Compassion For All People (Matthew 15:21-38; Mark 7:24–8.9)

A desperate mother chases Jesus into a house, won’t stop pleading, and then answers him with one of the most unforgettable lines in the Gospels: even the crumbs are enough. We follow the chronology through Matthew 15 and Mark 7 as Jesus moves from confrontation with the Pharisees over clean hands and unclean hearts to the Gentile regions of Tyre, Sidon, and the Decapolis, where outsiders discover just how wide his mercy really is.

We talk through why Jesus’ initial response to the Canaanite woman sounds so blunt, how it connects to God’s covenant priority to Israel, and why her humility and persistence become the model of “great faith.” That moment also exposes the disciples’ instincts to protect boundaries and avoid inconvenience, the same instincts that still show up in us when someone doesn’t fit our category of who “belongs.”

Then we watch Jesus heal a deaf man with a speech impediment using simple, personal signs and the command “Ephtha” meaning “Be opened,” before landing on the feeding of the 4,000

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Transcript

Rules Versus Heart Purity

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As we continue our wisdom journey chronologically through the Gospels, we've arrived at Capernaum where the Pharisees are criticizing Jesus and his disciples because they're not following the rules. They're not eating food with clean hands. They haven't washed their hands. Well, Jesus turns the tables on them, so to speak. He reveals the hypocrisy of their unclean hearts. Well, now with that, what happens next is back here in Matthew chapter 15 and verse 21. We're told that Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Now this happens to be pagan Gentile territory there on the Mediterranean coast. This had been the hometown of Jezebel, where people had sacrificed children to the wicked god Molech back in Old Testament times. Now we're not told how long Jesus and his disciples have been here when their presence is discovered. Verse 22 tells us a Canaanite

A Gentile Mother Asks For Mercy

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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. Mark's gospel account tells us that Jesus had entered a house, and it implies that this woman just sort of followed him right there into the house. Now, despite the fact that she's described as a Canaanite, and in Mark chapter 7 and verse 26 as a Saraphenician by birth, she came out to meet them intentionally, and her crying, the tense of the verb, is continuous, and that's because her need is so desperate. It's interesting to me here that she uses a messianic title for Jesus calling him the son of David. She knows something about him, but she's going to learn much more in just a moment. Well, in Matthew chapter 15, here in verse twenty three, the disciples begged him, saying, Send her away, for she's crying out after us. Now I personally believe that the disciples want the Lord to answer her request and do it in a hurry to stop her from pestering them. Besides, remember their ministry initially is primarily to Jews, certainly not to pagan Canaanites. Well, Jesus wants to teach her something here. He's going to refine her faith in him. He says down here in verse 24, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. In other words, you referred to me with the Jewish messianic title of son of David. Well, that's accurate. And my mission is with the house of Israel. Now, instead of getting angry and walking away, immediately this woman kneels at Jesus' feet and here in verse 25 says, Lord, help me. But this time she omits the messianic title Son of David. She believes that he's the Jewish Messiah, but now she's coming to him as a Gentile sinner. Would you help a Gentile sinner who's seeking mercy? Now it's rather surprising to me that Jesus continues to instruct her even further. It's very blunt, he says here in verse 26, it's not right to take the children's bread, that is Jewish children's bread, and throw it to the dogs, that is the Gentiles. Again, the issue here is the priority of the gospel to the nation of Israel, and this is due to God's covenant all the way back to the days of Abraham. She needs to understand that his ministry priority is first to the Jewish people and then to the Gentiles. Well, Jesus' words, frankly, aren't as harsh as they might appear. One author explained it by saying that Jesus didn't call her a dog the way the Pharisees would have addressed the Gentile. In fact, the Greek word for dog actually refers to a little pet, puppy, and not those filthy muts that were running the streets and eating the garbage. In other words, the beloved pets that belong to the children don't get to eat until the children have eaten. Well, here's the woman's response to that in verse twenty seven. Yes, Lord, well that's true. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. Now what this means is that she's clearly accepting what Jesus has said. As a Gentile, she doesn't have a place at the dining room table in the house of Israel. But she says here, even those little puppies under the table, well, they're happy for whatever crumbs the children might drop to them. She's going to be satisfied then with those crumbs from the Lord's ministry. She's actually saying, Lord, I'd be happy with just a little crumb from your table. You don't even need to give me a seat. Well, that's tremendous faith. In fact, Jesus has one thing to say to her, verse 28, O woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire. And as a result of that, this woman's daughter was healed instantly. See, Jesus is teaching his disciples a subtle message here. Both Jews and Gentiles are going to stand before God and guess what? It's going to be on equal ground. All are equally undeserving. All are equally sinful. But if you come to Jesus by faith as this woman came, Jesus will save you. He'll adopt you into his family. John chapter 1, verse 12. He'll give you a seat at his table. Now with that, Matthew says here in verse 29, Jesus went on from there and walked beside the sea of Galilee. Over in Mark chapter 7 and verse 31, we're told that this is now in the area of Decapolis. That's a Gentile region to the southeast of the sea, and Mark's gospel highlights one particular event during this visit. I'm now in chapter seven of Mark's Gospel in verse 32. They brought to the Lord a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him,

The Deaf Man Healed In Decapolis

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that is Jesus, to lay his hands on him. Well Jesus just sort of pulls this man off the road, they're out of the public view, and what he does is interesting. He uses a little sign language. He puts his fingers into the man's ears as if to signify well they're about to be open. Then he puts some saliva on his finger and touches the man's tongue, signifying that this man's tongue is about to be able to move and speak. And then to make sure the man knows the power to heal has come from heaven, from the Lord, Jesus looks up to heaven and he sighs. Then he gives the command here in verse thirty four, and he uses an Aramaic word eftha. And the man can easily lip read that word efhtha and understand. What does it mean? It means to be opened. And that's exactly what happens. Verse 35 says, His ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Now what do you make of the next verse here, verse 36, where Jesus charged them to tell no one, but the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. It appears to me that Jesus wants to slow things down, so to speak. The division between Jews and Gentiles is already massive, and his ministry among the Gentiles is only going to increase this divisive spirit. So Jesus doesn't want this to be front page news, at least not yet. Well Matthew, now again, back in chapter fifteen, picks up the chronological story there on the mountain and tells us what happened next here in verse thirty-two. Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I have compassion on the crowd, because they've been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. I'm unwilling to send them away hungry lest they faint on the way. Well, you know, it occurs to me the disciples should have answered something like, You know, we feel the same way, Lord, and we know you can handle this without any trouble. Unfortunately, their answer here in verse 33 says, Where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd? Imagine they so quickly forgot the

Feeding Four Thousand Hungry Gentiles

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miracle of Jesus feeding five thousand men and all their families earlier. I I can't imagine they forgot this quickly. I I don't think this is a memory problem here at all. See, that earlier crowd of 5,000 people was Jewish. This crowd of 4,000 people is Gentile. What they're really saying is, Lord, let's send all these pagan Gentiles away. Well, let me tell you, the disciples have a lot to learn. These two scenes involving a Jewish and a Gentile crowd basically say the same thing. And that is this the compassion of Jesus is unlimited. Whether they're Jews or Gentiles, whether they're they're pagans today or they've been raised in church, let me tell you, beloved, the foot of the cross is level ground. So what does the Lord do? Oh, he miraculously feeds four thousand hungry Gentiles, and this time he uses seven loaves and several fish. He's also rebuking, by the way, the heart attitude of his disciples towards these people who are very different from themselves. Jesus is demonstrating compassion for everyone. We need to read this and allow the Lord to check our own heart attitudes toward people who are different from us. Whether that difference is ethnic or political or religious or economic or moral. Listen, beloved, just like these early disciples, we're being called by God to look past all those differences and see them as a lost people, see them with compassion, and offer our lives what we know to feed their souls with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Well, with that, we're out of time. Until we set sail again on our wisdom journey, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.