Exploring My Strange Bible - The Other Side of the Lake - Gospel of Matthew Part 23

Episode Date: October 8, 2018

At this point, we look at Matthew Chapter 15. It is a story about a woman who approaches Jesus and asks him to heal her child, and Jesus HESITATES (which is totally bizarre because it doesn’t fit the portrait of Jesus, right?). The backstory of this woman and her history in the scriptures is really interesting, and it really helps us frame why Matthew has included this odd story in the first place. It has to do with Jesus’ mission to the people of Israel and God. Listen in to learn more.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right. Well, in this episode, we're going to keep exploring the gospel according to Matthew. All right, well in this episode we're going to keep exploring the gospel according to Matthew.

These are teachings that I gave a number of years ago when I was a pastor at Door of Hope Church in Portland. And we worked through Matthew, and at this point we were at Matthew chapter 15. And we're going to explore a story that I still remember the first time I read it in my 20s when I was reading the Bible for the first time. And this story about Jesus puzzled me for years. It's a story about a woman who approaches Jesus, asks him to heal her child, and Jesus hesitates, which is really bizarre because it doesn't fit the portrait of how he's treated people up to this point. And I remember it really bothered me, like, why does he hesitate to provide healing and help for this woman when he seems so eager to do so for everybody else? However, who this woman is, what she represents, the backstory of her and her

people, and the backstory of that with the whole of the Hebrew scriptures, it's so interesting. And it really helps us frame why Matthew has even included this odd story in the gospel in the first place. This is so fascinating. It has to do with Jesus' mission to the people of Israel, but also his larger mission to the nations as he brings the kingdom of God. So interesting. I learned a ton. I hope this is going to be a good learning experience for all of us. So let's dive in and do it. I want to begin by doing something I don't normally do, and that's reading some poetry. Do you guys ever read poetry? Well, this morning you are. It's a poem by a Hebrew poet named Yishyahu ben Amoz, or as you might be familiar with him, Isaiah,

the son of Amoz, from the book of Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible, chapter 2. Isaiah ben son of Amos is how we butcher his name in English. Yeshahu ben Amot is how you say his name. This is what Yeshahu ben Amot saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In the last days, the mountain of Yahweh's temple will be raised as the highest of the mountains. It will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come, and they'll say, come on, let's go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths. The Torah, it's a Hebrew word for just instruction, God's instruction or teaching, but it came to be associated with a number of the books of the Bible too. So God's instruction will go out from Zion, the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.

He, that is Yahweh, He will judge between the nations. He'll settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plow blades and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. train for war anymore. Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of Yahweh. And then a few chapters later, there's another poem that connects back to this one, and you'll see why. It says, in that day, in the day spoken of in chapter 2, the root of Jesse will stand like a banner for the peoples, and the nations will all rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. The poetry of Yeshahu Ben-Ammot. And Isaiah was a master poet. I actually think, in my humble opinion, Yeshahu Ben-otz was one of the most talented poets in Israelite biblical thought and history. The poetry in this book is just amazing how it works. And there's a million

things going on in this poem. It may be using a lot of imagery or ideas that seem odd to you, but they're very biblical. And this poem really invites us into the very heartbeat of the storyline of the Bible. And that's that God's focus was, is, and always throughout the story of the Bible was for just a huge wide scope here. All nations, all peoples, right? Do you see this? And it's about God bringing His justice and His goodness to bear on all nations, and they come and they gather and they learn God's Word. They learn what it means to be humans in God's world, and look, He brings justice, right? Do you see? How many of you know this line before, beating swords into plow blades, spears into pruning hooks? Have you heard this line

before? This is Shahu's line, right? And what does he mean? So our equivalent would be something like, you know, the world's stock of AK-47s gets melted down and used as resources to make ambulances and pinball machines or something like that. So the point is that instruments of death get destroyed and turned into instruments of life and joy. In this case, what do you do with plow blades and pruning hooks? You make food that keeps humans alive. Instead of killing humans, let's keep humans alive, more humans alive, by giving them food. It's this transformation of the world as you and I know it, as a place of tragedy, as a place of injustice and war, to a place where all nations are at peace and there's harmony. And how does

that happen? Well, there's something that's going to happen in Jerusalem, right? This whole image there of the mountain, right? The mount of God's temple. So, God's going to do something for all nations. He's going to restore the whole world, but He's going to do it through something very specific and particular, right? Something's going to happen in Jerusalem, and this place where King David and his son Solomon built the temple, right? The place where heaven and earth meet and God camps out with his presence among his people. And something's going to happen there,

very particular at a key moment in history through the family of Abraham and the family of David. And what God does in that specific moment in history will just ripple effect out to the rest of humanity, bringing peace and so on. You guys with me? It's a very beautiful poem. And look at how it ends right here in chapter 11, the last line. Who's standing there at the center along with the temple, with the nations rallying to him? Why, it's the root of Jesse. Now, Eshahu Ben-Ammot is a Bible geek. He's thoroughly immersed himself in the Torah and the rest of the Scriptures.

And in the story of Israel, who's Jesse? Bible geeks, who's Jesse? Father of? David. David. So the kings from the line of David ran Israel right into the ground, and Israel never became what God purposed it to be because of the failure of the line of David. And so Isaiah sees along with this future day, not just a new king from the line of David, but it's like we're going to start the story all over again. A brand new David from the root of Jesse. And look at how the poetry works. Where do you find roots? You find them in the dirt, but the root becomes a banner. Do you get it? Isn't that good poetry? It's a great poetic image, right? The root becomes this huge, tall flagpole with a huge banner, the kingdom of God, justice and peace and food and righteousness for the nations. It's amazing. So these are the hopes.

This is the poetry and the types of things that electrify the prayers, the imaginations, and the hopes of the Jewish people. And when Jesus of Nazareth arrives on the scene, and he starts saying things like, the kingdom of God is here in me and in what I'm doing. And he does the things that he does, and Jesus says the things that he says that all just ignites all of these hopes and all this poetry from the ancient scriptures. And a lot of people are quite thrilled because they think, good times coming. They hear Jesus, kingdom of God, it's at hand, look at what I'm doing. This is what Isaiah hoped for and prayed for and spoke about in his poems. Lots of

people are thrilled. Is everybody thrilled that Jesus is on the scene announcing the kingdom of God and saying the day's here? Is everybody thrilled? No, no. Matthew chapter 15. Josh helped us explore this story in the first half of Matthew 15, but look at the first sentence of Matthew chapter 15. Then some of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, they came to Jesus from where? From Jerusalem, right? Jerusalem, right? The center of the action, right? When God's going to redeem His world, it's going to be through something to do with what He does with His people

there in Jerusalem. And now here is a delegation coming from Jerusalem, right? This would be, you know, this is like Congress coming to your house or something like that. Right? These are religious officials. Jerusalem's like the Capitol, the White House, the National Cathedral. Right? All in one. And so here's this delegation from the leaders of Jesus' people.

And they're coming to visit Jesus. And what do they do? They pick a fight with him because they hate him. They think he's dangerous. They think he's leading the people astray. They think he's dangerous to the social stability and order of their society because he is not the kind of king that anybody was expecting. And the way that Jesus is bringing the kingdom of God is a way that undermines their own authority and power. They don't like Jesus. So, we've followed this pattern multiple times in this section of

Matthew's account of Jesus. When Jesus gets a visit or hears news about somebody who hates Him and wants to kill Him or has it out for Him, what does Jesus typically do? Do you remember the pattern? He typically withdraws and goes to a solitary place to pray, to reflect, and you would too. If the FBI visits your house, you're going to take a day to go reflect on what this means for your future, right? And so Jesus is doing… So we're going to pick up the story in verse 21. And so Jesus is doing… So we're going to pick up the story in verse 21. So leaving that place, the place of the conflict with the Jerusalem authorities, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

Now there's… Okay, you guys, this is kind of a Bible geek teaching today because there's just a lot of stuff going on, but I'll do my best to make it fun and enjoyable. You with me? Okay. All right. Maps. First of all, maps. So, Jesus' home base for the kingdom of God movement was in Capernaum, and he would go out on these itinerant teaching routes throughout Israel. So, the delegation from Jerusalem comes up. They've got it out for Jesus. It's not good news. And so what does he do? He retreats up to the region of Tyre. Tyre, the bottom, yellow dot, and Sidon, the top. Now, again, so if you're familiar with the world of the Bible

and the history of Israel, Tyre and Sidon, friends or enemies of Israel. Well, it's interesting. There are a number of occasions where they work together. There are also quite, there's more occasions where they're in conflict with each other. This was the economic powerhouse of the entire Mediterranean. All of the spices from India, you know, the famous spice route from India and so on. How did Rome get spices from what, you know, what it called Asia and the Orient and so on? They were shipped out of Tyre and Sidon and off to Italy and to Rome. It was the economic center and it was thoroughly, thoroughly non-Jewish. It was as heathen and non-Jewish as you could possibly get, right? Are you with me here? So Jesus goes, this is very

interesting. Jesus is confronted by the Jewish authorities. Apparently, He wants to retreat to a place where no one cares about Him or knows where He is, right? Where there's no Jewish people, right? So He goes up to these ancient to these ancient Gentile non-Jewish cities, to Tyre and Sidon. That's the setting for this story. And who should approach him there? Verse 22, a Canaanite woman from that vicinity came up to him, crying out loud, Okay, now let's just stop right there. This is so great, you guys. And again, if you're kind of a Bible geek, you're getting it right now, right? So Jesus, he's being rejected by his own people,

and then he goes up to the ancient cities, right, historically enemies of Israel, and who should find him there? What kind of woman? A Canaanite woman. Now, you don't have to know that much about the Bible. Canaanites, good guys, bad guys. Again, historically, and not just bad guys, like historically the arch nemesis, right, of the ancient kingdom of Israel. These are the

people groups who are in the land that God promised Abraham. They're the people groups that under Joshua's leadership, right, that they come in and dispossess many of them. They are the people groups that the prophets railed against because of the grave economic injustices built into these cultures, of the sexual misconduct, and of the practice of child sacrifice that was endemic to Canaanite culture. And so this is such a charged scene. I don't quite know how to build this up here except just to say, like, just imagine the most racially charged moment you could in some Hollywood movie, and here you go. That's what's happening right now, right?

Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, in a Gentile city, a Canaanite woman approaches him. And what does she call Jesus? What does she call him? It's great. She calls him Master, Lord. And what does she call him next? Son of David. It's a royal term. This is how you address the king of Israel, the son of David, Messiah, master, son of David, king of Israel. So let me just make an attempt. I'm so sports illiterate, it's not even funny. But the 8 a.m. service helped me with this one.

So apparently the best player on the Portland Trailblazers is Damian Lillard. Anyone care to differ with that? That was the majority opinion of the 8 a.m. Anyone? Okay, so let's go with that. So there we go, Damian Lillard. Los Angeles Lakers, apparently the most significant best player

on the L.A. Lakers currently is Kobe Bryant, said the 8 a.m. service. Anybody care to differ? Okay, well, there you go. I don't care. Barack Obama, I could care less, right? So, anyway, so let's just go with that, though. So, just here's the scenario. I'm just trying to paint the scene of two rival factions. Imagine Damian Lillard getting on a plane, right, flying down to LA, going to Malibu, wherever Kobe Bryant lives,

going up to his house or gate, right? Something more likely, right? And the first thing Damien says to Kobe is, oh, master of all things NBA, or something like that, right? Do you guys get the point is that these are two people groups who, according to all of the boundary lines of how things work in the tribes of the NBA, these two people should not be talking. And a Canaanite woman should not be addressing Jesus of Nazareth as Lord of all and as the royal son of David, king of… Are you with me here? I mean, this is just... You can't imagine a more charged moment. This is so remarkable and rich. This is such an odd story, really.

Okay, just work with me here. What is Jesus' response to this woman? It's a stone wall, right? Look, it's just Jesus didn't answer a word. Now, that's very odd. It's very odd for lots of reasons. Everything we know about Jesus up to this point in the stories about him is that his heart beats for these kinds of moments and these kinds of people, right? Hurting people who are at the end of everything and the end of the resources. They don't know what to do, and they've come to Jesus asking for help, and usually He's just on it,

stonewall, just talk to the hand, something. Like, He just doesn't even answer her. It's very odd. So, His disciples decide to involve themselves, and they come to Jesus, and they originally are saying, man, get rid of this lady. Send her away. She keeps yelling and crying after us. Send her away. Jesus answered,

I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. All clear? We all clear? Just very, very, what? Okay. So let's stop right here.

So Jesus is apparently explaining here his reason for not responding to this woman, at least maybe part of the reason. Just work with me. So Jesus is sent only to whom? What does he say? The lost sheep of Israel, lost Israelites who have lost their way. Who apparently is not included in that group? A Canaanite woman. Now, but we think back to ourselves, we think, wait a minute. When Jesus was in Israel doing His things, Jesus actually had a number of encounters with non-Israelites, and He healed them. Anybody remember? Like, how about the Roman

soldier? The embodiment of oppression and tyranny, right, to the Israelites, and He healed the Roman centurions, right? So, a family member, like, and the two demonized men in the graveyard and the pigs. Do you guys remember that story? So, what's happening here? We know that Jesus doesn't care about that boundary line as such, Jew and non-Jew, but it matters here. Okay. So, two things here. One, well, a couple things. Two things is a couple things, right? So, the lost sheep of Israel. This should trigger something for us. As Jesus is going around announcing the kingdom of God, He wanted to multiply the scope of the mission, and so He sent out the twelve disciples who He had been training up. Do you guys remember that scene? And if you remember from chapter 10, these were his first instructions to them. He sent out the 12 disciples with the

following instructions. Don't go to the Gentiles and don't enter any towns of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message. The kingdom of heaven has come near. So, for Jesus has a sense that at this moment in His mission, He has a laser focus on the lost, the house of Israel, the family of God's people that have lost their way and that are no longer being the people that God called them to be. And so, don't go up to Tyre and Sidon, you know. Don't go down to Egypt. Let's just stay right here, laser focus, the covenant people of Israel. That's where this is all going to start. So, why is Jesus doing doing this what jesus doing is doing is he's being faithful to the to the whole story of god in israel and isaiah 2 is right right here you guys yeshahu ben emotes right

the poetry of yeshahu ben emotes because here's how here's how the story of the bible works and that you and we saw this in uh is 2. The story of the Bible begins with all nations, right? All humanity rebelling and declaring independence and autonomy from God. We're going to build this world our own way. Thank you very much. And we know how that ends up with the world as you and I know it. So what's God's response to the nations and the world in rebellion against Him? He chooses one family out of all of the nations, and He says, I'm going to do something through this family that's going to… they're going to be the conduit through which I restore my blessing and goodness and grace to all of the nations. And he starts with one guy, the head of that family. What's his name?

Abraham. Good old Abe. We'll just call him Abe because it's too long of a name to write right now on the job board. So Abe. And then Abe becomes the head of the people group called Israel. God calls Israel to be a nation of people so shaped by the Exodus event, by His grace and His justice and His redemption, that they become this contrast community to all of the nations, totally different. They become the city on the hill, the light to the nations, and so on. And what do they do with this privilege and responsibility? Okay, so they fail big time because they're humans, right? They're just as screwed up as everybody else. So God chooses even one line, one king out of the family of Israel who's going to lead the people in justice and obedience to

the covenant and to the scriptures and so on, and who's that king, at least who was ideally called to lead the people, the best king in theory that Israel ever had, right? King David, right? The root of Jesse, according to Isaiah. And David was, he had a great golden period. It lasted a few years. And then how did David do ultimately at leading Israel to become the city on the hill and the light to the nations? How did David do? Remember there's that story about he's on his rooftop, right? And he sees a naked woman.

He wants her, forces himself on her, gets her pregnant, murders her husband. You remember that story? Right? We're like, I've read this. It's just, there you go. He does what everybody else does. So this is the conflict and the plot tension

in how the story of the Bible works. God is committed to redeeming and restoring His world through human beings somehow. It's the plot tension that drives the whole Bible. God's committed to blessing the world that has rebelled against Him, but He's committed to doing it in and through human beings, finally waking up and getting on board with God's purposes and God's plans. And the whole story of Israel comes to this point where there's no one who's done it. It's just all this, here it is. And so, in the hope of the prophets, in the poetry of Isaiah, we have this hope that there'll be a new David who will

lead the people of Israel to be what they were always meant to be, and therefore be the way that God's blessing comes to the nations. And of course, in the story of the New Testament, who is put in this place right here? It's a good Sunday school answer. Just feel free to give it. Come on, Jesus. Yes, all right. All right, so this is, okay, all right, we'll just call him JC right here, Messiah, JC. So, and, but remember, is Jesus just here to deal with the political or economic situation of the tribe of Israel? No, that's the whole point of the story of the Bible is Isaiah 2, right? Of God's redemption flowing out to all of the nations. So we know that's where the story ends. But at this moment, right, this moment, and we're just talking about like

the three-ish years that Jesus was announcing the kingdom of God. He says, this is a moment where the focus is right here. God made a covenant promise to this family that it has yet to be fulfilled. And so Jesus, I mean, what else do you do? And then Jesus appointed a group of His disciples to go announce the kingdom of God to Israel, and how many of them are there? I mean, come on. How many? The 12. The 12, right? The 12 tribes. He's reconstituting the family of Israel to reach the family of Israel, but he says, not yet. Don't go here yet. We're not there yet in the story. It's where the story's going. I mean, look. Look at the last paragraph of the gospel according to Matthew,

just to round off this whole storyline. Matthew chapter 28. Jesus, this is the risen Jesus, says, All authority, not just in Israel, but in heaven on earth, has been given to me. Now go and make disciples of all the nations.

Baptizing, and on he goes, right? So there's, this is the present for Jesus in this story. This is the Isaiah 2, resurrection, hope, the kingdom of God is here. This is the moment where the Canaanite woman approaches Jesus. You guys with me? So, okay. Let's keep reading because this gets even more odd. Are you guys doing good?

Right. Woman doesn't take silence for an answer. She came and knelt before him. Lord, again, calling it master of the NBA. Right? It's just such charged language. Lord, master, help me, she said. Then Jesus replied,

You know, it's not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs. Okay. All right. Her response? Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. Now, stop. I'm reading from the New International Version, which translates the woman's response as a disagreement with Jesus. Some of you have English translation sitting in front of you where she doesn't disagree with Jesus. She affirms what he says and then undermines it. Either way, it ends the same, right? So, and it's a Greek thing. I've Bible geeked enough. I'm not going to get into that one here. So either way, her response to Jesus is to say, well, actually, no. No, that's not the case. So what's happening here? Jesus tells a parable about bread being given to children and not to dogs. Now, I thought to myself in preparing

this message I could like try and think of a bunch of interesting personal stories to help engage attention and so on and then I thought no Jesus calling someone a dog will get everybody's attention are you with me here? or is Jesus calling her a dog?

well not technically, he's telling a parable about children he's painting a scene that some of you live every night, right? If you have a family dog, right? And if you have kids. So there's food, right? It's like dinner scene. And so the word he uses here, it's interesting. It actually, it means little dog. Think the dogs that are all over the Pearl District, and you got it, right there, right? The little tiny, tiny dogs. It's the apartments, and they can't have big dogs. Anyway, so down there. So, little dogs. So, you have little dogs, right? The family, the beloved family pet,

and you have dinner time. And if you're a parent, like you're not going to give all of the food to the dogs. You have these priorities. Priorities. You're going to feed the children first. That's Jesus's point. And he's using this odd parable to paint this picture, this complex. I'm so sorry this is complex, but this story right here. This is what I'm here for, right? I'm the Messiah of Israel. I'm here to give bread to the children, to the lost sheep of Israel. It's not time yet, right? It's not time. And then this woman, she catches what Jesus is doing, and then she undermines his parable and says, well, here's the thing, though, is that, like, the family dogs are really beloved,

you know? Everybody loves the family dog, and there's always leftovers for the beloved family dog. Are you with me? And look at Jesus' response. Such a strange story. Then Jesus said to her, Then Jesus said to her, oh, woman. How many of you have an oh? There. Okay. All right. Again, only half of your English translations do. It's there in Greek. Oh, woman, you have incredible trust. Your request is granted. And her daughter was healed in that moment. It's just, what is this story? Okay, so this is very odd. It's very odd.

But it fits into the broader storyline that Jesus sees himself in. Jesus is on a mission to the children as he sees it. Now, if Jesus, like, why does Jesus, like, give this woman the silent treatment, you know? And why does He make her work for it, right? If this was just a principle of no bread for the dogs ever, Jesus would not have healed them this, right? And he wouldn't have healed the Roman centurion's, you know, family member either. So there's something happening in this moment where Jesus is drawing something out of this woman through silence,

and then through this provocative engagement. And I, you know, I don't know what to say about this. If you've ever been or seen movies about or read, you know, fiction or something that depicts Jewish communities and specifically traditional Orthodox Jewish communities and how education works in a traditional Jewish community. How many of you ever read Chaim Potok's works or seen The Chosen, this kind of thing? Amazing. Go read them right now. Don't stop at Powell's on your way home. Read them right now. Chaim Potok, The Chosen. Change your life forever. Anyhow, so the way education works is not like the esteemed, you know, knowledge bearer and, you know, just lecture, power lecturer. Basically, not this right here. So, the way it works is through, is the student has this very

personal relationship to the teacher, and the teacher is about question. It's more like Socratic, and it's provocative question, dialogue, challenge, back and forth. And that's exactly what we see happening right here. Jesus discerns that there's something in this woman that needs to be drawn out first through silence and then through this parable and this dialogue, right? And if Jesus actually had a thing against Gentiles, he first of all wouldn't heal this woman's daughter in the end, nor would it. Are you with me here? There's something Jesus discerns. And it's a good question. Like, why is a Canaanite woman approaching the Messiah of Israel while he's on a spiritual retreat, you know, in time? Like, what does she know about Jesus? What

could she possibly know about him? That he's a wonder worker? That he's a healer? So is she just coming to Jesus because he's a magic genie and he can solve all of my problems? But there's something like this. Again, how does she address Jesus? Not like wonder worker. She addresses him as Lord.

And she addresses him as her Lord. Do you see it twice as Lord. And she addresses him as her Lord. Do you see it twice? Lord. She's got this thing that she thinks Jesus is somehow Lord, not just of Israel, but the Lord of the Canaanites. That's a new one, right? The Messiah, son of David, Lord of the Canaanites, right? That's like Damian Lillard, Lord of the LA Lakers. Like, it just doesn't, right? You with me? It just doesn't work. And she addresses him as the king from the line of David. And so Jesus draws this out of her, this boldness and this confidence. And the moment, the moment that he sees her real heart and her trust and her acknowledgement of him for who he really says he is, boom, like the kingdom unleashes. Now watch this. Look at what Matthew has done in the stories that

follow and how this all fits together. Matthew's brilliant. Look at verse 29. So Jesus left there, and he went along the Sea of Galilee, and from there he went up on a mountainside, and he sat down. Back to the maps here. All right, so he leaves non-Jewish territory, and he goes back to the lake. Now, you might remember this from earlier on, but on the west side of the lake, you know, it's Capernaum. It's Jewish territory. It's where Jesus grew up in the hills there. On the east side of the lake, You know, it's Capernaum. It's Jewish territory. It's where Jesus grew up in the hills there. On the east side of the lake, east side, all right, east side is a region today called the Golan Heights, just steep hills going up off the lake. And that's a region called the Decapolis

in Jesus' day. It's predominantly non-Jewish cities. It's ruled by a different king and governor and so on. The map's all carved up politically and so on. So which side does Jesus go to? Is he going to the Jewish side or is he going to the non-Jewish side? Keep reading. Great crowds came to Jesus. They were bringing the lame and the blind and the crippled and the mute Oh wait, no, no, he just, right there. He healed them. mute speaking, and the crippled made well, and the lame walking, and the blind seeing, and they praised the God of Israel. Now, why on earth does Matthew need to tell you which God they're praising? If it were a group of Jews who give their devotion to Yahweh, the God of Israel, the story would simply read, and they praised God, right? If you're in a

Jewish crowd, you don't need to clarify which God you're talking about. But if you're in a crowd full of non-Jews who worship Zeus and Hermes and Aphrodite and this, and you say you praise God, you need to clarify which God you're talking about. Are you with me here? Which side of the lake did Jesus go to? The east side. That's exactly right. He went to the east side. And go read the parallel story in Mark, and he tells you. He gives you the explicit information. So, Jesus, after this encounter with the Canaanite woman, goes to the non-Jewish side of the lake and is bread for everybody. Well, healing for everybody. The bread comes next. Look at the next story. Then Jesus called his disciples, verse 32, to him and said, I have compassion for these people. They've already been with me three days, and they don't have anything to eat out here.

I don't want to send them away hungry. I mean, they're going to collapse on the way. His disciples answered, where on earth are we going to get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd? Deja vu, anybody? Deja vu? If you, again, it's called one chapter earlier,

Matthew chapter 14. Jesus fed how many people? Do you remember? There's over 5,000 people, we're told. And who were the people that gave the bread to the 5,000 Jewish people on the other side of the lake? Who helped Jesus pass out the bread? The disciples. What's their problem, right? Right? Where are we going to get enough bread, Jesus? It's like, what? Seriously, remember a week ago, you guys. So what, right? So that's the first thing that strikes you is like, why would they not remember this kind of thing? So there's clearly something unique about this scenario that they think there's no way Jesus is going to do this here right now. He's on the east side. I don't give bread.

The Messiah of Israel doesn't give bread to east-siders, right? They're not Jewish, right? You've got a Jewish crowd. He's the new Moses. He's feeding the Israelites in the wilderness. That's great, you know. It's wonderful how that story worked out. but not Jesus, not here, right? How much bread do you have, Jesus asked. Oh, he has seven loaves, oh, and a few small fish.

Yeah, that's great. That's great. He told the crowd to sit down. He took the seven loaves and the fish. When he had given thanks, he broke them, gave them to the disciples. They, in turn, to the people. Everybody ate. Who ate? Just the children? Everybody ate. And they were satisfied.

Afterward, the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces left over. The number of people eating was just 4,000 men, not even trying to count the women and the children. After Jesus sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went back to the west side, went to the other side of the lake. And that's the story. How are you guys doing? Now, I know this is a lot of Bible geek action. So, what is Matthew trying to tell us in these stories? First of all, he's trying to tell us that who Jesus was, was first and foremost to fulfill

the whole storyline of God and Israel. And his mission had a laser focus to call Israel to be what God had always called it to be. And where did the Jesus movement begin? And of what ethnic, you know, what was the ethnicity of everybody in the first generation of the Jesus? It's an Israelite. It's a Jewish movement. And then after his death and his resurrection, he sends his disciples out to all of the nations. This was a unique window. But here we've got a Canaanite woman who approaches Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, and she somehow got it in her head that Jesus is her Lord now, not in the end of days, now. Yes, Jesus, like you're going to be Lord of all the nations and bring peace and end war, right, and bring harmony and justice and so on, but here's this Canaanite woman, and that's not her reality, right? She lives in a world where this

map is so carved up by ethnic and political and religious boundary lines. It's crazy. And she, but she sees Jesus for who He is, not just a tribal king of Israel. He's the king of the nations. And she sees that he's her Lord. And through boldness and persistence, she says, Jesus, how about bringing some of this into the present now, right now? And she doesn't take no for an answer. Are you with me here? This is a very odd story. And I, you know, as my mentor Gary Brashears often says, if you're comfortable with what you believe about Jesus, don't read the Bible. It will just mess up everything that you thought you believed, right? So, he's Jewish. He's the Jewish Messiah, and he had a laser focus. And yet, here's this Canaanite woman who comes onto Jesus' radar, and she won't let go

of him until Jesus brings the future of the kingdom of God to bear here and now for her. Are you with me here? And Matthew's presenting this woman as a model. That's why he's telling the story to us. He wants us to know that this is a part of faith. She's a model of faith and trust in Jesus. And there's something about this woman's experience of Jesus that I think many of us resonate with. And it's something I think that Jesus is doing as a teacher here to draw out of this woman. In other words, this woman doesn't just sit in her home and hear that Jesus is coming to town and just pray that Jesus might just happen to go by her house. She goes out and she chases him down, and then she chases him down, and then she won't let go of him, and she will get

in front of him and, are you with me here? And Matthew's saying, yeah, that's it. That's a disciple of Jesus. There are apparently ways that the kingdom of God is meant to invade from the future back into the present, and that Jesus apparently won't do until his disciples persistently and boldly come to him and ask him to be who they know who he is. Are you with me here? Jesus, you're the Lord of all of the nations. You care about all of these people in Tyre and Sidon. Let's have some of that healing justice and compassion and power now, Jesus. And Jesus, he enters this dialogue with her, right, to bring out the genuineness of her trust. And then what's his answer in the end?

His answer is absolutely. Absolutely. But not until she's had to participate in how it happens. You guys with me? This is being a disciple of Jesus, apparently. And if this messes with your categories, I just, there you go. I don't, you know, just, I deliver the grenade and then it blows up for all of us, right? And we have to deal with it. So here's something that Jesus comes to do that's for Israel and for all nations

that we could never do for ourselves. And that's in His death as the Messiah to represent the line of David, to represent Israel, to represent all of humanity, and bearing into Himself the consequences of our evil and of our sin and of our selfishness. And His resurrection from the dead gives us something that we could never generate for ourselves, which is life, which is the victory over death, which is victory over our own demons and over the power of spiritual evil and hope for new creation and justice and harmony and peace. But once this is accomplished for us, and once the movement gets going, apparently Jesus really expects that you and I and his disciples will be involved in how his kingdom

and his will is done here on earth as it is in heaven. Think of it this way. If Jesus has a laser focus right here, I'm sorry this is so messy, but if Jesus has a laser focus right here, I'm sorry this is so messy, but if Jesus has a laser focus right here for His mission, the way that Matthew has put these stories together, who's the hinge? If you have Jesus and then bread to all of the nations, there's a door, right? Don't go to the lost… don't go to the nations, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But Matthew says, no, no, no, no. No, Jesus had a whole mission to the nations. And who is the hinge of the bread coming to all of the nations? Who is it? Who is the key figure in Jesus' missions to the nations? This Canaanite woman and her bold, unrelenting request. She wouldn't leave Jesus alone. And Jesus happily gave her what she was asking for. Are you with me? So what does this mean for us? Let me land the plane.

That's not my job to tell you, but I can paint the playing field, to use another sports metaphor, so to speak. Jesus' disciples live in Tyre and Sidon. They live in Jerusalem. They live in Portland. And we go around and we see things. We see relationships. We see situations in our city. We see relational environments with your roommates, whatever,

or your family, right? You see things in your own heart, and you know that if Jesus is true to His character, that one day that will be set right. When the swords are destroyed and turned into plowshares, and when the kingdom of God comes to bring its healing justice and to set all things right, if you have a conviction that that's where the story's going in the future, this is a relationship that will be healed one day. These are people who will not go hungry in the kingdom of God. These are people who won't be my enemies in the kingdom of God. And this woman becomes this portrait to us to say, well, why not now? Why not bring the future into reality now?

And she's not passive. She chases it down. She doesn't give up. She, in bold persistence and prayer, calls Jesus to be true to who she knows who he is. And he happily, he happily responds to her, but not after some effort. What does this mean for you? And what does it mean for me? And what does it mean for Door of Hope here? And let's just make that our prayer as we take the bread and the cup here. And as we worship, we worship a Jesus who's the Jewish Messiah of Israel,

but whose heart beats for every person on planet earth, and for every relationship to be healed, and for justice to be done. And the way that that is translated into the nations is through his disciples, which means that you and I have ownership in what this looks like. Lord, help us. Right? Lord, son of David, help us. Thank you for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible podcast.

We're going to keep exploring Matthew in the series that lay ahead. So we'll see you next time.