Are you a child of God or a dog?
I want to begin by asking you to pull out the name tag that was in your bulletin. Don’t be shy. Go ahead and fix that nametag on your shirt or blouse where everyone can see it. Come on now. If you don’t do this, you’ll miss something eternal. (Note to reader: Some of the nametags read "child of God" while others read "dog".
Now I want you to stand up and greet the people around you by what appears on their nametag.
Friends, this is the kind of world that God so loved. He sent his one and only Son into this kind of world in order to save it. This was a world where some people saw themselves as the true children of God,but other people were seen as "dogs". This was a world where some people were considered to have value and were esteemed as human beings, created in the image of God, dearly loved, and chosen for salvation. But others were devalued and treated as something less than human, something unredeemable. Insiders and outsiders. Jews and Gentiles. Children of God and dogs.
Let me ask you, how did it feel like to address another person as a dog? How did it feel to be called a dog? How did it feel like to be called a child of God, or to call someone a child of God?
Jesus approaches a woman with five strikes against her.
In Mark 7 we come across an interesting story. Mark 7:24-26 (NIV) says, "Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of daughter."
Here's alittle background to this story.Jesus had ventured out of Israel into Gentile territory. Tyre was pagan country. There was no temple there, no Hebrew speaking Jews, and no Judeo-Christian worldview. And whodid Jesus, the man, encounter?
Strike number one.
Jesusencounters a woman. Per Hebrew thought, sin originated with a woman. It was a woman who tempted Adam and led him astray. Women were considered to be morally irresponsible. Rabbis would not teach women or even speak to them. Pharisees were instructed not to touch them. They were less than equal, inferior, uneducated, and legallyand economically belonged to a husband or to afather.
Strike number two.
This woman was Greek-speaking. Greek was the language that those people, the Gentiles,spoke. The Gentiles werethe people dwelling in the vast non-Jewish wastelands of the Roman empire. Jews normally did not associate with Gentiles because mere contact with them would renderJews ceremoniouslyunclean. Gentiles were considered dirty people who you should avoid. The Jew could become unclean through sin, but Gentiles were innately unclean. A wall in the temple prevented Gentiles from entering the Jewish temple courts, under penalty of death.
Strike number three.
This woman was born in Syrian Phoenicia, in thevicinity of Tyre. Take a look at Matthew 11:21-22. Jesus uses the example of Tyre to chide the Jewish people for their unbelief. The Jews didn't expect much faith from pagans living in the vicinity of Tyre. But there is more.
Strike number four.
This woman had a daughter who was possessed by an evil spirit. Look it up. The most prominent woman from Phoenicia in the Old Testament was the wicked Jezebel! She and her daughter were probably demon offspring of Jezebel herself!
Strike number five.
This woman was from a land and people that oppressed the Jews. Tyre was well stocked with produce from Galilee. Meanwhile, the people living in Galilee who grew food, went hungry. Tyre took bread away from Galilee. A Jewish historian, Josephus, describes Tyrians as, "our bitterest enemies."
Gender barrier. Language barrier. Pagan beliefs. Dirty and unclean. Demon possessed. Undeserving. An oppressor who was threatening what little bread theyhad left. The Jews had a racial slur for people like this woman. "Dogs". Those dogs. Those animals.
Predjudice is easily fostered.
In Made to Stick, brothers Chip and Dan Heath tell the story of Jane Elliot, an elementary school teacher in Iowa. In the wake of Martin Luther King Junior's assassination, she needed a concrete way to explain the dangers of prejudice to her third graders.
"At the start of class, she divided the students into two groups: brown-eyed kids and blue-eyed kids. She then made a shocking announcement: Brown-eyed kids were superior to blue-eyed kids--'They're the better people in the room.' The groups were separated. Blue-eyed kids were forced to sit at the back of the classroom. Brown-eyed kids were told that they were smarter. They were given extra time at recess. The blue-eyed kids had to wear special collars, so that everyone would know their eye color from a distance. The two groups were not allowed to mix at recess."
What do you think happened? TheHeaths'story continues,"Elliott was shocked at how quickly the class was transformed. 'I watched those kids turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating third graders. It was ghastly,' she said. 'Friendships seemed to dissolve instantly, as brown-eyed kids taunted their blue-eyed former friends. One brown-eyed student asked Elliot how she could be the teacher, 'if you’ve got dem (sic) blue eyes.' "
"At the start of class the following day, Elliot walked in and announced that she had been wrong. It was actually brown-eyed children who were inferior. This reversal of fortune was embraced instantly. A shout of glee went up from the blue-eyed kids as they ran to place their collars on their lesser, brown-eyed counterparts."
"Ironcially, when the blue-eyed kids were on bottom, their academic performance dropped. But the moment they got rid of those collars, their reading scores doubled."
The woman at Jesus' feet was a "dog", according to Jewish standards, but God gave her his grace.
This undeserving woman with a dog collar around her neck fell at Jesus' feet, begging that he heal her daughter. Our English translations don't capture the full thrust of this verse. The Greek says that, "she incessantly begged" Jesus to heal her daughter. The utter audacity of this woman, with her pathetic plea! Despite all the strikes against her, she dared to believe that Jesus could and would deliver her daughter.
This is what I want to say. God doesn’t have any hesitation about showering his grace on anyone. If you haven’t figured that out by now, you've been sleeping throughsix months of sermons in the gospel of Mark. There were sinners, tax collectors, lepers, people with sickness and disease, people with evil spirits, and women banned from the temple and synagogue because they were unclean.God showers his grace on all who believe!
And you know what? God does it despite the attitude of his own children. The whole time, it's God's children who sit around judging people by their eye color, their religion, their nationality, their past, their values, their beliefs, their dirty lifestyle, or their offensive language."Look how they live. They're a bunch of animals! Grace for us,grace for the children of God,but not even breadcrumbs for those dogs. They don’t deserve it." Who do we think we are?
The Jewish nation was chosen to bless other nations, not to hoard God’s grace from the nations! It’s the same with the Church today.
Jesus tests the woman's faith.
Now look what Jesus says to this woman! Mark 7:27 (NIV) says, " 'First let the children eat all they want,' he told her, 'for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs.' "
There is a lot of debate about this verse. But let's break it down. "First let the children eat all the want..."In the Old Testament,the Jews were God's chosen people, his children. God always promised that salvation would appear to the Jewish people first.
Hosea 11:1 (NIV) says, "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son."Romans 1:16 (NIV) says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile."Mark 7:27 (NIV) says, "First let the children eat all they want…"
Now consider the second part ofMatthew 727 (NIV)."...for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."This is where the controversy begins. Instead of using the stronger racial slur "dog", Jesus uses the milder term "puppy".
Some believe that Jesus was making a rather harmless point. Many Gentile homes had puppies, so basically Jesus was saying, "Just as parents give bread to their children first, so God is giving salvation to the Jews first."
Puppy or not, I agree with those scholars who say that a dog is a dog. Jesus was testing this woman's faith. In light of all the strikes against her as a woman, a non-Jew, her language, her low-standing, her offensive traits, her pagan origins, the labels, the stereotypes, the prejudices, and theracism against her,with her not being a child of God, why should Jesus doanything for her?
Listen, when you come to Christ, your first act of faith is to believe in God’s grace— and I mean really believe. To come to Christ you have to forget about all the strikes people want to hold against you. You have to know that no matter how undeserving you feel, God loves you and wants to adopt you into his family.
Jesus loves the world and gives grace to everyone who believes.
John 3:16-17 (NIV) says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."
It doesn’t matter what other people think. It doesn’t matter how worthy or unworthy you may feel. Do you believe that God wants to save your very soul because he loves you?If you dare to believe, why not make July 18, Decision Day here at Lakeside, the day God washes all your sins away in the waters of baptism? Why not let July 18, 2010 be the day you declare your faith and become a child of God?
The woman in Mark 7:27-30 (NIV) dared to believe. This passage continues," 'First let the children eat all they want,' he told her, 'for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.''Yes, Lord,' she replied, 'but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.' Then he told her, 'For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.' She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone."