So far in chapter 7, Mark has been using various encounters in the ministry of Jesus to answer an important question: What defiles a person? We’ve seen that failure to adhere to the traditions of men does not defile a person. God is not concerns with the ethical checklist you’ve made for yourself but with an obedience that comes from the heart. We’ve also seen that there is nothing in the material world that can impart sin through contact with it. You cannot eat a food or drink a drink and somehow receive sin through that substance. Rather, sin comes out of the heart and soul of a person. This is what defiles a person. Today, we come to the final answer to the question of what defiles a person. This final answer is more of an object lesson than a direct teaching of Jesus. We will see, through this object lesson, that no one is defiled by virtue of their heritage. The grace of God, received through faith, is what brings a person into relationship with God. To see that, let’s read Mark 7:24-30. From this passage, see two points: The Hatred of the Gentiles, and the Honest Faith that saves.
First, from verses 24-27, see the hatred of the Gentiles. Mark tells us that Jesus leaves the pressure of the crowds of Galilee and heads north to the coast of the Mediterranean. It seems that he does this to escape for a time, because there is no way that the religious leaders and the self-righteous crowds would follow him into Gentile territory. To escape, he goes to the region of Tyre and Sidon. These were hated Gentile lands. They were hated because of their rank pagan practices. These cities were part of the Phoenician culture, a loosely tied group of city states that had long ago mastered the science of sea travel. In so doing, they brought the world to their doorstep, and as a result, the gods of the world. They worshiped the sea god and the fertility goddess, but most of all, they worshiped pride and greed. God rebuked this self-idolatry through his prophet Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 28, “To the prince of Tyre… because your heart is proud, and you have said, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas,’ yet you are but a man, and not a god, though you make your heart like the heart of a god.” He goes on to compare him to Satan, who desired the very throne of God. This self-idolatry led to God’s judgment. Ezekiel 26 prophesies the destruction of Tyre, even detailing that the rubble of the city would be thrown into the sea. In 332 BC, Alexander the Great laid siege to Tyre, building a 700-yard long land bridge out into the sea to reach the fortress of New Tyre. On its conquest, Alexander ordered that the rubble of the city be thrown into the sea, just as God had promised.
Because of the stigmas of idolatry and God’s judgment, in Jesus’ day, the Jews despised the land of Phoenicia. They had taken to calling these Gentile pagans “dogs” as a slander. Dogs were vermin, after all, not the beloved pets of our time. They were often half-wild, left to fend for themselves, and seen as unclean because of their scavenging ways. All of this social tension comes to the front as a woman of Phoenician descent comes to Jesus and begged him to cast out a demon that was oppressing her little daughter. Jesus’ response is controversial. At face value, it is seriously offensive. He responds, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” It’s clear that Jesus is using an analogy where the children are the people of Israel, and this woman and her kind are the dogs. This statement is controversial for a number of reasons. First, it seems to say that the Kingdom of God is not for those who are outside of Israel. It’s as though Jesus is saying that he has only come to save and bless the children of Abraham. Second, it seems as though Jesus is using the typical slander for Gentiles by calling this woman a dog. Why would Jesus say such harsh things to a woman with such a great need? If Jesus is the promised Messiah who would bring the nations to worship him, this is no way to start. But this harsh response has a deeper, more precious meaning. First of all, in some way it is true that Jesus came for the people of Israel. God’s covenant of grace began with Abraham. It was extended through Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David. The covenant of grace was intended for the people that God chose, and that was Israel. But, that election had a purpose. Through Israel, the Messiah would be born. Within the Law of Israel, the Messiah would be perfectly obedient. By the judgment of Israel, on the Passover, the Messiah would be killed as a sacrifice for sin. From Israel, the resurrection of the Messiah would be witnessed and proclaimed. Out of Israel, the good news of this resurrected Messiah would go into all the world. And, when men and women from every tribe called upon the name of that Messiah, Jesus, they would be saved. So, Paul says in Gal. 3:7, “It is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.” All who trust in Jesus Christ are included in the covenant of grace that began with Abraham, and you are as much a child of Israel as anyone else, because of faith.
Second, when Jesus speaks of children and dogs, the analogy points to the progression for who is fed first, not the importance of one over the other. Jesus is pointing out that there is an order to the way a family eats, but the dogs still get fed. So, he has come to Israel first, but the Gospel will come to the Gentiles through is Apostles in good time. We get this intention of Jesus from the word he uses for “dog”. He uses the diminutive form of the word, which means that he says, “little dogs”. This is an affectionate term, referring to little lap dogs that the wealthy of Jesus’ day kept for pets. I have an idea of what he means here. Growing up, I was raised by my father to believe that dogs are useful pets. My dad was hard on his dogs, requiring them to sleep outside, regardless of the weather. When my mom would try to sneak some canned food for the dogs, he’d say, “when they get hungry enough, they will eat that dry stuff.” Yet, he has softened as he’s aged. Now, he has this little Pomeranian named Jazzi who has him wrapped around her little paw. Daddy will feed her from the table, even giving her a bit of his dessert. Sometimes I will pass my dad on the road, and I almost have to look away in shame, because Jazzi will be sticking her head out the driver’s side window of my dad’s big diesel F-250. At times I wonder if she’s been inserted into the will. Certainly, she doesn’t receive the same priority that the grandkids do, but that doesn’t mean she is rejected, either. This is the point of Jesus’s analogy – not that the Gentiles will not be blessed by the kingdom of God, but that the blessing must first come to the Jews.
With that understood, let’s consider my second point, the hopeful faith that saves. In verse 28, the woman quickly responds to Jesus, saying “Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” This statement amazes Jesus, so much that he immediately casts the demon from her daughter, even from a distance. Matthew records that he was amazed by her faith. But, what is it about what the woman says that is so marvelous? For one, she does not argue with the characterizations or the priority of Jesus. She, in effect says, “yes, I’m a dog, and yes, I don’t deserve the food from the table.” This is a humble faith that would recognize the sinner’s unworthiness. Friend, this is where salvation begins, in a humble recognition that we do not deserve God’s goodness.
Second, her statement recognizes that even the crumbs from the table of God’s grace are still sufficient. She says, “Lord, all I need is a crumb! All I need is the restoration of my daughter. I know who you are and what you can do, and this is a small thing in comparison to all that you are.” She is hopeful that the grace of Jesus would extend even to her.
But oh, see too, just how ironic her faith is. Jesus goes 40 miles from the nearest Jew to a region full of paganism and judgment, and it is here that he finds greater faith than that of Israel. The Pharisees did not believe in him and chided him for his lack of decorum. His own disciples were too dumb to understand where true sin comes from. Yet this Gentile woman sees the Gospel clearly and believes it. This teaches us a few things about the Gospel. First, there is no such thing as a defiled race. Friend, it does not matter where you were born, who your parents were, or what your skin color is. None of those things can keep you from the kingdom of God. Second, we are all this woman. Unless there is some heritage I don’t know about, it’s probably the case that everyone in this church is of Gentile descent. That means that we all are dogs, and yet, by God’s mercy, we have received the abundance of God’s grace through Jesus Christ. Finally, because we are all this woman, we have no right to withhold the love of God from another person because of our own racial prejudices. We did not deserve the food from the table of God’s grace, and yet God saw fit that we would receive it. So, may we take it to others without reservation.
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