Sermon Tone Analysis

(NIV)

21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!

My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

23 Jesus did not answer a word.

So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 25 The woman came and knelt before him.

“Lord, help me!” she said.

26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said.

“Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith!

Your request is granted.”

And her daughter was healed at that moment.

Jesus says something here that sounds as though he is guilty of discrimination.

Discrimination has become something that once was taken for granted but now is considered to be an awful way of treating others.

You know what discrimination is.

It is when we decide beforehand who is entitled to what and who has rights and who does not based on a number of external factors.

Examples: Gender

The human rights of women throughout the Middle East and North Africa are systematically denied by each of the countries in the region, despite the diversity of their political systems.

Many governments routinely suppress civil society by restricting freedom of the press, expression, and assembly.

These restrictions adversely affect both men and women; however, women are subject to a host of additional gender-specific human rights violations.

For example, family, penal, and citizenship laws throughout the region relegate women to a subordinate status compared to their male counterparts.

This legal discrimination undermines women’s full personhood and equal participation in society and puts women at an increased risk for violence.

Family matters in countries as diverse as Iran, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia are governed by religion-based personal status codes.

Many of these laws treat women essentially as legal minors under the eternal guardianship of their male family members.

Family decision-making is thought to be the exclusive domain of men, who enjoy by default the legal status of “head of household.”

These notions are supported by family courts in the region that often reinforce the primacy of male decision-making power.

Race

Race discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because he/she is of a certain race or because of personal characteristics associated with race (such as hair texture, skin color, or certain facial features).

Color discrimination involves treating someone unfavorably because of skin color complexion.

Race/color discrimination also can involve treating someone unfavorably because the person is married to (or associated with) a person of a certain race or color.

Discrimination can occur when the victim and the person who inflicted the discrimination are the same race or color.

Religion

It is against the law to discriminate against you because of your religion or belief.

This applies:

when you buy or use goods and services

· at work

· in education

· in housing.

What does religion or belief mean

You are protected by law from discrimination because of your religion or belief if you:

· belong to an organized religion such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam

· have a profound belief which affects your way of life or view of the world.

This includes religious and philosophical beliefs, or a lack of belief, such as Atheism

· take part in collective worship

· belong to a smaller religion or sect, such as Scientology or Rastafarianism

· have no religion, for example, if you are an atheist.

The law against discrimination because of religion or belief does not cover purely political beliefs unless they are also philosophical beliefs.

You are protected if someone discriminates against you because they think you are a certain religion, when you are not.

For example, it's against the law for someone to discriminate against you for wearing a headscarf because they think you are a Muslim, even if you are not actually Muslim.

Discrimination by association is also against the law.

For example, it is against the law to refuse to let you into a restaurant because of the religion of someone who is with you.

Age

Ability

Have you even been the victim of discrimination?

(Long pause) I was once not allowed to be a part of a study of the Bible because I am a pastor (explain).

24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

It may come as a surprise that Jesus seems to be discriminating against a woman here because of her ethnicity.

Consider the situation.

Jesus ventures to Tyre and Sidon (explain where they are).

He had traveled there so that his enemies would not have the opportunity to cut short his mission.

It was a strategic withdrawal temporarily.

He is approached by an unnamed woman described as being a Canaanite.

This might remind us that if the Israelites had followed God’s policies to the letter in the Old Testament, there would have been any Canaanites left.

(Research) We today call such an approach Genocide.

Well, some Canaanites did survive and whether she was called a Canaanite because she was a descendant of those people or because of where she lived, she is not a Jew and part of the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

And so when she approaches Jesus, she if first of all ignored and then rebuffed.

This is a hard saying of Jesus that needs explanation (research) But “Jesus did not answer [her] a word” ().

To the woman Jesus’ answer must have seemed to be No.

But through his silence Jesus wanted to test and purify her faith.

There was no unwillingness or hesitation on Jesus’ part to help a Gentile.

(See ; ; .)

Nor would the healing of a Gentile conflict with the divine plan Jesus declared to the Samaritan woman, namely, that “salvation is from the Jews” ().

In other words, Jesus, a Jew, would carry out his redeeming ministry among the Jews first, and only then would the message of the Christ’s completed redemption be carried out to all the world.

(; ; )

Some, however, find the idea offensive that by his silence Jesus would keep the woman in suspense in order to test her faith.

They speak of Jesus “pretending to be hard” and so “torturing the woman with uncertainty.”

Then we must also find it offensive that he answered the royal official with a seeming rebuff (), and that he did not go to Mary and Martha, whom he loved dearly, until their brother Lazarus had been dead four days.

(, ) Moreover, did God torture Abraham with uncertainty when he let him proceed to the point where he had the knife raised up for the sacrificial death of his only son before he arrested Abraham in his intention?

Or was he testing Abraham, as tells us?[1]

The interlude with the disciples must have taken some time.

Then Jesus broke his silence.

“He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel’” ().

We recognize, as indicated above, that here Jesus was enunciating the divine plan for the course of the gospel and therefore also the plan he was to follow in his ministry as the Messiah.

He was to conduct his ministry of preaching and healing among the Jews.

Among them he was to give his life a ransom for many, for all.

But this limitation did not mean that he would not or could not speak the saving word or extend the healing hand to Gentiles, for he did show mercy to them also.

Think of the Samaritan woman and many other Samaritans (; ) and of the centurion ().

These exceptional incidents, however, pointed forward to the command of Jesus to make disciples of all nations (), to the time when

“The law will go out from Zion,

the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”

().

But would the pleading woman have any inkling of this?

Wouldn’t she understand Jesus’ words: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” as telling her: “I have nothing for you, a Gentile?”

Here we must not overlook the extent of her Scriptural knowledge.

She knew the prophecy that the Messiah would be the great Descendant of David.

().

That prophecy included the truth that the Messiah’s kingdom would be an eternal one.

Surely, she must have heard the companion truth that the Son of David’s kingdom was to hold sway over all men, over Gentiles like her as well as over Jews.

When Jesus thus tested her faith a second time, he was not asking the impossible of her, asking her to pull out of a vacuum something she could not know.

On the contrary, he was leading her to fall back on what she knew from the Word, on God’s promises, such as the one that “nations will come to your [Israel’s] light” ().

Jesus wanted her to persevere in her plea, not by her own strength, generated from within, but by the strength supplied by God through his gracious word.

And Jesus did achieve this purpose in her, as we shall see in a moment.