Know your place in Christ’s kingdom

Sermon for Reminiscere

1 Thessalonians 4:1-7  +  Matthew 15:21-28

In this world, everyone has a place. Everyone has a certain position, and expectations from that position, based on any number of factors. Sometimes your place is determined and defined by God’s Word. Often, it’s simply determined by the culture and times in which we live. For example, God’s Word determines that it is not the place of a woman to be the head of a church or the head of her husband. It’s a man’s place to be that. But it wasn’t God’s Word that determined that a woman’s place was to cover her head, or to sit or eat separately from the men, or to not have a job outside the home, or not to vote in a national election; those things have been the determinations of various human societies of the world in various cultures and at various times in history. And many of those things have changed over time. Another example. God’s Word never determined that a person’s “race,” if we even want to use that term, a person’s color or ethnic origin gave them the place of a second-class citizen, or worse, a slave. It was human society at certain times in history that assigned a person such a place. Throughout history, rich people have a had a place in their culture, and poor people have had a different place. There was one place for highborn nobles and another place for lowborn commoners. There was a place for landowners and a different place for servants.

Whether your place in life is established by God or is simply an expectation of your culture, it’s important to know your place. And I can’t think of a better example of a person who knew her place than the Canaanite woman we encounter in today’s Gospel. Non-Christians generally despise this story, and some Christians struggle with it, with how Jesus interacted with the woman. But there’s no need for us to struggle. On the contrary, we have every reason to rejoice at this Gospel and at what the Lord teaches us through it about our place in His kingdom.

Matthew tells us that Jesus departed to the regions of Tyre and Sidon. We’re not told why. Mark adds the detail that He entered a house there and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden. From what He says in our text, it appears that He went to these regions, just north of the territory of Israel, looking for some of the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” for some of the Jews who had strayed outside the land if Israel itself. Does that mean He wasn’t actively seeking the Gentiles? Yes, actually, that’s what it means. At that time, in that place, Jesus was not focusing on the non-Jews. The Jews had been given a place in God’s kingdom—given to them by God Himself, not because they deserved it or were better than anyone else, but only because of God’s grace, His undeserved favor given first to Abraham, and then to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Gentiles, too, had been given a place, a place passed on to them, not by God, but by their unbelieving ancestors, generation to generation to generation. A place outside of God’s kingdom. And this helps us to understand everyone’s behavior in the events that follow.

Behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same territory and was crying out to him, saying, “O Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is dreadfully tormented by a demon.” A woman of Canaan. A non-Jew. Jesus had tried to stay hidden, but word got out that He had come up from Israel, and this woman rushed to find Him. And she calls out to him as Lord, Son of David. It seems out of place, doesn’t it? She isn’t a descendant of Israel. She has no physical bond with the children of Israel or the house of David. It’s a wonder she even knew who David was, and it’s a wonder of wonders that she had heard and believed that this Jesus was the promised Son of David, that is, the promised Christ.

But maybe the greatest wonder of all is that this non-Jewish woman believed that the Son of David would allow her, a non-Jew, to plead with Him for her daughter. She believed it was her place to pray to Jesus and to expect His help.

But he did not say a word in reply. Hmm. How to interpret the Lord’s silence? Silence is not always easy to interpret. One interpretation is that Jesus doesn’t think enough of her even to pay attention to her, even to spare a reply. But that’s not the only possible interpretation.

Meanwhile, she keeps crying out, and it’s bothersome to Jesus’ disciples, who came and begged him, “Send her away! She is crying out after us!” It seems to them that this Gentile woman, this nobody, just doesn’t know her place. Her place is to not bother Jesus. Her place is to be quiet. Her place is to take Jesus’ silence as a dismissal. Her place is to expect no good from Jesus. She’s a non-Jew, after all.

But he answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The disciples ask Jesus to send the woman away, but He doesn’t. He seems to be supporting the Jewish notion that the Christ was to be the King of the Jews and, not the King, but the Conqueror of everyone else. You see, later on, when so many Gentiles would flood into the kingdom of God and so many Jews would be cut off from it because they didn’t accept Jesus as their king, they would complain that God was supposed to give Israel preference. He was supposed to come to Israel and be Israel’s Savior. And here Matthew, the Evangelist who wrote especially to the Jews, silences their complaint. Because Jesus did come to the Jews and focused on the Jews and gave them all the attention they could possibly get. They were thrown out of God’s kingdom, not because Jesus didn’t pay enough attention to them, but because of their own stubbornness, self-righteousness, and unbelief.

As for the Gentiles, why were they accepted? Why were they given a place in the kingdom of God? The Gentiles’ acceptance is vindicated by the actions of the woman in our Gospel. She isn’t part of the lost sheep of Israel. At least, not biologically speaking. But she’s still convinced it’s her place to keep begging Jesus for help. She came and fell down before him, saying, “Lord, help me!”

But he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” To people who think they deserve God’s help, to people who think highly of themselves, to people who demand respect from God and from the world, those words sound harsh. How dare Jesus compare the children of Israel to children sitting at a table, while comparing the Gentiles to little beggar dogs? Is that really their place?

And yet, the Canaanite woman is pleased to have such a place. She said, “Yes, Lord. But the dogs do eat from the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” She knows her place in the world, in history, in the kingdom of God. The Jews had been given a special place. But instead of being jealous, instead of demanding a better place for herself as a Gentile, she is content with her place, because she knows that she’s a sinner who deserves nothing from God. But if God will give her a place at His table, even as a Gentile, even as a dog begging at the table, she knows she will receive God’s help—all the help she needs, and more, because God is so abundantly good that the crumbs of His grace will be enough to save her and her daughter from the devil’s power.

Then Jesus answered her, “Oh, woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed at once. And so the flood of Gentiles who would eventually enter the Christian Church—Gentiles like you and I—was vindicated. God’s righteousness and His gracious choosing of the Gentiles was vindicated, and His rejection of Israel because of their stubborn unbelief, was also vindicated. The Jews squandered their place, the privileged place they had been given, while the Gentiles, like this woman, took advantage, in a good way, of God’s gracious offer of free forgiveness and a place in His kingdom through faith in Christ Jesus.

So learn your place, too, and embrace it. By birth, your place was outside of God’s kingdom, a sinner who deserved nothing from God but wrath and condemnation. By your own actions, the sins you’ve committed in thought, word, and deed, you’ve proven that that’s the place where you belong, by nature. But in the Gospel, Christ offers you a much better place—the place of a beloved child, a son of God, a brother of Christ. Jew or Gentile no longer matters. Male or female. Slave or free. Rich or poor. This “race” or that one. All that matters is faith in Christ. But there can be no faith where there is a sense of entitlement or a refusal to humble oneself before God. So cast aside all notions of grandeur, all ideas that you deserve a better place than you’ve been given. Live confidently and contentedly in your place in this life, whatever it may be, because God has given every baptized believer the same love, the same forgiveness, the same salvation, and the same eternal life. Know your place in Christ’s kingdom, and know that you can and should always ask for the Lord’s help in every need, and keep asking, and keep expecting His help in due time, and He will give it, not because you deserve it, but because He has graciously promised it, for Christ’s sake. Amen.