Pastor Jonah Sage preached Mark 7:24-37. He said that everyone who comes to the master’s table will be fed. Lector: Kristin Paine
Pastor Jonah Sage preached Mark 7:24-37. He said that everyone who comes to the master’s table will be fed.
Lector: Kristin Paine
This is a strange text for us. Hits our ears funny, makes us squirm...
But try to consider for a moment this might actually show the beauty of the Scriptures and the heart of God better than we might imagine.
Let me tell you a story to set the table...
Once upon a time, a lost people waited for a promise to come true.
They had wandered for years and years waiting and wondering...will it be?
Their God had promised them a beautiful home.
A place free from the oppression of their past, Free from hunger and fear.
So, they wandered, waited, and wondered.
After many years, they found themselves on the edge of their promise.
A beautiful land laid before them. Rich crops, abundant, fertile soil.
It's as though it flowed with milk and honey,
sweet nourishment as far as the eye could see.
Twelve soldiers were sent ahead of the lost people
They headed north to explore and what they found was beyond description
They found clusters of grapes so large two men had to carry it.
Figs and pomegranates. Rivers and crops.
It was more than they could have hoped for.
But then they found something unexpected. Giants.
Wicked, evil men with a wicked, evil history. Dangerous men.
The twelve returned to the lost people to tell them what they found.
They showed them grapes and figs and all kinds of fruit.
But...when they told them about the Giants, the lost people panicked.
One of the scouts tried to calm the crowd down.
"We can do this! Our God has promised us this land! These people are like crumbs of bread before us. We will devour them!"
He was full of faith and trust. But...he was an outsider.
He was an adopted son of the lost people.
His name sounded like the word for dog in their language...and they didn't have time for an outsider dog's bravado.
The entire people fell into chaos. Weeping, longing to return to their former slavery.
They would not listen to someone on the edges of their community...retreat was their only option.
But then one of their own, a true hero, Hoshea, son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, stood up and cried out over Israel:
"If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into the land and give it to us...don't be afraid of the people of the land. They are only bread to us!...the Lord is with us!"
-Numbers 14:8, 9
You may know Hoshea by the name his mentor Moses called him: Yeshua.
In English, we call him Joshua. We call his friend, the adopted outsider, Caleb
Here's what God thinks of Caleb after this:
Because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.
-Numbers 14:24
Caleb's name sounds just like the Hebrew word for dog.
Adopted into the tribe of Judah, I wonder what that was like for him.
A Gentile whose name is dog. But his name doesn't mean dog, it just sounds like it.
His name is a compound of two Hebrew words, one that means heart, one that means whole.
His whole heart was given to God. He was not afraid.
God sees this in numbers, and throughout Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua, the Scriptures call him wholehearted.
He saw those giants, literal, dangerous, evil giants, and said they are like scraps of bread. He was not afraid, because he believed the Lord was with him.
That's what it means to be wholehearted.
Caleb would go on to conquer the city of Hebron, which would become a city of refuge.
Israel would indeed claim the promised land, Canaan, and Caleb was granted Hebron
One of six cities where a sinner could find refuge, a place of grace, of patience, and restoration.
Yeshua and the dog. Conquering giants, fulfilling promises of God.
What a beautiful, unexpected story from the often overlooked book of numbers.
What in the world does this have to do with the book of Mark?
Well, Mark talks about a man whose mama would have called him Yeshua.
Joshua and Jesus are the same Hebrew name.
Jesus has just snuck into Gentile territory to get rest. Like Joshua, Jesus is in Gentile territory hoping no one sees him. That's interesting.
You may recall just before this Jesus looked at a crowd of people and described them as lost. Like sheep wandering without a shepherd. Interesting.
Our text this morning tells us Jesus left Galilee to the region of Tyre...part of a land called Canaan. Interesting.
And then we have a woman. A Gentile. An outsider.
This is the one instance in Mark where we know for certain he engages with a Gentile, pagan, woman.
Listen: we have someone who is the wrong gender: a woman. The wrong religion: pagan. From the wrong country: gentile, coming to speak to Jesus.
The curious reader's alarm bells should be ringing.
We have Joshua and Jesus (Yeshua.)
Both sneaking into Gentile territory.
We have Canaan in Numbers and Canaan in Mark 7
We have a Gentile outsider in Numbers, Caleb the dog, and a gentile outsider in Mark 7...this woman.
This woman's little girl was possessed by an evil spirit, and she begged him to cast out the demon from her daughter.
I don't know if this is true, but I know it's what Jews in Jesus' day believed.
They believed demons, evil spirits, were the disembodied spirits of the giants killed in Noah's flood of water in Genesis and Joshua's flood of soldiers in Numbers.
Fear of Giants in numbers, spiritual violence from Canaanite giants in Mark 7...
The curious reader's alarm bells should be ringing.
Do you remember what gave Caleb confidence they could defeat the giants?
Whole hearted. The Lord is with us! They are like bread.
It was not his prowess with a sword. It was not his tactical insights. It was not his ability to stir a crowd. He was wholehearted. He believed God was with him, that God was good, and that God would do it.
This Gentile woman pleads for grace. What do you have to believe to plead for grace?
You must believe you are in a situation beyond your ability to control.
Your problem is greater than your ability to solve.
Your giants are more powerful than your swords.
You must believe God is with you. You must believe he is good. You must believe he will do it.
In other words, competency is not required, but wholeheartedness is.
This Gentile woman offers nothing. She pleads for grace.
Caleb was convinced that God could drive out the giants in Canaan.
This woman is convinced God can drive out the demon in her daughter.
And listen very carefully to Jesus' response:
First I should feed the children—my own family, the Jews. It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.
-Mark 7:27
She's a gentile, a dog...just like Caleb.
And amazingly, this response does nothing to her confidence.
Listen to her response:
That's true, Lord, but even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps from the children's plates.
-Mark 7:28
In the language being spoken, it would have sounded like this:
Jesus: it's not right to take children's breads and give it to the Calebs
Gentile Woman: Yes, Lord, and yet even the Calebs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.
The Old Testament whispers to us that one day all of humanity would become the chosen people of God.
It whispers to us that, one day, the Gentiles would be adopted in to Israel.
The story of Caleb the gentile is not an OT anomaly
Think of Ruth and Rahab as another prominent example.
Caleb believed the giants were like bread for him to devour, and God rewarded him with a crumb from his table, a slice of the Promised Land to call their own.
This woman finds the greater Joshua, and she believed that, like the God of the Old Testament, the blessings of Jesus could extend beyond any boundary.
Boundaries of religion, gender, tradition, and ethnicity mean nothing to Jesus.
She asked Jesus for a crumb for the sake of her daughter, and she received it.
"Good answer!" He said. "Now go home, for the demon has left your daughter."
-Mark 7:29
After all the wrestling with the Pharisees, all the arguments about tradition and obedience and rituals, Jesus draws this woman's whole hearted faith out.
She is a dog in the most beautiful, profound sense: she's a caleb.
She is whole hearted, one who pleads not her accomplishments or her competency, but one who pleads grace because she believes God is with her, God loves her, and God will do it.
As one author described it,
And now that all his enemies have been defeated, the Joshuas and the Calebs, the Jews and the Gentiles, the children and the dogs are invited to share in his reward. Everyone who comes into the master's house, or wanders under his table, is well fed.
-Lynn Fleshman
Last week, we said the mission of Jesus was renovation of the heart
He wants Calebs. People who plead grace. People who come empty handed
So...what is a Giant in your life, and what do you think you need to conquer it?
What is a situation where you know your sword is not strong enough?
You know the odds are stacked against you?
Perhaps you're ready to turn your heart to the lord, your whole heart.
That's what he wants from you after all, and that's the part of you he's most interested in healing. What does it mean to do this?
Be a Caleb: The Lord is with me. The Lord is for me. The Lord will do this.
Perhaps there is a promise you feel like you're waiting on, wandering as you're wondering...
Be a Caleb: the Lord is with me. The Lord is for me. The Lord will do this.
Perhaps there is something about you that makes you think this isn't for you.
Maybe you think you're the wrong gender. The wrong background. The wrong religion.
Maybe you think you're too far on the outside.
Then be a caleb, be a dog at the master's table...in other words...come to Jesus.
He is a boundary crosser, a chain breaker, a heart healer.
Everyone who comes into the master's house, or wanders in under his table, will be well fed.
So come and hunger no more.
Let's pray.