Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

Jesus Goes Beyond the Borders

“Jesus withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon” (Matthew 15:21). That was not His usual area of operation. In fact it was quite far from the Sea of Galilee where we hear about most of His ministry outside of Jerusalem. Galilee was far north of Jerusalem and Judea, beyond Samaria. But Tyre and Sidon are even farther, beyond the borders of Israel altogether.

It was territory that was never conquered by Israel when they went in to the promised land. So the Canaanites were not only historically present there, but whenever Israel pushed them out of their boundaries, that’s where they ended up. The worship of Baal and Asherah and other false gods (that is, demons) flourished in that area. It is where Queen Jezebel with her forty Baal prophets came from.

It is not surprising that there was a demon-possessed daughter there. In fact, she was likely not the only one. Her mother, a Canaanite, was in distress because her daughter was severely demon-possessed. It must have been an extraordinary affliction even to the eyes of the locals. They were used to a life with demons, but this was a case that caused the mother to seek for outside help.

Jesus, having had a dispute with the Pharisees while preaching and healing in Galilee, withdrew to the region. Yet, He wasn’t on vacation. He was still looking for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That is to say, not those who had wandered off, but those who were written off. They weren’t people from Israel who had gotten turned around and taken the wrong highway; or even those who were a little lax in their synagogue attendance; or those who moved away to find work.

These would have been children of Israel who had wholly given themselves over to the Canaanite gods. Jesus was sent to gather them as well as those who were regular in worship at the temple and hearing the words of Moses regularly at their local synagogue. They were the lost, unbelievers.

That is tough work. It is hard to contact and approach those who have slidden away from the church. It is emotionally exhausting, whether they live under your roof or in your neighbourhood or are just out there somewhere you know not. And they are usually not very receptive or inclined to come back. After all, they walked away for a reason. They separated themselves through a number of different decisions in life. They reoriented their lives to join in with all kinds of things that are hostile and opposed to Christ and His Church.

To be sent out to those who are completely written off, who have not just slid away, but turned away and cut ties, and are dead as far as the faith is concerned... Wow! We ask ourselves, if it is really worth the effort sending someone out to try to find them and bring them back. We know that it is certainly beyond our efforts to go to them ourselves.

And still, this Canaanite woman is even farther away than those lost sheep of Israel. She is immersed in a culture that has been at war with Israel for generations. She has not known anything else. She was raised to believe and worship gods who are only concerned with receiving sacrifices to buy their favours. And even that only in order to entrap people into a spiritual slavery to them, an incessant service, a life of fear lest they be offended, and the horrible effects of their demonic control over people in your life.

But somehow this woman knows that Jesus has come to her region. And so she goes out to Him, calling and crying for His mercy, His help, the salvation of her beloved daughter who has been seized by the demons that the woman and her neighbours and her ancestors have worshiped.

Why should Jesus pay any attention to her? Why should he regard this woman from a hostile nation? Why should He answer her who has not only rejected the one true God, but spent her life serving and worshiping the archenemy, the devil? No doubt this woman has witnessed, consented to, and participated in the horrid worship practices of the occult.

Perhaps she has consented and even supplied the fertile blood of menstruation and miscarriage to buy the favours of these devils. Perhaps she had more than one daughter and demon-possession is not the only way that her offspring have been lost to her. The Canaanites sacrificed children to Baal. Why should Jesus even listen to such a one as this?

That is what the disciples were certainly thinking. We are quick to condemn them for telling Jesus to silence the woman. But I wonder in how many unconscious acts or hidden thoughts or outward actions we have done the same. Whom do we consider to be beyond the reach of Jesus? Whom do we consider to be not worth the effort? Whom would we send away? What does it take for someone to be not worth the effort, a lost cause, one whom Jesus Himself would not help?

Would that be a prostitute; the operator of an occult bookstore and craft shop; one who has worshiped demons; someone who has sacrificed a child or children on the altar of prosperity; someone who has grown up in a culture that has been at war with Christianity (an Islamist, a Hindu, a Sikh, a Canadian atheist); someone afflicted by an evil spirit, or under full demonic possession; someone who has left the Church and the Christian faith? What do we do when they come calling?

What is far beyond us, beyond our abilities, our energy, and our compassion, is not beyond our Lord Jesus. He reaches out beyond the boundaries, beyond the borders. He has compassion for those who are seeking what He has to give. He withdrew from His dispute with the religious Jews who were arguing about what defiles a person and makes them an unclean dinner companion, and He went to a region where everyone was unclean.

In illustration of His teaching that “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth” (Matthew 15:11), He went to the place where a Canaanite woman came out to Him with these words pouring out of her mouth, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David” (v. 22).

“What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart...” (v. 18). That can be the evil thoughts of the Pharisees against Jesus’ disciples, or the evil thoughts of Jesus’ disciples against the Canaanite woman. It can be the murder of children, adultery, sexual immorality in the worship of demons. It can be theft, false witness, or slander against people from a different background and upbringing than yours, or against people who have fallen away or turned away from the Christian Church and this very congregation.

But what comes out of the mouth can also be the wonderful words of the woman from the region of Tyre and Sidon. “Lord, help me” (v. 25). They are words of humility and repentance. She has realized that the path of her life and the gods she worshiped was all murder and extortion and death. She has realized that the only source of rescue, help, forgiveness, and life is in Jesus the Christ, who out of His unfathomable great love went beyond the borders of His own people to search for those who were written off by everyone else.

She wasn’t even one of those lost sheep of the house of Israel, but she knew that their God had promised to send a descendant of David to be their Saviour. Would she dare to hope that He would reach even beyond the genetic boundaries to hear her cry? At first it did not seem so. He was silent. Then He reiterated that He was sent to His own lost sheep. He told her it would not be right to take the grace of God for His chosen people and throw it away to the dogs.

But she didn’t even ask for that. She wasn’t looking for anything to be thrown her way, simply to be able to lick the floor after the children had been fed. She had faith that the Master of the Jews, was so gracious that there would be crumbs and that those tiny pieces of the mercy of the God of Israel would be enough to save her daughter.

But she was greatly mistaken. She far underestimated the grace of the God of Israel. The crumbs were not just enough to heal her daughter from her horrible case of demon possession. They were enough to cleanse the woman herself from all evil impurity. They were enough to forgive all of the daughter’s sins and all of the sins of her mother. Those crumbs were enough to save them both from the demons that had ruled their lives, the demons that they had worshiped and for whom they had done such horrendous things. The crumbs were enough to deliver them from a life of death and give to them an eternal life after death.

The crumbs of grace that came from this Son of David fell not just beneath His table, but into the district of Tyre and Sidon, to the land of the Canaanites, and all around the world. It is the crumbs from the Lord’s Table that we receive here. The Bread of the Presence that is set forever before the Most High falls from the heavenly tabernacle in our celebration of the Holy Eucharist. And here we lick up the crumbs of His grace, receiving the same mercy and life that the Canaanite woman found coming from the boundless reach of the Son of David.

In the Sacrament of the Altar, the God who sent His own Son to be the sacrifice on the cross in order to save us from all the demons of our past, reaches beyond all boundaries physical and rational, in order to give us the body and blood of Christ. He offered up His blood to pay the price for all of our idolatry, sexual immorality, murder, theft, and slander. He has rescued us from the enslavement of our sin and shame. He has given us new life, free from the power of the enemy. Because His grace goes out beyond the borders, it has reached us. And that good news is a delight.

In His grace we live as beacons signalling the far reach of God’s mercy. And there are many in our area that need to know about it. There are people who have been lost from the Church of Christ, and many who have never known it. They are not beyond His reach. They, too, can be made clean by God’s grace through Jesus Christ. And if they see in our life that the grace of God has reached us, then perhaps they too will come calling, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David,” and His reply will reach their ears even as it has ours: “Be it done for you as you desire” (v. 28).