Text: Isaiah 56:6-8; Matthew 15:21-28
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text is some of the Old Testament lesson and some of the Gospel lesson, because today the readings are filled with these metaphors for fellowship with God, one being that of:
~ Foreigner vs. Israelite [Isaiah 56:6]
~ Unclean vs. Priests [Isaiah 56:6-7]
~ Despised Dog vs. Child [Matthew 15:26-28]
Each of these images was chosen by the Lord to illustrate His saving work, that it is for everyone who believes the words and promises of God.
So from the Old Testament lesson, we heard this from Isaiah 56, verses 6–8:
6 “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane
it,
and holds fast my covenant—
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.”
8 The Lord God,
who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,
“I will gather yet others to him
besides those already gathered.”
So when we hear this language of foreigners coming to the Lord and being counted among the Lord’s people, we’re reminded of people like Rahab of Jericho, or Ruth of Moab, or Naaman the Syrian. Each of these are ones who joined themselves to the Lord, and they left behind their false gods. The requirement: they left their false gods and joined themselves to the true and living God.
And so there’s that, but there’s also this notion of being unclean. The nations
that were around Israel were perpetually unclean and not welcome. This requirement of not being unclean in the Lord’s presence created a real problem.
The Lord explains in Psalm 5,
“4You are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with You. 5The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes. You hate all evildoers.”
So it’s rather shocking here in Isaiah to see that unclean people would not only be admitted, because it says,
“Everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it and holds fast My covenant, these I will bring to My holy mountain.” (Isaiah 56:6b-7a)
Not only is God welcoming unclean people, but they are even making burnt offerings and sacrifices acceptable on His altar.
It’s even more baffling that the Lord’s temple, that His place where He chose to put His name to dwell with people on earth, that He would say,
“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:7d)
This is not anything to do with the interfaith chapel that we see at airports and things like that. But for these foreigners that the Lord brings in, He goes even further than Israel was even willing to go. He calls them “child of God.” They scarcely use that title of Father before, but here Jesus introduces it.
So let’s be clear about what accounts for this change between God pulling Israel out of Egypt, separating them from the other nations, and bringing them into their own land, and now in the New Testament, when this Canaanite woman comes, why does Jesus answer her needs?
It isn’t that God gave up caring about separation. The descendants of Abraham were set apart for a very good reason. As we heard in Deuteronomy 7 several weeks ago, it wasn’t because there was anything about the Semites, the descendants of Abraham, that made them special to God. It was that God had set His love on them, but they were set apart as a nation in a very blatant way, in an earthly way, in order to illustrate a truth that ultimately is only visible to God.
That is the separation between those who believe and trust the Word of the Lord and those who deny Him.
The distinct nation of Israel was even maintained up until the time when the Promised Messiah came. And then with Jesus, the Word now goes out, not just to, as Jesus says, the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but at the end of Matthew,
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.”
However, we can be misled if we reflect these metaphors back on the earthly image. And what I mean by that is, for example, some Christians insist that the Holy Land, Palestine, is still very important to salvation history. Certain parties must win, battles are needing to be fought, and then these things, including the rebuilding of the temple, will hasten the coming of our Lord’s Kingdom.
And so, taking these metaphors and then applying them to what we see on the map as Israel, they take this promise of the Land, and perhaps even the unclear words of St. Paul and the Epistle, to mean that the Lord is going to save unbelieving Jews in spite of their faithlessness. And that’s not what it says.
But on the other hand, this also means that we don’t mistreat Jews civilly because of their parentage. They are enemies of God through unbelief, not through ancestry. And this is where anti-Semitism gets it all wrong. Because the Jewish people should be judged and condemned on the basis, because in anti-Semitism, Jewish people are judged and they’re condemned on the basis of their ancestry, instead of their own actions, like everyone should be on earth, at least.
But within the Kingdom of God, the true Kingdom of God, the true Zion that we sing about,
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
So notice that each of those differences are highlighted in terms of ancestry, in terms of social status, slave versus free, and distinguishing between the sexes.
Now that isn’t to say that the differences are insignificant or should be ignored. And God knows how we experience the insanity of people today who are trying to say there’s no difference between male or female. But what that does mean is that there is one Christ and Savior for all people, period.
Anti-Semitism is this problem because it opposes Jews because of their distinct ethnicity. But regardless of that, we should seek their “acceptance” (Rom. 11:15) through faith in Christ, just like any other people group.
Paul’s grief in Romans 9 through 11 is because his people were given all of these things. They had a front row seat to all of God’s saving work through the centuries, and yet when it came to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ being born, the Messiah that they had hoped for, largely they rejected Him. And they still reject Him. Those who reject Him reject Him on the basis of tradition and what the rabbis wrote and things like that.
Now the next metaphor is what is unclean versus those whose sacrifices are acceptable to God in the temple.
Now for Israel in the Old Testament, this was pictured by physically separating from that which was profane and foreign. In fact, Isaiah 52, he even says something similar in words. Very distinctly, he says,
“11Depart, depart, go out from there; touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves, you who bear the vessels of the Lord.”
And there in the immediate context is talking about going out from Egypt. However, the separation between clean and unclean has led some people to maintain a distinction of clean and unclean foods as was commanded through Moses.
And so they look for what is unclean in what they eat, or they look for what is unclean in what they wear, or they find it a more noble thing to submit to the laws and the regulations that were given to the Jews under Moses.
But this is not the separation that the Lord intends. He’s speaking about separating from the uncleanness that belongs to our sinful flesh.
Keeping that separate is a whole different matter than separating from external contaminants as if we could set up some utopia where everything would be wonderful and it would be heaven on earth.
When it comes to separating from what truly makes unclean, the Lord actually took this up at the beginning of chapter 15 in Matthew. He said,
“17Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled. 18But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” (Matthew 15:17-20)
So the Lord takes up these things and shows that it is on the basis of faith, on trusting in His Word. And that brings us to the Canaanite woman, whom Jesus initially seems to push off. She doesn’t belong. She doesn’t have any ancestry to stand up.
So think about the contrast between Paul writing in Romans 11, where he’s talking about being a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. So Paul has all of the right qualifications if you’re thinking in just a Jewish way.
This woman and her daughter, they don’t have anything to stand on. They come to Jesus as beggars, literally as beggars, and Jesus answers her very harshly. But it is to illustrate what is more important to God, which is faith in the heart, which clings to the promises that God has made.
And that is what the church is comprised of. It’s not comprised of one single ethnic group. It’s not comprised of one single political ideology. It’s not comprised of one type of people. But it is
“everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)
And of course, that also fits into how we live our lives and how we are a light to this dark world around us.
But ultimately in that, we’re seen as those who are foreign, not necessarily because of birth, but because we were alienated from God through unbelief. And how we are unclean, not because we eat bacon, but because in our hearts we are drawn to sin. And all uncleanliness dwells in our flesh; even Paul says that in Romans 7.
And then finally, to bring this woman who has nothing to claim before God in terms of Old Testament, Jesus brings out the thing that truly counts and the thing which brings her this commendation from Jesus:
“O woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire.”
So as we come to Jesus, we don’t come to Him because of anything that is in us or anything that we have avoided. But we come to Him as sinful beggars, whom He has brought in by His own work and whom He has saved eternally through the sacrifice of His Son, given up for us, raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, and coming again in glory, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
And now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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