"Red and yellow, black and white...we all need Jesus"

Matthew 15:21-28
God has interesting timing.

Just as the attention of our country and much of the world is on the recent activities of white supremacist and Nazi groups in our midst, the lectionary--the plan for Bible lessons based on ancient Christian practice--appoints today’s gospel lesson for tens of thousands of churches throughout the world.

That’s no coincidence...it’s a God-incidence!

It is exactly the word that you and I and all the world need to hear today.

The lesson tells us about Jesus’ encounter with a woman who is a member of a race of people hated by God’s people since Old Testament times, the Canaanites.

At the end of the lesson, Jesus confirms two important insights into Christian faith known by this Canaanite woman, insights that Saint Paul later summarized: “...all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27-28)

Jesus came into this world to die and to rise and to call all who believe in Him to become part of one race, the fully restored human race who populate the Kingdom of God.

The Church of Jesus, whatever the denomination, color, or nationality of its people, is a preview of John’s vision in Revelation: “I looked, [John says] and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language...And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’" (Revelation 7:9)

One of my favorite Sunday School songs growing up, said: “Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight / Jesus loves the little children of the world.” Today, in a world rocked by hatred, we need the gospel message. We need Jesus!

When I say that, I’m not just using words. I’m proclaiming the absolute, bottom-line truth: WE NEED JESUS!

Only Jesus can fill our deepest need.

Only Jesus can bring forgiveness of sins.

Only Jesus can put God’s love into our hearts.

Only Jesus can give us sanity for living and thinking.

Only Jesus can give us eternal life with God.

WHAT WE All NEED IS JESUS AND ONLY JESUS!

As the Church, we need to be challenged to proclaim, with no embarrassment, that Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the Father except through Him; that God loves us and that Christ came to die and rise to offer new life with God to all people: Jews, Canaanites, blacks, whites, browns, yellows, Republicans, Democrats, Americans, Arabs...everyone.

WE NEED JESUS!

Desperately.

Totally.

Now.

In today’s lesson, Jesus meets a woman who knows just how much she needs Jesus.

Jesus, she knows, is the only hope for her demon-possessed daughter.

By faith, she knows the truth of what the Bible repeatedly teaches: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:13; Acts 2:21; Joel 2:32)

Let’s take a look at our gospel lesson, Matthew 15:21-28. It begins: “And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.”

Jus before our lesson's narrative begins, Jesus has been teaching His fellow Jews that it’s not the outward rituals that people perform that make them right with God, it’s a faith that turns to God in humility, repentance, and faith that God uses to build righteousness within us.

Most of His fellow Jews didn’t care for this message. They thought of their religion in transactional terms: They offered sacrifices, did good things, or pointed to their pure Jewish ancestry as their part of the bargain and they thought that in return, God had to give them favor.

Jesus said that unless they (and we) turn to God in surrender and faith, we will still be dead and separated from God. No matter how many good things we do. No matter how religious we are.

Not a popular message. Even today. People don’t like to think that their relationship with God or their salvation aren’t under their control, but God’s control.

So, Jesus left His homeland for a bit. It wasn't that Jesus was afraid of unpopularity or of dying. He had come to be rejected by the people and go to the cross. He had His face set for Jerusalem for precisely this reason. He would go to a cross, but it wasn’t the right time yet (John 7:6, 30). He and the disciples go to Tyre and Sidon, a pagan area filled with Gentile unbelievers.

Verse 22: “And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.’”

Back in Old Testament days, God decided that because of the Canaanites’ idol-worship and injustice, He was going to take their land from them and give it to Israel, the Jews, His people. That’s what God did. Canaanites were still, at the point when Jesus meets this woman centuries later, idol-worshipers. They were also hated and mistrusted by the Jews. And yet, here’s this Canaanite woman, approaching Jesus, calling Him by the title that Jews associated with the Messiah, “Son of David.”

See what happens next, verse 23: “But [Jesus] did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she is crying out after us.’ [Jesus] answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’”

Some people look at this passage and think that Jesus is being heartless.

I’ve even heard some preachers suggest that the Canaanite woman came along and taught Jesus a lesson. According to these people, Jesus was a bigot who had to be set straight by this petitioner.

Please! Jesus is both God and man. He knows exactly what's going to happen before it happens. Jesus was not surprised that this Canaanite showed up.

And there is no bigotry in Jesus! God does not hate what God creates. The God Who is love, Who commands loves, and Who is sinless, doesn’t need to be taught how to love. (1 John 4:8)

So, how do we explain Jesus’ words then?

For one thing, they’re the truth. Although in the Great Commission, Jesus would later command His disciples to go to all peoples, Old Testament promises from God said that, during His time on earth, the Messiah would go to Israel. Jesus knows, as Paul writes in our second lesson, “God did not reject his people...” (Romans 11:2) And so, while Jesus would encounter Gentiles (non-Jews) in His ministry and even make a Gentile, the good Samaritan, the hero of one of His most famous parables, the Messiah had to be proclaimed among God’s people before Jesus died and rose.

I think Jesus also said this--"I was sent only the lost sheep of Israel"--because Jesus had things to teach His disciples, including you and me. Jesus always knew the teachable moment!

Verse 25: “But she came and knelt before him [Jesus], saying, ‘Lord, help me.’”

Most English translations of the Bible do an inadequate job of rendering this passage. The verb knelt translates the Greek word proskuneo, which is the word that Matthew used when writing this verse in the Greek. Proskuneo means worship.

It’s the same word Matthew used of the eleven disciples who meet the risen Jesus, about to ascend to heaven in Matthew 28:17, literally, “Having seen Him, they worshiped Him...”

This foreign woman of the wrong race and ethnicity, from the wrong side of the tracks who is hated by Jesus' fellow good Jews, worships Jesus!

She sees Him not only as a human descendant of King David, she sees Him as God.

And she offers no evidence that she’s a good person deserving of what she begs Jesus to do for her daughter. She just believes and is completely helpless.

And belief and helplessness, as our mentor Ole Hallesby has taught many of us here at Living Water, is what we need to be every time we approach God in Jesus’ name. As Hallesby points out, without belief and helplessness, it's doubtful that any of our prayers are really prayers. The Canaanite woman truly prays!

“Lord,” she says, “help me.”

Jesus accepts her worship because He is God. You may remember that in the book of Acts, the Christian missionaries Paul and Barnabas were being hailed as gods by Gentiles. They were horrified and told the crowds to stop, that there was only one God, the one revealed in Jesus (Acts 4:12-15).  Jesus accepts the woman's worship. How could He not? He IS God!

It's hard to imagine what the disciples who were with Jesus must have thought of all this. But Jesus lets things go on a bit still: He has a lesson to teach we disciples.

Verse 26: “And he answered, ‘It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.’”

Many Jews used the term dog for Gentiles the way that white racists use the N-word to describe African-Americans today.

Most Jews regarded non-Jews as subhuman trash.

Now, we must always let Scripture interpret Scripture. And what we know from the rest of Scripture about Jesus totally precludes the notion that He shared His people's prejudice against Gentiles.

I believe that, as one Bible scholar has said, Jesus used this term with a twinkle in His eye, a bit like a comic tweaking prejudice. Humor is always a good tool for demolishing prejudice. 

Make no mistake about it though, Jesus saw this woman’s desperate, audacious faith. He was about to perform a sign showing that He is the Messiah and God of all who have a desperate, audacious faith in Him.

And the Canaanite woman is in on Jesus’ joke. Verse 27: “She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.’” 

“Yes, Lord,” she’s saying, “I know that the Jews are God’s people and that salvation will come into the world through the Jews. That’s the first thing I know. But I also know a second thing: that You are the Lord of heaven and earth and that through You, salvation will come to all who believe in You. Even those with the wrong color of skin and those with the wrong ethnic background. Just as the dogs get the crumbs, You have grace enough to spare for everyone!”

In verse 28, Jesus explodes with the same kind of joyous exclamation that must come from God every time we turn to Him with desperate, audacious faith. “‘O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.”

God receives all who turn from their sin and trust in Jesus as their only hope, the only way to life, the only way to God.

God receives all who turn to Him with desperate, audacious faith.

God hears all who trust Jesus with desperation and helplessness, who know that Jesus is our only hope for this world and the next!

God will, through Jesus, even receive you and me and all the other Canaanites who trust in Jesus.

The only in-crowd in the Kingdom of God is the crowd who confess that Jesus is Lord and then follow Him wherever He leads!

Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the text for the worship message this morning.]

I Won't Let Go of You by Switchfoot

Switchfoot sings a love song to anyone who's ever had hurt in their lives, all from the perspective of the loving God we know in Jesus Christ. So good!

"Nothing speaks more clearly of God's love than the cross of Christ."

Earlier today, I visited one of our congregation's shut-ins. She received Holy Communion. We visited and we prayed. I've been visiting this 90-something woman almost monthly for nearly two years now. Near the end of each visit, after she's received the Sacrament and we've prayed together, she looks at me and says with great earnestness, "Thank you."

But today, something different happened.

I usually hug members of our congregation on Sunday mornings, whether during the Sharing of the Peace or while greeting them at the door after the service. (It turns out, by the way, that that greeting is less likely to pass along germs than is a handshake. So, it has two advantages: cleanliness AND Christian warmth.)

But, I don't usually hug the shut-ins, mainly because as members of an older generation, they tend to be more reserved. Besides, they're not standing in a sanctuary of Lutherans hugging each other: They were never accustomed to that and there's nothing of what the sociologists call, "acculturation" to support such a departure from their past practices.

So today, I reached out to shake Wilma's hand. She moved closer, wrapped her arms around me, and gave me a peck on the cheek.

Now, I assure you that didn't happen because I'm such a wonderful guy. It had everything to do with Jesus, Whose sacrifice of Himself we had just celebrated again, Whose body and blood Wilma had just received. In the cross of Christ and in His sacrifice of Self for sinners like me (and you), we do see the depths of God's love. In the bread and wine--the body and blood of Jesus--we receive that love again.

Wilma was and is thankful for Jesus and His cross. You can be too. "Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved..." (Acts 16:31).

Read today's devotion at Our Daily Bread.

Be sure also to read the words of Jesus on which it's based.

Three Important Truths

[This sermon was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Romans 8:26-39
The last nine verses of today’s second lesson, Romans 8:26-39, are the ones I’ve told Ann must be read at my funeral. If they’re not, as I’ve told many people, I’m popping out of the box and reading them myself!

From this chapter, the most magnificent in all the Bible, I think, I want to hold up to you three truths, THREE THINGS WHICH IF WE KNOW THEM in our minds, hearts, and wills, will transform our lives for all eternity!

Truth #1. One summer day three years ago, I had just finished mowing my lawn when I saw a car pull hurriedly into my driveway. The driver was a woman from our congregation. “Mark,” she said, “I tried to get you on your cell phone while you were mowing. The son of a neighbor was just killed in an accident and we can’t get in touch with the family priest. Could you come over?”

I ran into the house for my keys and drove to that woman’s neighbor's house. I didn’t know the family and wasn’t sure what to say or do. I just kept praying, “Please, God, help this family. Help them and help me to help them, too. Help, God.” It took me two minutes to get to their place and I probably prayed that prayer, parrot-like, twenty times. I simply couldn’t think of anything else to pray!

When I arrived, I gave the mother a hug and put my hand on the shoulder of the father. I stood there a lot in silence. What do you say to a couple whose whole world has fallen out from under them? I prayed with them and a short time later, I left.

I didn’t feel as though I’d done much. Later though, the young man’s father asked his neighbor, on two different occasions, to convey to me how much it had meant to him that I had been there.

I filed the incident in my mind as yet another example of God’s mysterious ways. In particular, to me it exemplified how God answers even inarticulate and sometimes wordless prayers when the words don’t come to us.

Further confirmation of how God answers such prayers came soon thereafter. For months, my former congregation kept an eight year old boy on its prayer list. When his name was first given to me, he was about to undergo a delicate surgical procedure designed to help him have some hearing, something he’d never experienced before. His mom, Carol, wrote to me several times to thank the congregation for their prayers. She said it was particularly comforting to her because all she could think to pray while Jacob was undergoing surgery was, “Please, God…Please, God.”

Carol dismissed her two-word prayers as nothing more than “a mother’s nerves.” But that’s not how God heard them! In our second Bible lesson for this morning, the New Testament preacher and evangelist Paul says, “…we do not know how to pray as we ought, but…[God’s] Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

When we approach the God we know through Jesus Christ with trusting faith and authentic helplessness, the helplessness of those who know they need God and cannot rely on themselves or their own resources or on anything else, the Spirit turns our inarticulate craving for God into prayer. And it’s prayer like that which touches the heart and the will of God because in our helpless surrender, we’ve let the Holy Spirit turn our prayer into a simple plea: “In this place, in this circumstance, Lord, we don’t know what to ask for. Your will be done!”

In an effort to understand some of what is going on in our world recently, I’ve done some reading about the Muslim religion and about their holy book, the Qu’ran. I’ve read about what Muslims say about being Muslim.

In the Qu’ran, Muslims are told that the prayers offered in response to the five daily calls to prayer (adhans) are only acceptable to God if they recite the correct words with precision from the Koran and then, only if they do so in Arabic. Some Christians have similar mistaken notions about the necessity for perfection in their prayer.

Through Jesus though, we know the God Who is big enough and compassionate enough to reach out to us and to hear us even when our words and our minds are jumbled. Paul reminds us today that through Jesus Christ, we know that the Spirit is making sense of our prayers even when, as was true of me the day I was called to be with the grieving partns and as was true of Carol when she prayed for her son Jacob, we don’t know how to pray. That's the first great truth I want to highlight today.

We know something else. “We know,” Paul writes in our lesson, “that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.”

On December 26, 2004, a massive tsunami hit much of this planet. Most of its victims were Muslims and Hindus. More than 160,000 people died or went missing and more than 500,000 homes were destroyed. The estimated cost of rebuilding that housing stock is $5-billion.

As Lutheran Pastor Paul Gauche once wrote, God surely didn’t cause this tragedy. But God stirred the hearts of Christians and others around the world to respond compassionately to the needs of faraway neighbors with whom they did not share faith, nationality, and often, skin color. In the case of Christians, the began helping others in the Name of Jesus Christ, because of the prompting of God's Spirit.

A similar thing happened among Christians and others after Hurricane Katrina. Thousands of Christians, including my nephew who, from his pre-adolescent days, has known how to do plumbing and electrical work and do drywall, went to help Gulf Coast people rebuild their lives.

Even in a world sometimes gone crazy, we know that the Holy Spirit makes sense of our jumbled prayers and uses Jesus Followers to bring good out of even the worst of circumstances.

We know something else, too. Paul puts it this way: “If God is for us, who is against us? He Who did not withhold His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, will He not with Him also give us everything else?”

The God Who came into our worlds in the Person of Jesus Christ and sacrificed Himself on a cross and promised that He would be with us always in the Holy Spirit, isn’t going to be skimpy about sharing His love and His presence with us. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will ever change that!

I learned this from a man named Charlie in Ann’s and my home church in Columbus.

By the time I got to know Charlie, he was an elderly man who still occasionally did house painting. But most of his time was spent caring for his wife. He was deeply devoted to her. She was bed-ridden and in need of care for many years. After a long illness, Charlie’s wife died.

On the day of her funeral, we had a luncheon at the church. As that was ending, a friend of mine, a fellow who was in seminary, and I became concerned when we noticed that Charlie had been gone for awhile. We found him upstairs in the sanctuary. He was saying goodbye to some people who had come to the funeral.

When Charlie spied the two of us, he thanked us for our concern. Then he told us, “Mark and Whitie, you know something? God has been awfully good to me. And I’m so glad that He’s with me right now.”

Charlie had just begun to go through the most horrible grief anyone can suffer and it had come at the end of long years of selfless service to the woman he adored. Yet, because of the Savior he followed, Charlie could affirm God’s goodness and presence. It’s a testimony of God’s faithfulness I will carry with me my whole life!

Charlie knew what I hope that you know: God is for you.

In remembering that, folks, we are at the very core of what we believe as Lutheran Christians. We are, according to the great Reformed Biblical scholar, Joachim Jeremias, looking at the central message of the New Testament and I would add, of the whole Bible.

Through Jesus Christ, you can know of a certainty that God is for you and for every human being who has ever sinned, for everyone who has ever confronted pain or suffering or grief, for any human being who has ever drawn a breath. And there is nothing in heaven or on earth that can ever or will ever alter that simple fact! Jesus' cross and empty tomb stand as testament to it. God is for you!

So, this morning, I ask you to ask God to help you grow in the awareness of three major truths Paul talks about in today’s second Bible lesson. Because of Jesus Christ, know that…

• the Spirit can make something of our prayers even when we don’t know how to pray;
• God can make good things come from even the worst of circumstances; and
• absolutely nothing can ever separate the believer in Jesus Christ from God’s love or care.

If those three truths don’t make a difference in your life, nothing ever will.

[The three truths identified in this sermon were first pointed out to me in a sermon found here. (Membership required for access.)]