Matthew 15:21-28 Oh No He Didn't

To the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in.

The Authority of God's Word and the Practice of Expository Preaching

Here at Recast Church, we highly value God's word. We see it as the primary source of truth regarding who God is and how he reveals himself. So you want to know God, you want to know what he wants of you, what he desires of you, then turn to his word.

And that's the reason why we dig into a portion of the Bible each week when we gather together. And we most often just march straight through books of the Bible, paragraph by paragraph, in order to understand God better.

Because I'm convinced that the more that we come in contact with God, the more that our lives will be transformed into his likeness, the more we trust him by faith, the more we will walk according to his words during the week.

And occasionally we run into what I would call a not my Jesus kind of passage. Do you know what I'm talking about? How many of you have ever heard that phrase, my Jesus would never fill in the blank? And this is one of those passages that we're going to be looking at.

These are passages, not my Jesus kind of passages, are the ones that maybe are not very familiar to us because they didn't really make the top 10 list of Sunday school lessons when we were kids. These weren't the stories that the teachers wanted to highlight or that the church wanted to highlight because we wanted to spin a little bit of PR for Jesus.

And we thought that that passage might make him look bad or might not reflect well on him. These are passages that you are not going to find on a coffee mug. You're not going to find it on a motivational poster.

They're often skipped by teachers and pastors and preachers who want to avoid controversy. And the text that we're looking at this morning is a pretty strong not my Jesus kind of passage. I mean put yourself in, I mean before we even read it, I just want to ask you some questions.

Can you imagine Jesus ignoring a woman who is crying and pleading for help? Not my Jesus. My Jesus wouldn't ignore somebody who's crying and weeping and pleading for help, right? Can you imagine Jesus telling a woman that he's not called to minister to her people because she's not of the Jewish race?

Not my Jesus. My Jesus wouldn't do something like that. Can you imagine further Jesus referring to an entire group of people with the metaphor dogs? Not my Jesus. My Jesus wouldn't say something like that.

And that's why we need to come to the text of scripture each week to see who Jesus is, to see what Jesus is really like, to see how he rolls, to see what he does. You see without scriptures we would easily slide into making our own Jesus, my Jesus.

And I think that Jesus that we would make, if we were to craft a Jesus that makes us comfortable, he would like the things that we like, he would hate the things that we hate, and I would suggest to you that he'd probably be pretty soft on the sins that we struggle with, right?

A lot of the hard edges would be rubbed off and he'd be pretty soft toward us. So as we read this passage today, it's going to require a lot of explanation. Even as I read it you're going to go, whoa wait a minute, this is really in here.

But be willing to sit in the discomfort of the way that Jesus interacts with this Canaanite woman here in the text. The discomfort is not accidental. We are meant to feel something as we read this text.

But I want you as I read it to pay, I want you all to pay special attention to the way that the text ends. Because this is an entire story that needs to be taken from beginning to end in its entirety to be understood.

And the way that it ends is significant. So I want you to open up in your Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew chapter 15 verses 21 through 28 is our text for this morning. Again, Matthew 15, 21 through 28.

Navigate in your device, pull out your phone and open your app. But if you happen to not have a Bible or a means to navigate to the Bible on your lap this morning, we want everybody to be able to follow along, to dig in, to see the things that we're saying are coming from God's Word.

And Mike is back here and he's got some Bibles already open to this passage. If you don't have a way to navigate the Bible, please just raise your hand and he'll just bring you one. It's just that simple.

So if anybody doesn't have a copy of God's Word, Mike's got those back there. Just slip your hand up and he'll bring it to you so you can follow along as we read Matthew 15 verses 21 through 28. Recast God's very Word to us, what he desires to communicate to us.

I don't believe that anybody is here by accident today. So this is something that he specifically desires for everyone that's gathered together here, including myself. He wants us to hear from him. So let's respect the Word and listen carefully to what God wants to say to us.

Verse 21 of Matthew chapter 15,. But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, send her away, for she is crying out after us. And he answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

But she came and knelt before him, saying, Lord, help me. And he answered, it is not right to take children's bread and throw it to the dogs. She said, yes, Lord. Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.

Then Jesus answered her, O woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for crumbs. I thank you for scraps that come off of your table.

And I recognize that I am just a dog. I'm a beggar. I'm needy. Father, I think that defines everybody in this room. All of us are dependent on scraps from your table. And yet, Father, you have been so gracious to us that we who have come to your table to sit under, hoping that scraps would fall, you have seated us at a banquet of your grace, a banquet of your blessing, a banquet of your mercy.

And we have hope that one day we will sit in an eternal kingdom, in an eternal banquet with you, simply because we've come to you for mercy. We've acknowledged that we have nothing to bring, and we've come with empty hands, and you have provided abundantly for us.

And so, Father, I pray that that would move us, that we would be moved and shaped and changed, even as we have an opportunity to worship you, to sing songs to you, that this would be so much more than singing songs, but it would be a movement of our heart and gratitude and thankfulness that we who came for crumbs have been given so much more.

And so, Father, I pray that you would help us in humility to acknowledge our place before you and worship you as our glorious and awesome Savior this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. I encourage you to get comfortable, just like every week.

If you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or doughnuts while supplies last, take advantage of that. You're not going to distract me. And then also, I say this most every week, I recognize that the seat you're sitting in is not the most comfortable one invented by mankind.

And so, if you need to get up and stretch out in the back or just kind of head back there, again, it's not going to distract me, and I just don't want anybody to be sitting there in discomfort. So, take advantage of that.

And then one other change. One indicator, we're very grateful for this building, but there was a lot of water that came in this end of the building in the stairwell, and it's kind of dangerous back there.

And usually, the men use the restroom upstairs on this end. We'd ask that you don't use that restroom. Use the one down here this week. And that's, I got a sign out there just for men. So, out the doorway, down the hallway, and it's right up there on the left.

So, we'd ask that you use that just for safety's sake. Again, there's just a lot of water there, and we tried to mop it up, but it's still coming in. So, and I think that's the case in a lot of places in Kalamazoo this weekend.

Tone, Nonverbals, and Reading the Text Carefully

But keep your Bibles open, please, to Matthew chapter 15, verses 21 through 28, and that's going to be our text for the week. And that's what I'm going to just walk through that. We didn't just read that just to kind of get it in our minds, but that's the format for this morning.

And I want to just point out to start with that there's two kind of aspects to every conversation. There is both what is said and the way that it is said. There's body language, there's facial expressions, there's tone of voice.

So, in other words, there's the content of what's communicated, and then there's also the non-verbals that are a part of that. How many of you already knew that? You already had that on board. Yeah, you got that.

And I would suggest to you that, and I think we all can identify with this, the written word is very weak with those non-verbals, right? You don't get a chance to see the facial expression of the person who is writing you a note or writing you a letter or even the facial expression of Jesus when he says some of these things that we see here in this text.

Now, most of us who are married know exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to tone of voice or body language, right? Like me, many of you have said one thing with your mouth while communicating something different with your tone or with your body, and so my wife is faithful to let me know when I'm confusing her with content that isn't lining up with my non-verbals.

Any of you ever run into that? I mean, a couple people are very eager on that one. We've all done that. It's mostly men that raised their hand on that one, interestingly. But equally, I think many of us have been misunderstood in what we've written.

Has anybody ever written a text or an email or even a post to social media that was completely misunderstood? You're like, well, how do they get that out of that? Anybody? A few of us? I have a couple of friends, and I think maybe everybody in this room has a couple of friends who seem angry in every single email that they write.

You guys are laughing because you know what I'm talking about. Maybe it is you if you don't have a friend like that. Maybe you're the one. But you know, they assure me that they're not upset, but because they're so direct and they've got really strong opinions, every time they write an email, it's just kind of like, you sounded really angry there.

So you have to work through that. But the reason I'm saying all of this is that our text this morning is one that required me to wade through a lot of scholars and a lot of writers, assuming that they understood or would teach us the tone of Jesus in this text.

What was going on? He said this stuff with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face. You see, some biblical scholars rush to Jesus to protect him from the way that he comes off as pretty harsh in this text.

When I read it earlier, did that cross anybody's mind that this felt a little harsh? Being honest, it did me. The first time I read it, I was like, wow, Jesus, chill for just a second. I thought you were supposed to be polite and nice here and saying some of these things.

And others, though, other scholars have used this text to discredit Jesus as a product of the ethnocentric culture around him in which he was raised, where the Jews thought that the Jews were awesome and everybody else was really bad.

And so here's an example of Jesus just being like the product of his culture and generation. But before we walk through the text, I would like to caution all of us from basing our understanding on assumptions of tone in body language or facial expressions that are not recorded for us.

If Matthew wanted us to know that Jesus said this with a smile on his face, the text would read, he said, with a smile on his face. Right? Like, how many of you know that Matthew was capable of communicating that and God, through the Spirit, is able to inspire that?

But I think that God and his Spirit wanted us to focus more on the content of what Jesus says and then the end result of what he does here in the text to identify what is actually happening here requires us to look at the words and see what he is actually saying, the content of what he's communicating.

So we should move quickly past the tone conversation to the beauty of what Jesus is doing here in this text with this Canaanite woman. In verse 21, we see that Jesus withdrew from the area of Galilee north to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

This was a trip of at least 60 miles further north from the Sea of Galilee. Remember that we saw last week some people came up from Jerusalem to basically try to corner Jesus with questions. The religious leaders, the scribes, the Pharisees were trying to corner him there.

So they made that 60-mile trip and I likened it to West Michigan. Israel is really set kind of in a good context between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. A lot of the things that happened there happened in that space and that distance, that type of area.

And we've got, of course, Lake Michigan on one side, they have the Mediterranean Sea on the other side, but that is to scale. So I don't know how much you can see that picture there, but that kind of puts it a little bit in perspective.

That's the Sea of Galilee there and then he went up north to Tyre and Sidon in that area. And that's where this entire text takes place. By the way, this area that he goes to would be well outside of the pathway of the average Jew.

They would not be comfortable traveling to this space. I imagine the disciples uncomfortable with this trip. They're not super excited to have taken this trip up into Gentile territory. Tyre and Sidon are firmly in Gentile territory and the majority of the people there would have been considered unclean by the Jewish religious leaders.

When he, when it says he withdrew, he went to a place where these scribes and Pharisees that he was talking with last week will not follow him. He's literally withdrawing and trying to get some alone and some space and some time.

And so it's in this foreign land that Jesus has an encounter with a woman that would have surprised any Jewish reader. The way that he interacts with her, the fact that he interacts with her, all of this would have been shocking and startling to the Jewish mind, let alone his disciples.

We're going to see his disciples actually expressing some concern about the way that things are going up there. But Matthew starts off verse 22 with the Greek equivalent of check this out. The word behold there is one that is intentionally a word in Greek that's like desperate to draw your attention to the next thing that is said.

So Matthew writes check this out a Canaanite woman that was born and raised in the region of Tyre and Sidon came out begging Jesus for mercy. Like just the phrase check this out shows that this was kind of out of the ordinary for Matthew and he's a little bit surprised by this and he wants you to pay a special attention to this woman who comes out.

And that she came out, the word phrase that's used there is significant because she is coming out to seek out Jesus. She came out of her house, she came out of her town, out of her place of comfort seeking for help from the Jewish Messiah.

How she knew who he was, how she knew that he was even there. The text doesn't give us but she already has quite a level of depth of understanding about who this Jesus is that has come up to this area.

Maybe word was just spreading about him all over the region and and it's like Jesus has come. But a couple of things can be pointed out that we know about this woman from verse 22. It gives us a pretty good or fully or view of who she is.

First and foremost is that we see that she believed Jesus could help her. She believed that Jesus could help her. The second thing that we know about her is she knew she needed mercy. In other words she knew she needed help and she didn't deserve help.

You see what she's calling for from him. Mercy. Give me mercy. Something that I don't deserve. I know I haven't earned this. I know I'm not worthy of this but have mercy on me. The third thing is she was desperate.

She's desperate for help. We see in the text it declares what her problem is. Her daughter is severely, wickedly, is another translation but severely or wickedly oppressed by a demon. We don't know all the ins and outs of what that looked like but we know that she is desperate enough to come out and seek the help from one of those people, a Jew.

Fourth thing is she knew Jesus was worthy of respect. She calls him Lord. Not that she probably had a fully formed understanding of his divinity. Not every time that you see the word Lord in the New Testament is it used of divinity.

Lord was a term of respect. A term that would have been I'm less than you and I want to show you respect. Kind of like sir would be today only with a little bit more of an edge to it. A little bit stronger than that.

But she knew Jesus was worthy of respect and called him Lord. And the fifth thing is she knew something of his role as the Jewish Messiah. She called him the son of David. This kind of knowledge and understanding outside of Israel shows that the concept that the Jews were waiting for one who would fulfill the promises made to David that one would sit on his throne forever and ever.

For her to call Jesus son of David is a significant understanding that probably blew, I mean it probably blew back the disciples when she was shouting that at Jesus. Like what? Out here someone is identifying him?

Someone who was raised in Tyre and Sidon? A son of David? It took the disciples a while to get that truth. It took them a while to actually recognize that he is the Christ the son of the living God. But the last thing that we identify about her is maybe the most significant in their eyes about her.

That is simply at the face value that she is a Canaanite. A virtual curse word to them. That's a terrible word to the Jewish mouth. A Canaanite. One need not read very far into the Old Testament. If you've ever read it, you've studied it or even just kind of looked into it, you don't have to read too far to see the animosity building between the Israelites and the Canaanites.

To put it in perspective, the Egyptians, you know, they had been slaves in Egypt. Israel is slaves in Egypt and then they are released under Moses and all of the plagues and then they're set free and they begin this exodus thing.

And not just a few days into the exodus, do you know who attacks them? Little known story. Again, it doesn't make the Sunday school lessons very often because you got to get to the party of the Red Sea and all that stuff and all that really cool stuff.

But the Canaanites attacked them early on. Before they even get out of the Sinai Peninsula, the Canaanites are there harassing them and haranguing them all along the way to attacking, attacking, attacking.

They warred against Abraham and Lot back in the day. They filled the wells that Isaac dug. Isaac would dig wells and the Canaanites would come in behind him. How many of you know water in the desert matters?

You want your wells to stay open? And they'd come in and fill them in behind him to cause problems for him. They committed, according to the prophets in the Old Testament, the Canaanites committed abominations against God, even sacrificing their own children on altars of flame to their pagan gods filled with idolatry and all kinds of wickedness.

And they were supposed to be conquered under Joshua. All that context just to say this woman, this Canaanite woman, to the eyes and ears of the Jews and particularly those disciples who were there with Jesus, was far, far, far outside of the kingdom.

I don't even know if the disciples would have had a category of understanding that she could be welcomed into the kingdom. The stereotype for this woman among the Jews would have been horrendous. The assumptions about her would have been dark.

And here she stands at a distance crying out to the Messiah of the Jews, Jesus Christ. She's crying out to him. She's crying. She's weeping. She's shouting. And she wants one thing. Mercy. Mercy. She knows she doesn't deserve anything from this Jew.

She knows the hatred that is the custom between their people. That he would revile her is her full reasonable expectation. That he would curse her. Ignoring her would be gracious compared to the expectation between these two cultures that he would dismiss her with curses.

But she comes to Jesus in her desperation. Her daughter is wickedly, severely demon oppressed. We don't know again what all that looked like or how this demonic influence manifested itself in this little girl's life.

But we know that in the end we don't see that she has exercised. She is healed. So there was some kind of physical manifestation of this demonic influence in her life. But her mother is desperate for help.

And so Jesus speaks softly words of comfort to this desperate woman. He follows her home and casts the demon out from her. And isn't that just like my Jesus? Always eager to heal. Always eager to help.

Always speaking in soft hushed tones with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Not quite. In verse 23. In verse 23 he ignores her pleas. He ignores her pleas. And the Greek is emphatic. The sentence structure, the words that are used in Greek are emphatic.

He didn't respond to her. Even a word. Not even a word to acknowledge her presence. Nothing. And they apparently continue to journey down the road. She follows at a distance. He is doing something by the way.

Jesus is responding in a way that the disciples would have thought gracious. He hasn't dismissed her. He hasn't cursed her. He hasn't told her to go home. He is just ignoring her. What a gracious and kind response from their rabbi.

Wow he's teaching us a lesson here. But they betray their discomfort. They're not quite as comfortable as Jesus with the situation. As she follows them weeping, crying, shouting, and begging have mercy, have mercy, have mercy.

And so they begin to also plead with Jesus. Now Jesus has her pleading and the disciples pleading. And they say please, please, please, oh please Jesus send her away. She's a Canaanite. She's getting on their nerves.

And by ignoring her Jesus is now getting under the skin of his disciples. Could you just take care of this Jesus? And so the disciples tell Jesus what to do. Do you see that in the text? They command him.

They tell Jesus what to do here. I mean you know I picture the disciples kind of having this thought process in their minds and the way that this whole thing goes. I mean maybe Jesus hasn't encountered a Canaanite before so he needs their advice on what to do with one.

And so they offer that freely. They're free in their advice to Jesus telling him what to do. I mean you know like I mean we got to be careful telling Jesus what to do right? You ought to be very careful about that.

But these disciples are pretty bold. And so Jesus in case you didn't know we don't associate with these kinds says the disciples. We dismiss them. We get rid of them. We send these kind away Jesus. And she's annoying us.

Anybody see the obvious thing there in the text? How cold how callous must a person be to watch another person weep and beg for mercy and not be moved beyond your own discomfort. To not be moved beyond your own she's annoying me.

Could you just get rid of her Jesus? How cold. The followers of Jesus but before we cast our judgment on the disciples what about us? What about us when others are crying and begging for help? Turn a blind eye or even worse to just be annoyed by them.

But Jesus is setting up a little something for the disciples that has radical implications for them and even for us here where we live today. He takes everyone on a roller coaster ride to get there. I think it's all intentional.

It's all on purpose. He didn't say anything here off the cuff. He wasn't shooting from the hip. Jesus answers the disciples with a straightforward statement of his mission. They're like could you get rid of her?

And they're like oh now you want me to talk to her? Because she's inconveniencing you. Now you think my mission is to the Canaanites. Now all of a sudden you want me to do something with this woman? His first coming was indeed to come to Israel and bring healing for sin to keep the law and to suffer and die for the salvation of all who would believe.

You see I mean that mission that mission statement I've come to Israel. That's my that's my purpose. Jesus didn't come to Rome. He never went to Athens. He didn't come to earth among the Chinese Han dynasty that was going on during the same era.

He came to Israel to work among God's chosen people and to fulfill the prophecies made about their Messiah from their ancient writings. And that's the truth. But again I want to be careful. We don't know the tone of verse 24.

But we do know fully that he did this in response to the disciples wanting him to dismiss the woman. You know to say oh so now you want me to address the Canaanite woman. Don't you know I'm called to the lost sheep of the house of Israel?

Now you want me to talk to her? And further we know that he said this to his disciples as they have a chance to observe what he's going to do next. How he's going to respond. What's he going to do? His affirmation in verse 24 would have likely made them feel settled that he was going to dismiss her.

So that what comes next would be all the more shocking to them. They're like oh yeah okay so he's acknowledging he's called only to Israel. We're going to get rid of this woman. We're going to just be able to go about our merry way in peace and quiet.

Their ears would get relief from her wailing and they could they could just go on. But no she came closer. She knelt down before Jesus saying simply Lord. She's respectful. She's deferential and extremely simple in her trust of Jesus.

She has gone to great lengths and to great social risks to come and kneel before this Jewish rabbi. This is more than a long shot. It would have seemed utterly foolish in her culture that she would think that this Jewish man would help her.

But she comes in such humility. She comes in such need. In such a deep place of desperation. I picture the disciples. By the way they've just received a lesson in the last text. Last week we talked about it.

They received a lesson on that the fact that defilement doesn't come from outside of you but comes from inside of you. Out of the heart flows all of these evil thoughts and wicked things and the speech that defiles us.

That comes out of our hearts. I still picture the disciples recoiling and again I'm just seeing a little bit of a sanctified imagination here but I still picture them fearing the cooties of this woman.

Afraid that something from her is going to jump off onto them. Some defilement. Some wickedness. Some evil that she's committed as a Canaanite. And now they're going to be implicit because they've helped her.

She's one of those immoral impure people. And Jesus with the disciples present answers her request for help with this statement from verse 26. It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

What? The metaphor by the way is not lost on anyone that is present in the hearing of this. They understand I believe fully what he's getting at. The children are the Jews. The bread is the blessings and the benefits of his kingdom and miraculous ministry.

And the dogs are all of those others outside of that kingdom. The Gentiles particularly. The Canaanites specifically. And most all of us in this room from our heritage are found within this metaphor as dogs.

We are the Gentiles. We were the outsiders Jesus is referring to here. Probably every one of us in the room would fit into that category. That isn't very kind Jesus. Right? That's not very kind. Didn't your mother teach you manners?

I mean Mary? Really? He's calling people dogs here? Or is this... I don't want to soften what he says here but I also don't want to enhance the offense. And I think that a lot of people in our hearts, in our minds, we probably have a greater tendency to harden the offense unless you really like dogs.

And then you're like, well I don't wouldn't mind being a dog. Dogs are cool. I mean I think that there's a little bit of a balance in our culture between our love for pets and on the flip side of that is like well you don't call people names.

Right? So it's like I don't know which way this goes but I don't want to enhance the offense and here's the reason why. I look at the text and I look at the way that the people around responded and they just roll with it.

I mean the Canaanite woman doesn't miss a beat. Look at the context to determine how offended you should be by what Jesus says here. And she just rolls with it. She doesn't begin to weep at his reply and go oh you hurt my feelings.

She doesn't storm off in disgusted anger. Why did I even come to you for help anyways? She's okay with the image. In her humility she's okay with recognizing what she is in the face of what she needs.

Do you hear that? She's okay recognizing that before him she is nothing. A dog is a is a promotion. A dog is a promotion compared to what we are before the Almighty God. And she recognizes she is just a beggar.

She is just pleading for crumbs at the at the table of the king. She's okay with the image and she runs with it. Sure, she says. Yes, you said rightly. I agree with you. You shouldn't take food away from your children to feed the pets.

Right? Is that is that a pretty good principle to live by? Don't take food from your kids. I think we all would agree. Raise your hand if you agree with that statement. Don't take food that belongs to your children and give it to your pets.

If you're at the store and you only have enough money for either cereal for the kids or purina for Fluffy, buy the cereal, says Jesus. That's a given, right? Like we understand that. But look with me in wonder at this woman's creativity and faith in verse 27.

She's creative and she has intense faith. Yes, Jesus, you're right. But even the dogs can eat from the scraps or the crumbs that fall off the table onto the floor. Surely, she assumes, there are on God's table enough that the scraps could fall to a lowly person like me.

And she displays immense humility and just a crazy, deep, great level of faith. She's asking for deliverance for her daughter and she assumes it's really nothing but a scrap for the divine Son of God to do so.

She believes it would really be nothing. It wouldn't take much for him. It would be like crumbs swept off the table after a great banquet of his power and glory and blessings. Just a crumb, she says. Just a scrap.

Can you spare a small crumb for a dog such as me, says the woman in humility. I'm convinced by the way that Jesus loved this woman from the very beginning. From the beginning of our text, I believe he loved her.

But I'm also convinced that he has intentionally brought the disciples and her on a journey with him through this dialogue. He ignored her at the start, which pushes the disciples to a response to her.

He reminded them of his ministry and mission so that they would be reminded and realize how utterly out of the box his response in verse 28 really would be. He challenged the social relationships implied by her request.

And through it all, she remains humble, persistent, and resolute in her faith that he can do this thing that she's requesting. And Jesus exclaims with accolades in verse 28, Oh woman, great is your faith.

She stands as a model and an example to you and me down through the ages. Oh woman, great is your faith. There are only two times that a person is credited with great faith in the entire book of Matthew.

And both of them are Gentiles, interestingly. Both of them are people like you and me. Both of them are people who in humility recognized what they were before the Almighty. One was a Roman centurion, a guy who you could say was a worker for the man, so to speak.

And he exhibits great faith. And then you have this woman who's down and out and lowly and in desperate need. And she's credited with great faith. Contrast this commendation, by the way, for this woman.

And I don't think it was lost on the disciples because for us what was a few weeks ago was just two days ago for them. Peter was just walking on the water. He's just walking on the water the day before this happened.

Actually the night before, a couple nights before this actually happened. And I don't imagine that it was very lost on them that he's just called this woman's faith great. And he responded to Peter and called him you of little faith.

There's a contrast there. The people who think they deserve much, oh, they have a hard time showing great faith. But those who recognize who they are in the light of a holy and righteous God who come to him with open hands saying, just a crumb, please.