, the great prophet who pronounced a drought on Israel and then traveled to Zarephath, which was a town half-way between Tyre and Sidon, where Elijah famously was involved in two miracles with a local woman whom he stayed with. First, a small flask of olive oil did not run out, and then, when the woman’s boy died, Elijah’s prayer and touch brought him back to life.
Tyre and Sidon were the land where Jezebel had grown up, the wife of Ahab, the king of Israel whom Elijah opposed. Jezebel had brought from Tyre and Sidon the worship of Baal, one of the gods that demanded child sacrifice, that demanded the slaughter of infants, the god whose priests Elijah had challenged to a battle of the gods on the top of Mount Carmel – and whom Elijah and God had defeated. Tyre and Sidon are just north of Mount Carmel, but the people had remained pagan worshipers, still sacrificing to Baal for hundreds of years.
So Jesus and the disciples arrive in the area of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman begins to follow them – she is not Jewish. She begs Him, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
Notice that she calls Him Lord. She calls Him “Son of David”. She has great respect for Him even though she is not Jewish! She is convinced Jesus can heal her daughter. She is not going to sacrifice her daughter to Baal or any other god.
And now we see this amazing exchange. Jesus keeps silent, and doesn’t speak to the woman. He is apparently trying to ignore her, something He has never done to the hundreds and thousands of Jewish people who have asked Him for help.
She must have kept persisting in her crying out, for the disciples came to Jesus and urged Him to send her away, give her answer, tell her no, but get rid of her, she’s SOOOOO annoying!
You see, she is persistent. She keeps coming after them. She won’t accept silence as a no. She’s going to keep asking until Jesus gives her what she needs. Kind of like the dirty beggar that wants some money or lunch. Kind of like the woman who keeps calling on the phone asking for help once a week. King of like the man who’s always at the intersection with the cardboard sign. She won’t just disappear.
Jesus said to them – and she hears – “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
Jesus tells them – and us – that His mission was only to repair Israel. Later, we’ll see Him send the disciples to all the other nations of the world. But Jesus was trying to stay on mission, staying focused, focused only on the Jewish people.
The woman came up. She didn’t stand before Him proudly like the Pharisees – she knelt before Him. “Lord, help me!”.
Now Jesus says something that today we think is totally out of character. Jesus says, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” Jesus has just called her and everyone who is not Jewish “dogs”. He has just given a huge insult to her. All because she is not Jewish, but is a pagan woman with different beliefs.
In our seminaries today, this passage is classified as a “troublesome passage”. Jesus does not behave the way our modern ethics would have Him act. He has called her and her entire nation “dogs”. Can you imagine anyone doing this today?
And so we have to delve deeper to understand why Jesus might say this, why He might give her an ethnic slur, why God on earth might deliver this insult. It causes us to question many things, for today, although many people may not follow the Law given by God to Moses, there is a common moral law that is commonly accepted by most people in America today, and a key part of that common American moral law is that we are not to negatively judge people on behalf of the religion they choose to follow or choose not to follow, that any religious belief, sincerely held, is acceptable, that it doesn’t matter what god you follow. But in this passage, Jesus clearly insults this woman in very clear terms because she is not Jewish. Why? Why did Jesus say something that would get any news anchor today fired, that would lose any politician the next election, that would get any regular person branded as low-class in America today?
Is it perhaps because this is truly what the God of Heaven thinks about people who do not choose to follow Jesus, people who do not even try to follow the Law given to Moses by God, people who followed other gods and sacrificed their children on altars? Does God really think it makes a difference which religion we follow?
Or perhaps God the Son thinks about the dogs who look for scraps and eat what is leftover and are satisfied, and He was thinking about spiritual scraps that day. Are you satisfied with spiritual scraps and crumbs or would you like spiritual steak? Perhaps the good spiritual food should not be tossed to those who don’t care what they are getting, just looking to be “spiritual” but not concerned about the wholesomeness of what they are receiving, just taking whatever they hear on the television, or from friends, or on the Internet.
And the woman says something that shows great wisdom, great awareness of how little her spiritual food meals are. Perhaps she had actually longed to travel to Jerusalem, to study, to understand God. Perhaps she had wanted to immerse herself in the presence of God. Perhaps she had salivated when she had received just the smell of spiritual steak. Or, perhaps she was just desperate in her love for her daughter.
She said, “Yes it is right to give the bread to the dogs. Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” The crumbs, the leftovers, the least little bits of healing are enough when you are desperate and your daughter is possessed and suffering. A little bit of food is enough when you are starving. A little bit of normal in a bad time – a can of Vienna sausages is wonderful if you haven’t had meat for six months.
Jesus said to her, probably grinning a bit. “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
And here, perhaps, we find the point of the insult and the point of the begging. Jesus wanted to know her heart – and He wanted the woman and His disciples to know – that it is not who we are that determines whether God and Jesus will graciously give us healing, or bread or even salvation for eternal life. It doesn’t matter if you are Jewish, Buddhist, or a pagan who has sacrificed infants upon the altar of Baal. It doesn’t matter if your ancestors are European, African, or Asian. What matters is the faith, the trust, the belief that Jesus, the Son of God, God on earth has the power and the desire to heal your body and soul and spirit! The woman had faith that Jesus could heal her daughter and demonstrated that by gentle, humble, persistent asking. And so Jesus healed the daughter because of her mother’s faith.
After this, Jesus returned to Galilee and the Jewish people He had been sent to. But there are turning points in the Gospels that always have the presence of non-Jews. He later sends disciples into Samaria, the region between Galilee and Judea in central Israel, where a semi-Jewish people lived, people who followed the Law, but did not worship at Jerusalem, and His disciples are to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven. He meets up with a Roman captain and heals the man’s daughter. He is in Jerusalem and a group of Greeks is brought to Him by Philip, asking to talk with Him – and Jesus sees this as a major turning point, a sign that His ministry on earth is almost over. He has come for the lost sheep of Israel, but He has also been training His disciples for a greater mission. Here in Jerusalem, on Mt Zion, salvation is ready to pour out.
And so, after His arrest, after His execution for the crime of claiming to be God on earth, and after His resurrection proved that He was exactly who He claimed to be – Jesus told the disciples that all authority on earth and in Heaven had been given to Him. So therefore, He said, “Go to all nations, baptizing them and teaching them His commandments.”
No longer would He just focus upon the Jewish nation and give crumbs to the other nations– but now Jesus, working through the Holy Spirit that lived in His disciples - He would give spiritual meat to all the nations. For the message from Jesus is clear – just as Elijah defeated the false gods of other nations, just as Elijah saved a woman and her son, people who were not Jewish, just as Moses had restored the righteousness in the land of Israel, Jesus’s disciples would spread the Word of the Lord and restore righteousness throughout the entire world.
We are those disciples. When a Christian is baptized, hands are laid upon us and we receive the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit as Peter, as John, as Paul. And so, today we have a few months to prepare, maybe a year, while the world is locked down, asleep, like daffodils under the snow. For we are to work in the world as vineyard laborers, pruning away the dead wood. We are to take the Holy Spirit, the Holy Breath of God to our friends, neighbors, and relatives, breathing life into people who are spiritually dead. We are to build an immense spiritual Temple of praise, praising God many times each day and becoming contagious with our praise. We are to learn how to defeat the false gods of wealth, of addictive chemicals, ambition and power. We are not to cower in fear, but we are to be the disciples of Jesus Christ, the Son of God in this time of testing, boldly – but sensibly – walking into the world to share the Word of the Lord in our community. We are the church who will survive this time of trial and, with God’s blessing, look into the sky one day and point to the return of Jesus and the great harvest of souls! This is our mission, this is what is promised in the Bible, and this is what it means to be a Christian! This is where something wonderful began!
So, this week, as you walk or drive or call around our community, look especially for the people who are on the outside – the people like the woman who are probably not attending a church, who are probably not accepted by most people, the people who belong to an outsider group – people who have moved to our community and probably have few friends. Become their friend. Connect with them. Speak to them how Jesus wanted us to reach everyone – not just the good, the well-off, the happy, the well-adjusted – but also those with issues, those with money troubles, the unhappy, and the people who have done wrong in their lives. Tell them how the true Christian helps bring everyone into the community. And if you’re watching and have felt disconnected from people over the last few months – stop by Cedar Grove UMC for a chat sometime this week – I’m there from 11 to 2 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I’d like to meet you. We’d all like to meet you.
Father, I pray for these people in this church and all those watching at home. Fill them with your Holy Spirit, teach them Your ways, help them bring the Gospel into their hearts so that they may do great things by trusting in Your Son Jesus and Your Holy Spirit. Give them the courage to do Your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Remember: You don’t become good or bad by what goes into you, but by what comes out of your heard and mouth. Jesus isn’t just for the good people of the world, but for all people, including those the world might consider dogs. And these are the Days of Elijah, the time for declaring the Word of the Lord to those who do not know Him.
Now listen to this song; Days of Elijah
Benediction
Now Go into the world, declaring the Word of God, celebrating righteousness, bringing spiritual food to All people. And be blessed by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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