Introduction

• Last week: defilement comes from within. “Thus he declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:19).
• Are there other boundaries we have misunderstood? What about the people Israel had kept at a distance?
• A theological road trip into Gentile territory: a mother in need, then a crowd in need.
• This Boundary-Crossing King loves faith that asks for crumbs and gives grace that fills baskets.
• Lest we, in our own little Petrine acts of religiosity, pull away from people whom Christ loves—or feel he would pull away from us for lack of religious credentials.

1. He Loves Faith That Asks for Crumbs (21–28)

• Four exchanges—the last a confession that doubles as an appeal.

21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 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.” 23 But he did not answer her a word.

A dark district

• Tyre and Sidon: Phoenician port cities northwest of Galilee—stand-in code for paganism and pride.
• Jezebel was a Sidonian princess (1 Kings 16:31). Tyre was judged by the prophets (Isa. 23; Ezek. 28:1–19).
• Yet Jesus said that had his mighty works been done there, “they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (Matt. 11:21).

A daughter of Canaan

• Mark: Syrophoenician (Mark 7:26). Matthew reaches back for Canaanite—Yahweh’s ancient enemies. The only time the New Testament calls anyone by that name.
• She cries out, continuous and loud: Lord, Son of David (22)—an intensely Jewish, messianic title from a Gentile!
• Near Sidon stood a temple to Eshmun, god of healing. She walks right past that false god to plead with the King of Israel.
• Not yes. Not no. He did not answer her a word (23).

And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

• Once again the disciples are bothered by someone drawn to Jesus (14:15).
• Only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (24): “She’s not my mission right now” (Matt. 10:5–6).

25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

• Knelt (25): the worship of the magi (2:11) and the disciples (14:33).
• She drops “Son of David.” A prayer as simple as Peter’s on the water (14:30): “Lord, help me.”
• It sounds harsh. Likely little household dogs—but hardly a compliment.
• Even when the host greets a dog owner with “Table for two?”, we know it’s better to be the children than the dogs.
• Is there some lesson, some test, some hope for this desperate mother?

27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

• No offense, no argument—only humility. She agreed with his program: the Jewish people first. But she expected enough left over for her and her people.

Why the hard words?

• Wondering if Jesus is prejudiced? Stay with the story. The hard word is the doorway, not the verdict.
• God chose Abraham: in his offspring all nations would be blessed (Gen. 12:3; 22:18).
• “To the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16). The blessing flows to the world precisely because he was first the Jewish Messiah (Rom. 15:8–9).
• Israel was not a wall to keep the nations out, but the route Christ would travel to reach the nations.
• The olive tree: Gentiles grafted in by sheer mercy (Rom. 11:17); Paul never stopped longing for the natural branches to be grafted back in (11:23–24). “It is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you” (Rom. 11:18).
• From the outset: Rahab, Ruth and likely Tamar (1:3, 5); the magi (2:1–12); all nations (28:19).
• His silence was not a hard no; she received it as an open door. His words were not an attempt to get out of ministering to her, but a way of drawing her into true faith.
• No pride, no outrage. Only quiet acceptance—the empty hand Jesus loves to fill.
• Three times Matthew writes “he”; then “Jesus answered her” (28). The name returns—his real heart on display.

An examination of faith

• Only twice does Jesus commend great faith—both Gentiles (8:10).
• Faith is only as great as its object.

1. Her faith came to God with nothing in its hand. No trade—only need, trust, belief. Unlike the Pharisees with their washings, she brought nothing (15:1–9).
2. Her faith was radically humble. She did not argue with his plan; she hoped for leftover crumbs.
   • We argue with God because, deep down, we believe our goodness or wisdom is greater than his.
   • True faith does not say, “If I were God…” It tries to get out of the God seat as quickly as possible.
3. Her faith was completely undeterred. His silence would have turned away thousands; she heard an invitation.
   • Martin Luther, preaching on this passage: she clung to a deep and secret yes hidden beneath Christ’s apparent no.
   • Like Jacob: “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Gen. 32:26).

Come as she came

• A pattern for us—not because she was strong, but because her Lord is ours.
• Bring nothing in your hands. He is a debtor to no man (Rom. 11:35). Our prayers, service and tithes do not make him indebted to us.
• Humbly accept his ways. He has endured our fits of unbelief for thousands of years.
• Be undeterred. If he is silent or responds in difficult ways, pray and ask. As long as the door of faith is open, cry out to him.
• Tom Carson (Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor, by his son, D. A. Carson): decades of obscure ministry in Quebec, long anxious prayers in his journals—breakthrough only in his later years. Through the silence, he heard the secret yes of Christ.
• Parental faith: “Have mercy on me” meant “Deliver my daughter.” “Living as a parent feels like sending out your heart into the world without your body: unprotected, out of your control.” —Rebecca McLaughlin
• Until the door is completely closed, cry out. Even when the answer is no, as with Paul’s thorn, his grace is sufficient (2 Cor. 12:8–9). His no is never the absence of his love.

2. He Gives Grace That Fills Baskets (29–39)

29 Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. And he went up on the mountain and sat down there. 30 And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, 31 so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel. 32 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.” 33 And the disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd?” 34 And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.” 35 And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground, 36 he took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 37 And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over. 38 Those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 And after sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.

Ministry to Gentiles

• With her hope for crumbs still echoing, Jesus provides bread for thousands. Many in the crowd appear to be Gentiles:
  • Mark places Jesus in the Decapolis (Mark 7:31; 8:1)—largely Gentile territory.
  • They glorified the God of Israel (31). Romans 15 coming to life (Rom. 15:9).
  • Twelve baskets for the five thousand (14:20)—the tribes of Israel. Here seven, completeness—and a different word: the large spyris, big enough to lower Paul over the Damascus wall (Acts 9:25).
  • Before, the disciples raised the crowd’s need (14:15). Now, after three days, Jesus does (32–33). Perhaps an old prejudice toward the nations, quietly on display.
• The progression: defilement comes from the heart; a boundary crossed for a Canaanite; now a table set for thousands from the nations.
• “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food.… He will swallow up death forever” (Isa. 25:6–8).

An examination of grace

1. His grace is for broken, hurting people. A makeshift hospital: they put the sick at his feet (30). “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Matt. 9:12).
   • Bodily brokenness pictures broken souls, made whole through regeneration and forgiveness (Titus 3:5; Eph. 1:7).
   • The Bridge Restoration Ministry’s twentieth anniversary: bitter stories of destruction, sweet stories of grace. When someone stands tall, healed by the wonder-working power of Christ, it is all his grace.
   • Come in our limitations and flaws; he transforms us from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18).
2. Christ’s grace is for hungry people. Three days with nothing to eat (32). Not only the Shepherd of our souls, but the Provider for our bodies.
   • God’s mercy quartet: the poor, the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner (Deut. 10:18; Zech. 7:10).
   • “If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17).
   • He’d already been running a mountain hospital. Why not open a kitchen too?
   • “I am just one person. What can I do?” Precisely the right question. “She has done what she could” (Mark 14:8).
   • Start with the household of faith (Gal. 6:10). This Christmas, remember aspiring youth pastors—they are hungry, literally!
3. Christ’s grace is for all types of people. She asked for crumbs; fewer than ten verses later, seven full baskets. Not a restricted, crumb-like blessing for the Gentiles, but an astounding overflow to the nations.
   • Most of us are Gentiles, eating from the King’s table. God “shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34) and “opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27).
4. Christ’s grace is for forgetful people. The disciples got to hand out the bread—more blessed to give (Acts 20:35).
   • Yet they forgot the five thousand: “Where are we to get enough bread?” (33; 16:9–10).
   • Manna for four decades, a jar inside the ark lest they forget (Exod. 16:32–35; Heb. 9:4).
   • Christ’s grace and generosity press on, with us or without us.

Conclusion

• A Canaanite mother asks for crumbs; a Gentile crowd walks away with spare baskets. The Pharisees cling to tradition and get only the sign of Jonah (16:1–4).
• It’s the outsiders—empty-handed, trusting, relentless—who are given such extravagant grace.
• The boundary is no longer ethnicity, handwashing or tradition: “Turn to me. Trust me. I will overwhelm you with baskets of kindness.”
• Mephibosheth. Saul’s grandson, lame in both feet (2 Sam. 4:4), calls himself “a dead dog such as I” (2 Sam. 9:8). David says, “You shall eat at my table always” (9:7). “So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king’s table. Now he was lame in both his feet” (9:13).
• David brought one lame man to his table; Jesus brings the nations. “Many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 8:11).
• To make room for outsiders, the King himself became the outsider. She endured a moment of silence; he endured the silence of heaven: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).
  • “Dogs encompass me” (Ps. 22:16). Counted as an outsider, so that outsiders could be welcomed as children.
  • He “suffered outside the gate” (Heb. 13:12), became a curse for us, “so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles” (Gal. 3:13–14).
• She asked for crumbs. He gave baskets. Then he gave himself.
• Hear the secret yes in his silence. Say, “Lord, help me.” Leave your résumé at home. Behold the Boundary-Crossing King, who has a seat for you at his table. And watch what he will do.

Study Questions

Head (Knowledge, Facts, Understanding)

1. Why does Matthew call the woman a “Canaanite” (15:22) when Mark calls her a Syrophoenician (Mark 7:26)? What did Tyre and Sidon represent in Israel’s history (1 Kings 16:31; Isa. 23; Matt. 11:21)?
2. According to Romans 1:16 and 15:8–9, why did Jesus go first to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (15:24)? What details suggest the crowd in 15:29–39 was largely Gentile?

Heart (Feelings, Impressions, Desires)

1. Jesus first answered her with silence (15:23). When God seems silent, do you tend to hear a hard no or a secret yes? Why?
2. The disciples said, “Send her away” (15:23). Are there people you feel inclined to keep at a distance from Christ—or do you ever feel he would keep his distance from you? What drives that?

Hands (Actions, Commitments, Decisions, Beliefs)

1. Which mark of her faith—empty-handed, humble, undeterred—do you most need right now? What request will you keep bringing to the Lord this week, praying, “Lord, help me” (15:25)?
2. Jesus had compassion on the hungry (15:32). Asking “What can I do?” (Mark 14:8; Gal. 6:10), what one need in the household of faith will you help meet this season?

Sources Used

• The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV)
• D. A. Carson, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson
• Martin Luther, sermon on Matthew 15:21–28
• Rebecca McLaughlin (quotation on parenting)