The lost sheep of Israel.

A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent

March 16, 2025 at Holy Communion

Matthew 15:21–28

Jesus answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. ☩ Amen.

When you hear the Gospel reading, or any of the readings, a simple question you can ask yourself to help you engage emotionally and imaginatively with what you’re hearing is “Which character in the story do I identify with?” With today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 15:21–28), our Prayer Book itself tells us who we can identify with. Every Sunday before Communion, we pray, “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table,” and then we pray that God would give himself to us in the sacrament nonetheless.

In our Gospel scene, a foreign woman whose daughter is ill persistently seeks Jesus’ attention despite his disciples pushing her away. He apparently refuses, saying that his mission is only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” and that it wouldn’t be right to “take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs,” that is, to give to foreigners what was meant for his own people. So she says, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table” (v 27).

So when we say the Prayer of Humble Access, we align ourself with that woman. We ask for crumbs of mercy from the Master’s table.

Many people find what Jesus says in this scene disturbing. In the end, it’s clear that Jesus is testing the woman, giving her an opportunity to demonstrate her persistent faith. But along the way he says, “What I have to give is not for you, you dog.” This is not the Jesus we know and like.

Jesus is for everybody, right? Yes, of course. But also no—we won’t understand what is going on in this passage until we take Jesus exactly at his word when he says that he was only sent to the children of Israel.

Some people explain this passage by saying that Jesus’ earthly mission was only to the Jews, among whom he mainly taught and healed, and that the mission of the church would later take that Gospel to the Gentiles. This is mostly true, but then what do we make of all the exceptions? Besides our scene today, only a few weeks ago we heard the story of the centurion, who (according to Jesus) had greater faith than any Israelite. Jesus was apparently very happy to receive him, just as he was ultimately willing to receive the woman in today’s scene, and neither was a Jew.

Instead, when Jesus says that he was “sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” we should remember what Paul says. “No one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly” (Romans 2:28) and “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (Romans 9:8), but instead, “it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7). Just as the name “Israel” means “he who wrestles with God” (Genesis 32:28), the true people of Israel is not one ethnic group among the many in the world, but the community of faith who grabs hold of God and doesn’t let go until they have received God’s blessing.

So let’s look back at today’s Gospel scene. Jesus says that what he can offer is only available to the children of the household. It wouldn’t be right to throw it to the dogs in the street—dogs, as unclean animals, had no place in Jewish homes. But the foreign woman says, “Where I come from dogs are part of the family, and we give them the leftovers.” Basically, she says, “Just because I’m not a Jew doesn’t mean that I can’t be adopted into your household.” And she’s right. Jesus tells her that she has great faith. And remember that faith is the criterion that makes someone a member of the true household of God.

Our Old Testament reading tells a similar story. There is a foreign woman—and not only a foreigner, but a prostitute!—who helps Israel in exchange for being welcomed into the people of God. She recognizes that God’s demonstrated presence with the Israelites in the wilderness people means that the Lord is the true God, “in the heavens above and on the earth beneath” (Joshua 2:11). When her city is destroyed, Rahab’s life and her family’s life is spared, and she travels and settles with the Jewish people. In fact, the New Testament tells us that Rahab would later marry one of the spies she sheltered, and they together would become ancestors of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). She leaves behind her association with a culture which does not recognize the true God, and insists on adoption into God’s chosen people.

So back to our puzzle about Jesus. Is Jesus for everybody, or just for “the lost sheep of the house of Israel?” Let’s take him at his word: Jesus’ saving power only means anything to members of the community of faith, which is the true and spiritual Israel. But that doesn’t mean that anybody is excluded: anyone, any person at all from any background indiscriminately, take take hold of Jesus and insist on being adopted into the household of God. Nothing delights God more (Luke 15:7).

As St Paul would later say, God does desire “all people to be saved,” but this can only happen as they all “come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Everyone has access to God, but this access is only meaningful when it is expressed by the faith which asks for welcome and healing.

Our Prayer of Humble Access puts us in the place of the foreign woman because it is she, more than any of Jesus’ disciples, who demonstrates the life-giving faith which lays hold upon the gifts God delights to give to those who really ask.

Life-giving faith is not just membership in the community. Anyone can become a member of God’s people at any time. What counts is persistently, insistently, even doggedly, laying hold upon God and in the knowledge that you need him and the confidence that he will answer.