Sermon: In His Silence Matt 15:21-28 August 18. 2002
READ SCRIPTURE
I. Introduction
A. I am glad you are here this morning for I have a few things I want to say to you:
1. You have to listen
(a) A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it is two-tired.
(b) A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
(c) A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
(d) The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large
(e) Once you’ve seen one shopping centre you’ve seen a mall.
(f) When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she’d dye.
(g) Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
(h) Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of “defeet”.
2. I noticed a few of you smiling but I am not really sure really got what I just said so this time listen carefully, digest what I am saying (REPEAT some of the above slowly)
3. Americans are not considered to be very good listeners mostly because we are too busy talking ourselves. We want to makes sure the other person hears our point, understands what we are saying sometimes it takes something really dramatic to get our attention.
B. This mornings story is of the Canaanite women and her demon possessed daughter is dramatic alright and it gets our attention but at first glance we are left wondering is this the Jesus I know, the Jesus of love and compassion. "It is difficult to find a harsher and more unfeeling reply in the four Gospels than that which our Lord made to the Canaanite woman. In our present climate, if someone just overheard the first part of this Gospel reading, Jesus would be finished. (Richard McCullen)
C. But if we will listen to the story we might just learn a few things about God and ourselves.
II. VS 21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon
A. Jesus had been a very busy man. He had fed 5000 men and who knows how many women and children, he had healed the lame, the sick and the afflicted, he tried to rest but got little time alone, and he had rescued his disciples from a storm
B. Tyre and Sidon are 50 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. It is a long walk and we are not sure why he goes there. It is the farthest north that he will travel and the only time in this gospel that he goes outside of Jewish/Samaritan territory except to escape Herod as a baby and to visit Gadara. Perhaps God leads him there just so we might enjoy the story of this remarkable, fait filled Canaanite woman.
III. VS 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting.
A. Canaaites were bitter enemies of the Jews. They were a loose company of tribes with a checkered history with the Jews. Noah cursed his son who became the ancestor of Canaan to be a slave to his brother. After entering the Promised land the Israelites suffered the Lord’s greatest wrath for mingling with the barbaric pagan Canaanites, for adopting their customs, culture and idols. The last Old Testament prophesy concerning the Canaanites found in Zechariah was a damning exclusion of the Canaanites in the house of the Lord Almighty.
B. AND NOW WE find Jesus in the middle of these pagans, choosing to go to them, and this woman, this Canaanite is shouting at Jesus
1. in Greek the word means cry out, scream screech
2. this woman was demanding Jesus attention by the sheer volume and audacity of the words she yelled.
3. Have mercy on me Lord Son of David – She addresses Jesus as both Lord and the Son of David, words a Jew might use for the Messiah. Only once before has Jesus heard such words, even from his own disciples. Here was a Canaanite woman, an outsider, a non Jew, acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah.
4. Her words contrast those of the Pharisees and scribes – the jews to whom Jesus was sent. She understood what they were to blind to see. The clarity of her vision contrasts with the disciples’ lack of vision to see Jesus as son of God. Her words and demeanor are ones of reverence and faith .
IV. VS 23 He did not answer her at all
A. It doesn’t make sense we have just had this tremendous expression of Jesus as the Messiah and Jesus just sits there, refusing to answer the woman.
1. Throughout the new testament we see Jesus always responding to cries for mercy, salvation and healing. His silence here is stunning awkward, disturbing.
2. The disciples beseech, beg Jesus, to send her away. It is not clear whether they justed wanted him to get rid of her or give her what she wanted either way They probably would have been happy as long as she stopped bothering them.
3. Notice In his silence though Jesus doesn’t walk away from her, he doesn’t turn his back on her, doesn’t desert her; instead he speaks to the disciples and offers her an invitation of hope.
V. VS 24
A. Have you ever notice how silence is motivating, that it causes you to react, to move.
1. I mean if I am in the back room and all of sudden my house is silent – you can bet I am moving, hustling my way right back up front as fast as I can to find out exactly what’s going on.
2. If you are in a group and all of a sudden things become quite, silent – people began to look around looking for someone to speak up to break the awkwardness of the silence and then all of sudden everybody speaks at the same time
3. And In his silence the Canaanite woman is motivated. She goes to her knees before Jesus.
B. VS 25-26
1. Jesus just called this woman a dog – did you hear that “It is not fair to take the chidlren’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
(a) At this point if it were you or I we would be all over Jesus, we’d be in his face “who do you think you are calling a dog – I am no less than anyone else. I have as much right to be treated right and blessed as anyone else. I have as much right to have my prayers answered as the preacher does.
2. The Canaanite woman though, doesn’t get upset in fact in Jesus words she hears the hope of an invitation.
(a) You see the Jews would referred to the Canaaites as dogs, it was meant as an insult – You wild savage, undiscipline, unloveable beast.
(b) But the word Jesus uses here isn’t the word for a vicious street dog but the word for a pet, a house dog. Pets are not outsiders but insiders. They not only belong to the family but are part of the family.
(c) To you and I that still seems a miserable exsistence, a sad invitation but to this woman it was an invitation for her to come into the house, to become part of the family to be loved and cared for, to sit under the table and be feed by hand.
(d) It was Jesus way of testing her inviting her to come in if she would only listen, if she really believed, if she really understood he knew she would hear his invitation.
3. The woman heard it alright and she turned it right back around on Jesus
(a) VS 27
(b) We can almost see the gleam in her eyes, the smile on her lips as she turns the play on words back to Jesus – saying yes Lord I am a dog compared to you and your glory. She humbly comes to him acknowledging his Lordship, acknowledging him as the Messiah I am not worthy to be your pet, your house dog, your child, but you are so rich in blessing and goodness that even a crumb will be enough to heal my daughter.
(c) She is a quick thinker and it almost seems as if she is playing a word game with Jesus and getting the better of him, that in her persistence and begging she got what she wanted…
(d) But that isn’t the case The woman had a tremendous faith that led her to worship God. She came and knelt before him and asked the lord to help her. She came with a sense of reverence, not as equal but as a wretched human before a great and holy God.
C. And God rewarded her for her faith VS 28
VI. (PAUSE saying nothing until there is a sense of awkward SILENCE)
A. Have you ever felt God was silent? That God wasn’t answering your prayers, that he wasn’t even listening to you? That you were alone in the wilderness of darkness and silence…
1. You’re not alone! In fact throughout the Bible we find stories, instances of when people felt God was ignoring them, silent, unresponsive to their pleas for help and mercy.
(a) Job lost his family, lost his health, lost the confidence of his wife, lost his wealth. He wondered why doesn’t God speak to me?
(b) God promised Abraham a son and then was silent on the issue for a hundred years. Look into the life of David – a man after God’s very heart – begging God for answer
(i) Psalm 4:1 “Answer me, O god….
(ii) Psalm 13: “O lord how long will you forget me, Forever? How long will you look the other way, How long must I struggle with the anguish in my soul and with sorrow in my heart everyday? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? Turn and answer me, O lord my God”
(c) After the last book of the Old Testament Malachi was written, after all the prophesys and promises of the Old Testament had been foretold– there was a span of 400 years – called the SILENT YEARS when God seemed to put the entire world on hold – when God seemed unresponsive and silent to everybody’s pleas
(d) And greater still was the God’s silence When Jesus hung on the cross he crying out “My God My God why has thou forsaken me.”” There was no booming voice, no shout from heaven – Jesus seemingly suffered and died in the silence of God….
2. I have seen a lot of peoplein the midst of silence beat themselves up, feeling like God rejected them, because they had sinned, because they were not good enough for god.
3. GOD HAS NOT TURNED HIS BACK ON YOUR PRAYERS, HE IS NOT IGNORING YOU
(a) John 9:31 says that “he is ready to listen to those worship him and do his will.”
(b) Psalm 34:15 reads, “The Lord watches over those who do right; his ears are open to their cries for help.”
(c) Psalm 66:19 declares, “But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer!”
(d) Psalm 102:17 “He will hear his forsaken people and listen to their prayers.”
4. Some people claim, argue that unanswered prayer is a because of person’s a lack of faith, because of sin in their life. How sad they do not understand. FAITH IS NOT PROVEN TRUE BY ANSWERED PRAYER BUT BY UNANSWERED PRAYER THAT DOES NOT MAKE US WAVER OR GIVE UP ON GOD. (PAUSE)
B. In God’s silence he is not rejecting you or I. He is calling us to listen for as
1. David Augsburger puts it "An open ear is the only believable sign of an open heart."
C. In the silence of the moment, the Canaanite woman didn’t give up; she didn’t run away; she didn’t cry and blame God; she went to her knees, she moved closer to him, she sought to be in his presence in a more intimate way. She placed herself at his feet and listened to his words.
D. She heard Jesus’ invitation and accepted it humbly because she believed in who he was. She demonstrated the depth of her faith even in the midst of the silence and the sufferings of her child.
VII. Closing
A. This morning, in closing, there are no cuties stories, no emotional illustrations, only silence.
B. In this silence, (hold up the Bible) may you hear, read and know his Word. May you hear his invitation to you. To be baptized, to join this fellowship of this church, to share your faith, to sit at his feet or simply to humbly worship him…
C. And may you hear the God’s words praising you, saying …”Great is your faith.”
(ALLOW FOR A TIME OF SILENCE – three minutes – enough time that the silence is awkward and uncomfortable – I will stand and say AMEN then precede with the closing hymn)
THREE minutes of silence seems like an eternity, its awkward and uncomfortable.
I pray that in those moments in your life when God seems so silent when the silence seems deafening and painful, that you will go to him, worship at his feet, hear his invitation to you and respond in such a way that God proclaims “Great is your faith.” May God find us faithful until the end.
AMEN!
