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In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus goes north, out of Israel, and into Gentile territory, in the region of Tyre and Sidon, into an idolatrous region of Canaanite cities. And He does not want to be found. He goes into a house, and He is kind of hiding. But wherever Jesus goes, people hear about Him, and they come and find Him. This woman hears about Jesus and comes to find Him. She falls at His feet, and she asks Him to cast out the demon from her daughter.

This is not really the sort of person you might expect to come looking for Jesus. She is like the Samaritan woman at the well in John’s Gospel, but even further away from Jews than Samaritans were. She is from this region of Tyre and Sidon, which is not a friendly place to the God of Israel. This is the same place from which one of the most infamous people in Israelite history came: Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab, who, 1 Kings 16 tells us, did more evil than all the kings of Israel before him. He set up statues of Canaanite gods for the people to worship. And Jezebel, who was the daughter of the king of Sidon, tried to kill all the prophets of God, including Elijah. That’s where this woman is from.

We wouldn’t expect her to want to have anything to do with Jesus. She has her own gods. Seek help from them. And in this context, it’s not really all that surprising that Jesus does not seem inclined to help her. But she hears about Jesus. And she comes seeking help from Him. Jesus is inside this house, trying not to be found, but wherever Jesus is, people come to Him, to hear Him, to be healed by Him, to be near Him. But just as faith seeks Jesus where He is, so also opposition arises. And it’s the same whether it is in Jewish territory or Gentile territory. Right at the beginning of the Gospel, Jesus goes into a synagogue, and immediately (Mark likes the word “immediately”) there is a man in their midst with an unclean spirit. And now, in this very Gentile land, another person with an unclean spirit. Wherever Jesus goes, He is confronted with what has gone wrong in His creation. Here it’s a little daughter with an unclean spirit; then it’s a man whose ears and tongue do not work. It’s sin, and sickness, and demons, and death everywhere.

When they bring the deaf and mute man to Jesus, He takes him aside, groans, spits, and says, “Ephatha! Be opened!” And the man’s ears are opened, and his tongue is set free to speak clearly. But that’s not what happens with the woman. Jesus says some strange words to her: Let the children be satisfied first; let them eat their fill. It is not good for the bread of the children to be thrown to the dogs. Now maybe we’re too pious to be offended. It’s in the Bible, after all. But I bet if you were to read this encounter to some of your classmates, or in your ethics class, or to the professor of your Intro to Christianity course, you might find a different reaction. Why does Jesus speak this way to this woman? Who does He think He is? How dare He call her a dog! Now, we don’t know the tone of voice Jesus used with this woman, whether annoyed, or playful, or with His tongue in His cheek. Tone of voice matters very much! But just as it stands, it makes us a little uncomfortable, and maybe we are offended.

Part of the reason for that offense might be because we think we are spectators here. And in one sense, of course we are. We are hearing, reading this passage, and imagining in our heads the scene. We see the woman fall at Jesus’ feet. We hear His words, and we are offended on her behalf. We hear this as if we are spectators. But what if that’s not the position in which we should put ourselves? What if we were not spectators, but participants?
The woman hears Jesus’ words, and what does she say? She says, “Lord.” I don’t know if that surprises you, but we should be shocked. Why does she call Him Lord? Most of the time in the Bible, this is the Greek word for the Name of God. She should not know this Name, let alone apply it to Jesus. Her people worship Baal, or Ashtorah, not Yahweh. Even so… Lord, even the little dogs under the table eat the crumbs of the children. I don’t know if you have dogs, but we have two little dogs, and I can assure you that every time someone is sitting at the table with food, no matter what it is, those dogs are sitting under the table. They’re waiting for anything to fall on the floor, and they will eat it. I’ve never heard them complain about the things that fall, either. They don’t say, that’s just a little bit of the food; I want a whole plate. No doubt, they would take a whole plate, but they are happy to have whatever it is that falls on the floor. Even the little dogs under the table eat the crumbs of the children.

That’s it: on account of this word—or even this argument—go! The demon has already gone out of your daughter. And it had. She doesn’t get crumbs. She doesn’t get what’s left over after all Israel has been satisfied. She gets the living bread of heaven and His healing. She is satisfied. She gets the bread of the children as Jesus answers her prayer. And in the very next chapter, Jesus is going to give bread that satisfies: 4,000 Gentiles are fed. Not just a little bit; not just crumbs. But they are satisfied, filled up, cannot eat any more. And there are seven large baskets left, which some people think refer to the seven Gentile nations around Israel.

She has no right to ask anything from Jesus. She does not deserve His mercy. She has no standing, no claim. She can only ask, and He can refuse. But here we are not just spectators. No one has rights before God. Our status in the United States sometimes fools us, but we have no rights. We have no standing to ask anything, we do not deserve it. We have no claim. What could we give in return, or in exchange, or in repayment? Everything that we have was given to us by God. He gave us our body and soul, eyes, ears, all our members, our reason and all our senses, and still takes care of them. Anything we give, He already gave us. We are not spectators; we are in the very same position as that woman. Paul tells us in Ephesians that we were once aliens and foreigners to the household of God. We were not children; we did not belong. But at the cross, Jesus has joined together the near children and those who were far away. He has broken down the dividing wall of hostility and joined us together into one family. He has brought us into His family, made us His dear children. So He does not give the crumbs of the children to the dogs. Instead, He makes the little dogs into children, and puts them at the table to eat and be satisfied.

This is why you are here. Because you have heard something about Jesus, and wherever Jesus goes, faith brings people to where He is, to hear Him, to be healed by Him, to receive from Him what He has to give. He has put me here to serve as His mouth to speak His words to you, and His hands to give you what He promises to give. That’s all I have, anyway. We are all here together, because this is where Jesus is. He hides under water, and bread and wine, and what seem like ordinary human words. But faith sees Him inside this house, hiding exactly where He has promised to be for you. Do we have rights? No. And sometimes the devil will use that against you. He will say that this is not for you, that you are not worthy, that you are not the ones for whom these good things are meant. But believe, and call on your Lord, and He will give you what you need. He groans when He sees what has happened to His creation, by sin and death and unbelief. He groaned in agony on the cross under the weight of that same sin, death, and unbelief. And there is still opposition. There is opposition in the world, all around us. Wherever Jesus goes, He is opposed, and our sinful flesh opposes His word as well. We take it for granted, as if we deserved it, or had some claim on it.

But not only opposition. There is also faith. You have the Holy Spirit, who has brought you here to be forgiven, to eat and be satisfied—not with the bread that perishes, but with the living bread from heaven that endures to eternal life. Look what happens when God shows up on the earth! Just what Isaiah prophesied: the deaf hear, the mute speak, the lame walk, the dead are raised. Demons are cast out, and death is undone. His groaning is for you and for your salvation, and He will give and give until you are satisfied. He has done all things well; He will bring all things to their completion. He will finish what He started. He is here, but He has told you that He is, so you come, bowing before your Lord, hearing Him and receiving what He has to give. To the world it looks like nothing, like little crumbs. But to you, and to all those who believe, it is the eternal life of God in the flesh and blood of Jesus. Look, He does all things well.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 9/6/24