I. Introduction
A. I’d like to begin with a story from Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo (not in the play or movie)
1. A poor man and a girl from a very rich family fell in love and were married, even though her rich father did not like the poor man and was against the marriage.
a. Soon they had a baby boy named Marius. But the mother died, leaving the poor father alone with his infant son.
2. Then the boy’s rich grandfather (Marius’ mother’s father) approached Marius’ father with an offer:
a. He would take the baby boy and raise him, providing him everything he needed, as well as an excellent education, under the condition that the boy Marius would never see his father again.
b. Marius’ father knew he couldn’t provide for his son or care for him while working. So, though torn to the point of agony because of the loss, he agreed, for the sake of his son’s best interests.
3. So Marius grew up without any contact with his father, because of his father’s love for him.
a. Sadly, Marius was led by his grandfather to believe that his father was an evil and selfish man who cared nothing for him and had abandoned him.
4. When Marius was a young man, his grandfather told him one day that he must go visit his father.
a. Marius did not want to go because of his disdain for his father, and so he procrastinated.
b. When he finally went, his father had just died.
c. And when Marius saw his father’s dead body, he pretended to be sad, but actually felt no grief at all.
d. His father, on the other hand, had died with a big tear on his cheek, a tear of grief that his son, whom he loved so dearly, had not come.
5. A little while later Marius went to worship at the church where he’d grown up. And there a very strange thing happened.
a. He went in and sat down at a seat behind a pillar without noticing it was a special seat reserved for one of the church leaders. A moment later that church leader came along and asked Marius to move and sit elsewhere so he could sit there.
b. After the service, this church leader came over to Marius to explain why he had asked for his seat.
c. He said something like this: “The reason I sit there each week is because for ten years I watched a poor, brave father come here to church and sit in that seat, because that is the only way he could see his son. The little one never knew his father was there, because the man hid behind the pillar so he would not be seen. He would look at his child and weep. You could tell he adored his son. But some arrangement had been made in the family whereby the boy would be cut off if the father showed himself to his son. And so he just gazed from a distance and wept in love. And so ever since I have made this my seat, out of admiration for this dear father who loved his son so well. I feel like I can worship better here in this seat.”
d. Well, of course, this loving man the church leader spoke of was Marius’ father. And Marius had believed a lie.
B. Not very often, but sometimes the most loving thing you can do is act unloving. Marius’ father had cut off his son not because he didn’t love his son but because he loved him so much.
1. Now we all experience this at times. When a mother yells at her little child for going out into the street, she may be acting angry, but she does so only because she so loves her child. When a birth mother gives up her child for adoption, she often does so not out of selfishness but out of love for the child, out of a zeal for the child’s best interests.
II. Well, now I want to tell you a story from the Bible about Jesus which shows us that sometimes Jesus — because He loves us so much — also acts in a way that seems unloving.
A. Jesus is getting near to the day when He would hang on a Roman cross for sins.
B. And one day Jesus took His disciples into Gentile territory, the only time Jesus ever ministered outside of the land of the Jews.
C. There a Canaanite woman came out to meet them and began to cry out to Jesus saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed."
D. But Jesus did not answer her a word. He acted like she wasn’t even there.
E. Apparently she then began to beg the disciples to help her because they eventually came to Jesus and asked Him to send her away, “for she is shouting out after us."
F. But all Jesus said was, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
G. At this she came and fell down before Him, pleading, "Lord, help me!"
H. And Jesus says, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
I. But she says in response, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
J. And then finally Jesus relents, saying to the woman, "O woman, your faith is great; be it done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once.
III. This is a very strange story.
A. He had everything she was looking for: power to heal, authority over demons, compassion, kindness, love.
B. She had everything He was looking for: humility, persistence, faith in His willingness to help, faith in His ability to heal, faith in His ability to heal from a distance by His word.
C. And yet He spurned her.
1. His pattern was to celebrate people who came to Him like this, to answer them quickly and happily and generously.
2. And yet first He doesn’t even act like He’s paying attention, then He says that He hasn’t come to rescue her kind of people, then He says that her kind of people are not God’s children but unworthy dogs.
D. Now this may sound rude to us, but it didn’t seem rude to this woman.
1. This was how she was used to being treated. It seems to be what she expected, what she thought she deserved.
E. It also didn’t seem rude to the disciples.
1. They weren’t bothered by Jesus’ behavior toward the woman. In fact, they were annoyed that Jesus was being so tolerant her. They were irritated by the woman’s brazen badgering: “Send her away, Jesus, for she keeps pestering us.”
2. In their minds, she was the one being rude.
F. The bottom line is that Jesus acted like a typical Jewish man would have acted. In this one instance, He surprises us by not acting in a surprising manner.
1. You see, Jesus was constantly acting very differently from everyone else.
a. He didn’t panic when everyone was panicking.
b. He didn’t condemn when everyone else was condemning.
c. He didn’t shoo people away when everyone else was shooing them away.
d. He didn’t praise the people everyone else was praising.
2. But in this one instance, much to our surprise, Jesus acted like everybody else.
3. “From the lips accustomed to drop oil and wine into every wound, came words like swords, cold, unfeeling, keen-edged, fitted and meant to lacerate.” -Alexander Maclaren
4. It’s not that this is the only time Jesus ever spoke like this. He spoke like this often to the religious leaders of Israel. And when He did, He shocked the disciples, who, earlier in the chapter, came to Jesus and objected to the way He was treating these men (Matt.15:12). But they got no apology from Jesus, and no change of behavior, only a promise of the certain destruction of these blind guides.
a. He just never spoke like this to someone like this woman: humble, needy, desperate.
G. And yet in spite of Jesus’ response, she remains a model of the persistence of faith.
1. She kept coming; she kept pleading; she kept begging, even when turned away. And finally she comes over to Jesus and falls down in front of Him: “Lord, please help me. You are right in saying that I am a Gentile dog. I don’t deserve your help. But even dogs eat food that falls unto the floor from the table. Please help my daughter!”
2. She had nowhere else to turn. Who else can get rid of a demon?
3. Plus, it was as if somehow she knew His love even when He didn’t show it.
H. There is a big lake down the hill through the woods at my grandparents house, where my mother lives now. It’s where I was taught to swim. When I was 7 years old, the dam holding the water broke and all the water rushed out and ran down the valley damaging 11 houses along the way.
1. Well, it seems to me that’s what happened here in this story. The dam holding back Christ’s love breaks and His love for this woman rushes out. “O woman, your faith is great; be it done for you as you wish.”
2. He loved her after all! He had been holding that love in. Like a dam breaking, His love is no longer held back, but gushes forth.
a. It seems to me that it must have been painful for Him to hide His love. Now comes the relief.
b. It seems to me that on the outside Jesus was acting disinterested and unconcerned, but on the inside He was cheering this woman on, "Keep it up, my beloved daughter, keep it up!"
c. And then finally He let's loose and shows His true affection for her and compassion for her situation.
3. “Your faith is great!” - He had virtually insulted her. Now He praises her!
4. “Be it done for you as you wish!” - See how Jesus stands ready to grant the request of those who trust in Him! “Whatever you ask, you will receive.”
IV. Conclusion: Occasionally this is the way God treats His beloved children. And this woman provides us with an excellent model of how to handle it, just as Marius is a bad example.
A. Some might object to this kind of love. But let us remember a few things:
1. There is a time when withholding the signs of love is the most loving thing you can do.
a. This was not a cruel thing but a wonderful thing that Jesus did to this woman. Among all the people in this area of the world, she was the only who was saved, as far as we know. What led to this great privilege? The terrible, terrible trouble God sent to her.
b. Was it not better for her that He responded this way? She went away not only with a healed daughter, but having learned a very valuable lesson about seeking after God, about how God gives grace to the humble, a lesson she would never have learned if Jesus hadn’t acted this way. This helped make her strong. And she had the privilege of being an instrument to teach the whole world this same lesson!
c. Plus, she now has the distinction of having been praised by Jesus before all those who read the Bible.
2. While acting cold toward this woman on the outside, not only was He loving her deeply on the inside, but He was also the One moving her in her soul to seek Him, to stick with it, to press on, so that He might honor her for her faith, faith that He gave her.
3. He’s in the silence too. He may be hiding behind a pillar, but He’s still watching us in love.
B. We don’t always understand why God seems to treat us coldly. But there are many examples of it in the Bible. And God wants us to learn to trust His love even when He seems to be unloving.