WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:04.000 The Jesus who healed everyone told this mother no, not once, 2 00:00:04.559 --> 00:00:07.160 three times in a row, and the third was so 3 00:00:07.400 --> 00:00:10.919 harsh that two thousand years of readers have been left 4 00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:15.080 frozen in front of those words. But this woman didn't leave, 5 00:00:15.679 --> 00:00:18.960 She didn't weep in silence, she didn't convince herself that 6 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:22.800 she deserved nothing to every know she had an answer, 7 00:00:23.519 --> 00:00:26.719 And on the third she said something so brilliant that 8 00:00:26.800 --> 00:00:29.239 it stopped the very Son of God in his tracks. 9 00:00:29.559 --> 00:00:32.880 And with that single sentence, she opened the door of 10 00:00:32.920 --> 00:00:38.399 salvation to the whole world standing outside. You included, Stay 11 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:42.399 because what you're about to understand is going to change 12 00:00:42.439 --> 00:00:45.799 forever what you believe on those days when you pray 13 00:00:46.600 --> 00:00:52.000 and pray and Heaven stays silent. Before we begin, one 14 00:00:52.079 --> 00:00:55.359 quick thing. If you're already part of this channel's family, 15 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:59.079 leave me alike down below. That helps this grow and 16 00:00:59.159 --> 00:01:02.240 reach more homes that need it. And if you just 17 00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:05.760 got here to day, relax. You don't have to give 18 00:01:05.799 --> 00:01:08.879 me anything yet. Stay until the end, and if this 19 00:01:09.079 --> 00:01:13.079 truly touches you, then you can leave it there. With 20 00:01:13.239 --> 00:01:16.400 that done, let's go back to that mother and to 21 00:01:16.439 --> 00:01:20.879 the first time Heaven told her no. There's an experience 22 00:01:20.959 --> 00:01:24.319 that almost everyone who prays knows, and that almost no 23 00:01:24.439 --> 00:01:28.719 one talks about out loud. It's the experience of silence. 24 00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:33.120 You ask for something with everything you have, not out 25 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:36.640 of a whim, not out of greed, but because someone 26 00:01:36.680 --> 00:01:40.000 you love is suffering, or because something is falling apart 27 00:01:40.280 --> 00:01:42.920 and you don't know how to hold it together, and 28 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:47.840 you pray, and you pray again, and up above nothing happens, 29 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:53.400 no voice, no sign, no door that opens, just the 30 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:56.519 ceiling of your room and the sound of your own breathing. 31 00:01:56.920 --> 00:02:00.200 And then comes the most poisonous thought of all, the 32 00:02:00.280 --> 00:02:04.120 thought that maybe the silence is an answer, that maybe 33 00:02:04.159 --> 00:02:07.239 you're not one of the people who receive that. Maybe 34 00:02:07.239 --> 00:02:10.319 there's a list and your name isn't on it. If 35 00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:13.759 you've ever stood in that place, this story is for you, 36 00:02:14.599 --> 00:02:18.639 because it's about exactly that, about a mother who asked 37 00:02:18.639 --> 00:02:20.919 God for the only thing in the world that mattered 38 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:24.840 to her and received first the most complete silence in 39 00:02:24.919 --> 00:02:28.879 the entire New Testament, and about what she did with it. 40 00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:33.599 To understand what happened, you have to understand where it happened, 41 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:37.680 and that's the first detail most people overlook. Jesus came 42 00:02:37.719 --> 00:02:42.159 worn out. The ministry had been relentless, one crowd after another, 43 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:46.280 one argument after another. And then he did something that 44 00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:50.840 for a Jewish teacher in the first century was almost unthinkable. 45 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:55.439 He left Israel. He crossed to the northwest, toward the coast, 46 00:02:55.759 --> 00:02:59.560 toward the region of two cities called Tire and Sidon. 47 00:03:00.039 --> 00:03:03.360 Matthew tells it in chapter fifteen, and Mark confirms it 48 00:03:03.439 --> 00:03:08.400 in his In chapter seven. Mark adds something Matthew doesn't say, 49 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:13.520 and it changes everything. He says, Jesus entered a house 50 00:03:13.879 --> 00:03:17.479 and didn't want anyone to know he was there. Read 51 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:21.280 it again, The Son of God looking for a wall, 52 00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:24.599 a door, a corner where no one would find him. 53 00:03:24.919 --> 00:03:27.719 He wasn't going to heal, he wasn't going to preach. 54 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:31.000 He was going to disappear for a moment. Now look 55 00:03:31.039 --> 00:03:34.159 at the place he goes to disappear in Tire and 56 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:38.520 Sidon were not a neutral destination in the Hebrew scriptures. 57 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:41.800 They were the most loaded place that existed. They were 58 00:03:41.879 --> 00:03:46.159 Phoenician land, pagan land, land of the worshippers of Baal, 59 00:03:46.919 --> 00:03:50.199 and for those who knew their history, that word Canaanite 60 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:56.840 carried an almost unbearable weight. The Hebrew word is cana An, Canaan, 61 00:03:57.400 --> 00:04:00.879 and in all of Israel's memory, the Canaanites were the enemy. 62 00:04:01.240 --> 00:04:04.439 They were the people of idols, the people of sacrifices, 63 00:04:04.719 --> 00:04:07.479 the people Israel was supposed to have driven out of 64 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:12.120 the Promised Land. From that very coast, centuries earlier had 65 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:15.439 come a princess who nearly destroyed the faith of Israel 66 00:04:15.479 --> 00:04:19.720 from the throne. Her name was Jezebel. From there came 67 00:04:19.839 --> 00:04:22.959 the cult that confronted the prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel. 68 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:26.399 The prophets of Israel had pronounced the harshest oracles against 69 00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:30.040 those two cities. Isiah and Ezekiel spoke of the pride 70 00:04:30.040 --> 00:04:33.360 of Tire, of its wealth, of its commerce that filled 71 00:04:33.399 --> 00:04:36.160 the sea with ships, and of the judgment that would 72 00:04:36.199 --> 00:04:39.399 fall upon it. In the memory of a devout Jew, 73 00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:42.879 Tire and Sidon were not simply a place on the map. 74 00:04:43.240 --> 00:04:46.519 They were a symbol, the symbol of everything that had 75 00:04:46.600 --> 00:04:50.360 risen up against the True God, the opulence, the idols, 76 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:54.480 the foreign gods that demanded the blood of children. That's 77 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:58.079 why for a first century rabbi to set foot in 78 00:04:58.160 --> 00:05:01.920 that land of his own free will was not merely strange. 79 00:05:02.439 --> 00:05:06.160 It was almost a walking contradiction. It was walking with 80 00:05:06.279 --> 00:05:09.959 your own body toward the territory your entire people had 81 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:12.759 learned to see as the exact opposite of the sacred. 82 00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:16.279 And remember what Jesus had just come from doing. He 83 00:05:16.319 --> 00:05:19.199 had come from teaching about the clean and the unclean, 84 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:22.519 from telling the Pharisees that it is not what goes 85 00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:25.639 into the mouth that defiles a person. And the moment 86 00:05:25.639 --> 00:05:29.279 he finishes tearing down that boundary with his words, he 87 00:05:29.319 --> 00:05:32.920 gets up and walks straight toward the most unclean place 88 00:05:33.319 --> 00:05:37.360 in all of known geography. That's the picture, and it 89 00:05:37.480 --> 00:05:41.120 isn't a slip in the story. It's the point, and 90 00:05:41.240 --> 00:05:45.600 it's exactly there on that ground, right after arguing with 91 00:05:45.639 --> 00:05:48.920 the Pharisees about who is clean and who is unclean, 92 00:05:49.399 --> 00:05:53.839 that Jesus decides to enter. It's no accident, it's deliberate. 93 00:05:54.199 --> 00:05:57.319 The one who just tore down the borders of clean 94 00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:00.959 and unclean walks with his own body toward the wrong 95 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:04.800 side of the border, and someone was waiting for him. 96 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:07.560 Mark says it with a sentence that looks like a 97 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:11.639 travel detail, And isn't he says, Jesus could not remain hidden. 98 00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:15.079 The news of that teacher from Galilee who healed the 99 00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:18.439 sick and cast out demons, had already crossed the borders. 100 00:06:18.879 --> 00:06:22.360 It was already passing from mouth to mouth, even in 101 00:06:22.519 --> 00:06:26.680 pagan land, even among people who had no temple, no covenant, 102 00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:30.000 no right of any kind. One of those people was 103 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:35.920 a mother, and that mother had a daughter. Imagine, and 104 00:06:35.959 --> 00:06:38.920 again I say imagine, because the text only tells us 105 00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:41.839 the girl was tormented by a demon, and the rest 106 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:46.600 we reconstruct carefully. Imagine the nights in that house, a 107 00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:50.279 girl who screams and won't be calmed, who hurts herself, 108 00:06:50.600 --> 00:06:53.920 who suddenly doesn't recognize her own mother, who goes from 109 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:58.160 stillness to fury without any warning. Imagine that woman awake 110 00:06:58.560 --> 00:07:02.759 night after night, try eyeing everything, the remedies of the coast, 111 00:07:03.079 --> 00:07:06.519 the prayers to her own gods, the pagan priests who 112 00:07:06.639 --> 00:07:10.199 charged and were of no use at all. Imagine the 113 00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:13.600 particular exhaustion that builds up when you love someone who 114 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:17.480 suffers in front of you and you can do absolutely nothing. 115 00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:22.160 Until one day, in the middle of that bottomless weariness, 116 00:07:22.639 --> 00:07:25.839 a rumor reaches her that there's a man that he 117 00:07:25.959 --> 00:07:29.240 crossed the border that he's near by, and that wherever 118 00:07:29.279 --> 00:07:33.639 he passes, demons come out. It's all she has a rumor, 119 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:37.800 and it's enough. We don't know her name. The Bible 120 00:07:37.879 --> 00:07:40.959 never tells us, and I think that too, is part 121 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:46.120 of the message. Matthew calls her, quite intentionally, the Canaanite woman. 122 00:07:46.600 --> 00:07:50.279 Mark is even more specific. He says she was Greek 123 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:55.279 and syrah Phoenician by birth. That is, in Greek, helenis 124 00:07:55.759 --> 00:07:59.959 a gentile and syrah Phoenician from the Phoenicia that belonged 125 00:08:00.120 --> 00:08:03.600 to Syria. Each word is one more layer of distance. 126 00:08:04.040 --> 00:08:07.360 Mark and Matthew want you to feel, one by one, 127 00:08:07.399 --> 00:08:10.439 every reason why this woman had no right to come near. 128 00:08:10.959 --> 00:08:16.040 No correct nation, no correct religion, no covenant, no priest, 129 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:20.000 a woman alone in a culture that gave her no voice, 130 00:08:20.040 --> 00:08:23.560 pleading for a daughter, that a demon was tormenting, And 131 00:08:23.680 --> 00:08:27.720 even so she came, and here the first no begins. 132 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:31.480 Matthew says she arrived crying out. And the word he 133 00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:35.440 uses is not gentle in Greek, its krazo, which means 134 00:08:35.480 --> 00:08:40.440 to cry out with force, loudly, with desperate urgency. It's 135 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:43.440 the same word the Gospels use to describe the demon 136 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:46.919 possessed the blind at the side of the road, people 137 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:50.080 at the very limit of their desperation. It's not the 138 00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:53.559 polite voice of someone asking for an appointment. It's a 139 00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:56.519 shout in the middle of the street, repeated that doesn't 140 00:08:56.519 --> 00:09:00.600 stop and listen to what she shouts, Lord, son of David, 141 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:04.559 have mercy on me. My daughter is grievously tormented by 142 00:09:04.559 --> 00:09:07.960 a demon. Stop on every word of that, because it's astonishing. 143 00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:12.519 She calls him lord, and she calls him son of David. 144 00:09:12.759 --> 00:09:17.679 That's no ordinary title. Son of David is a messianic title, 145 00:09:17.799 --> 00:09:21.000 deeply Jewish, the name of the promised king who would 146 00:09:21.039 --> 00:09:25.720 come to save Israel. It's the most precise theological vocabulary 147 00:09:25.759 --> 00:09:30.480 that existed. It is, in fact, the very language Jesus's 148 00:09:30.559 --> 00:09:35.200 own disciples were still processing, still debating in low voices 149 00:09:35.279 --> 00:09:38.679 among themselves. And it's being used by a pagan woman 150 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:42.639 on pagan soil with a precision her own people were 151 00:09:42.679 --> 00:09:46.399 only beginning to accept. That tells you something. This mother 152 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:51.279 didn't arrive by chance. She investigated, She listened to the stories, 153 00:09:51.679 --> 00:09:54.879 She found out who this man really was, and she 154 00:09:55.080 --> 00:09:58.480 arrived prepared with the right name on her lips, with 155 00:09:58.600 --> 00:10:03.279 the perfect confession. She did everything right, and Jesus's answer 156 00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:07.240 was silence. Matthew records it with a bluntness that hurts. 157 00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:10.639 He says simply that he answered her, not a word, 158 00:10:11.080 --> 00:10:14.879 not one. He doesn't say he hesitated, He doesn't say 159 00:10:14.919 --> 00:10:17.879 he looked at her. He doesn't say he felt compassion 160 00:10:18.200 --> 00:10:22.120 and held it back. He says there was no answer. Nothing. 161 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:25.879 Imagine the scene for a moment. And I say imagine, 162 00:10:26.080 --> 00:10:29.440 because the Bible gives us the facts, but the experience 163 00:10:29.519 --> 00:10:33.639 we have to reconstruct. Imagine the midday heat on that coast, 164 00:10:33.960 --> 00:10:36.480 the dust of the road, the throat of that woman 165 00:10:36.559 --> 00:10:40.879 already roar from so much shouting. Imagine her voice rising 166 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:43.840 and rising, And on the other side, from the side 167 00:10:43.879 --> 00:10:46.600 of the only man who could save her daughter, nothing, 168 00:10:47.159 --> 00:10:50.759 a wall of silence, as if she didn't exist, as 169 00:10:50.759 --> 00:10:54.360 if her pain didn't count. Anyone who has ever truly 170 00:10:54.399 --> 00:10:57.519 prayed knows what that feels like. And here's the question 171 00:10:57.600 --> 00:10:59.919 I want you to carry through the rest of this story. 172 00:11:00.519 --> 00:11:04.080 Why Why does the Jesus who on every other page 173 00:11:04.159 --> 00:11:08.279 runs toward the one who suffers here stay mute? Why 174 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:11.080 does the one who touched the leper, who stopped for 175 00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:14.639 a woman who barely brushed his cloak. Here not open 176 00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:17.360 his mouth. Hold on to that question. We're going to 177 00:11:17.399 --> 00:11:19.960 come back to it. And the answer is not what 178 00:11:20.039 --> 00:11:23.240 you think, because it turns out this mother was not 179 00:11:23.399 --> 00:11:27.120 the first to cry out and find heaven silent. There's 180 00:11:27.159 --> 00:11:29.840 a man in the Psalms who cried out the same thing. 181 00:11:30.600 --> 00:11:35.080 In Psalm twenty two, the Psalmist says, my God, I 182 00:11:35.240 --> 00:11:38.840 cry out by day and you do not answer, and 183 00:11:38.879 --> 00:11:42.519 by night and I find no rest. It's the voice 184 00:11:42.519 --> 00:11:45.399 of some one who prays and prays and feels there's 185 00:11:45.399 --> 00:11:49.240 no one above listening. And the extraordinary thing is whose 186 00:11:49.320 --> 00:11:53.279 words these would become centuries later, These are the first 187 00:11:53.360 --> 00:11:57.279 words Jesus himself would cry out from the cross. In 188 00:11:57.360 --> 00:12:00.279 other words, the silence of heaven is not a sign 189 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:04.279 of abandonment. Even the sun felt it. But that mother 190 00:12:04.759 --> 00:12:08.480 on that road doesn't yet know it. She only knows 191 00:12:08.559 --> 00:12:12.360 that she asked and that there was no answer. And 192 00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:16.399 there's something almost cruel in that kind of waiting, something 193 00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:20.720 only someone who has lived it truly understands. When you 194 00:12:20.840 --> 00:12:23.759 ask someone for something and they tell you no, at 195 00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:27.000 least you have an answer. It hurts, but you know 196 00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:30.279 where you stand, you know your footing. The lack of 197 00:12:30.279 --> 00:12:33.279 an answer is different. It leaves you with no ground 198 00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:36.200 beneath your feet. You don't know if he didn't hear you, 199 00:12:36.639 --> 00:12:39.559 if you don't matter to him, if you're asking wrong, 200 00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:42.840 or if you're simply not important enough to deserve a 201 00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:47.320 single word. And your mind starts to fill that emptiness, 202 00:12:47.679 --> 00:12:50.639 and it almost always fills it with the worst thing 203 00:12:50.720 --> 00:12:54.320 you think about yourself. This mother had to stand inside 204 00:12:54.360 --> 00:12:57.679 that emptiness. She did everything right. She shouted the correct name, 205 00:12:57.960 --> 00:13:00.879 she offered the correct confession, and from the other side 206 00:13:00.960 --> 00:13:04.159 came neither a yes nor a no, just the hot 207 00:13:04.240 --> 00:13:07.799 midday air. And even so, look carefully at what she 208 00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:10.840 did not do. She did not interpret the absence of 209 00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:14.360 an answer as a final verdict. She did not decide 210 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:18.200 on her own that the silence meant she was ruled out. 211 00:13:18.759 --> 00:13:21.159 She kept treating that silent door not as a door 212 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:24.840 locked forever, but as a door that simply hadn't opened yet. 213 00:13:25.519 --> 00:13:29.240 And that difference, that small difference in how you read 214 00:13:29.320 --> 00:13:32.600 what is not said, ends up being all the difference 215 00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:35.480 in the world. And what does she do with the silence? 216 00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:39.960 She doesn't leave. She keeps going and it's the disciples 217 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:45.159 who can't take it because that silence is uncomfortable. Notice 218 00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:49.039 this detail, because it's very human. It wasn't Jesus who 219 00:13:49.080 --> 00:13:52.519 complained about her. It was the men who were with him. 220 00:13:52.840 --> 00:13:55.320 They came up to him and said, send her away, 221 00:13:55.399 --> 00:13:59.000 for she keeps crying out after us. Translate it to today. 222 00:13:59.320 --> 00:14:02.840 Get her out of here. She's making noise, she's bothering us, 223 00:14:02.840 --> 00:14:05.679 she's following us, and she won't be quiet. Free us 224 00:14:05.720 --> 00:14:09.360 from her. These are not evil men. They're tired, just 225 00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:13.279 like their master. They were looking for rest and instead 226 00:14:13.559 --> 00:14:16.200 they have a foreign woman shouting behind them in the 227 00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:19.879 middle of the street. And their first instinct, the instinct 228 00:14:19.879 --> 00:14:22.720 of those who are inside, is to protect the door, 229 00:14:23.120 --> 00:14:26.519 to decide who gets in and who doesn't. And this 230 00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:29.559 one clearly has to be sent away. And then comes 231 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:32.279 the second no. And this one is worse than the 232 00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:35.440 lack of an answer, because it's no longer the absence 233 00:14:35.480 --> 00:14:41.399 of words. It's words. Jesus says, I was sent only 234 00:14:41.440 --> 00:14:43.879 to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. I 235 00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:47.200 want you to hold onto that line carefully, because we're 236 00:14:47.240 --> 00:14:49.720 going to come back to it. And when we do, 237 00:14:50.440 --> 00:14:53.279 it's going to be one of the most important sentences 238 00:14:53.320 --> 00:14:57.279 in the whole story. But right now, put yourself for 239 00:14:57.320 --> 00:15:00.200 a second in that mother's shoes and feel what that 240 00:15:00.360 --> 00:15:04.399 sentence means for her. It's not a no to her request. 241 00:15:05.039 --> 00:15:08.720 It's a no to her to what she is, to 242 00:15:08.799 --> 00:15:12.720 her bloodline. It's as if they told her the bread 243 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:15.639 I bring is not for your kind. There's a table, 244 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:18.639 and you're not invited to it. You're on the wrong 245 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:21.639 side of the border. And that border wasn't put there 246 00:15:21.679 --> 00:15:25.080 by me, it was put there by Heaven. How many 247 00:15:25.159 --> 00:15:28.279 times has that happened to you? Not that they tell 248 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:31.279 you no to something, but that they make you feel 249 00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:34.879 that you are the problem, that you don't qualify. That 250 00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:40.080 grace is real, yes, but for others that the table exists, 251 00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:44.200 but not for someone with your history, with your mistakes, 252 00:15:44.279 --> 00:15:47.799 with your past. Any reasonable person would have left at 253 00:15:47.799 --> 00:15:51.080 that point. They would have lowered their head, felt the 254 00:15:51.120 --> 00:15:54.799 shame rise up their face, and turned around. They told 255 00:15:54.840 --> 00:15:59.240 you that you don't belong end of conversation. But this 256 00:15:59.279 --> 00:16:02.919 woman does something different, And this is where the story 257 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:06.879 stops being about a rejected person and starts being about 258 00:16:06.879 --> 00:16:12.240 the most courageous prayer the scriptures record. Instead of walking away, 259 00:16:12.679 --> 00:16:16.840 she comes closer. Instead of retreating from the know she 260 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:21.440 advances toward it. Matthew says, she came and bowed down, 261 00:16:21.799 --> 00:16:25.279 knelt directly in front of Jesus, and she reduced everything, 262 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:30.879 absolutely everything, to two words, Lord help me. That is 263 00:16:31.279 --> 00:16:35.600 probably the most stripped down prayer in the entire New Testament. 264 00:16:36.039 --> 00:16:40.120 There's no theology in it, no credentials, no argument, no resume, 265 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:44.159 no merit. She already tried the perfect title son of David, 266 00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:48.320 and it didn't work. So she throws everything overboard and 267 00:16:48.399 --> 00:16:51.320 keeps the only thing she has left, a mother on 268 00:16:51.399 --> 00:16:54.960 her knees in the dust, saying help me, and here 269 00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:57.759 I stop because I want you to see something in 270 00:16:57.879 --> 00:17:00.840 that gesture. There are moments in life, life when the 271 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:04.480 elaborate prayers no longer come out, moments when you don't 272 00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:08.079 have the strength to quote verses or to build pretty sentences. 273 00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:11.960 The only thing that comes out is that help me. 274 00:17:12.799 --> 00:17:15.680 And the good news this story is giving you, even 275 00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:18.200 though it doesn't look like it yet, is that this 276 00:17:18.400 --> 00:17:22.400 two word prayer spoken from the ground, is worth more 277 00:17:22.440 --> 00:17:26.039 than all the religious speeches in the world. But she 278 00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:29.160 doesn't know it yet because What comes now is the 279 00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:33.480 third no, and it's the harshest of all. Stay because 280 00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:36.559 what she answers to this is the most brilliant turn 281 00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:40.240 in the entire Gospel. And if you still haven't subscribed 282 00:17:40.279 --> 00:17:43.359 to the channel, this is the exact moment to do it, 283 00:17:43.759 --> 00:17:47.799 because what follows is the most extraordinary master class in 284 00:17:47.839 --> 00:17:51.200 faith you will ever hear. Here is the sentence in 285 00:17:51.200 --> 00:17:54.359 front of which two thousand years of readers have been 286 00:17:54.440 --> 00:17:58.079 left speechless. Jesus looks at her and says, it is 287 00:17:58.119 --> 00:18:01.000 not right to take the children's breath and throw it 288 00:18:01.039 --> 00:18:04.680 to the little dogs. Read it again. The Son of 289 00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:08.279 God has just compared this desperate mother to a dog. 290 00:18:09.119 --> 00:18:12.240 Stay a second in that blow before I explain it 291 00:18:12.279 --> 00:18:16.720 to you, because she received it without explanation. In that instant, 292 00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:19.720 she had no one beside her to translate the Greek 293 00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:23.599 or soften the sentence. She had a holy man in 294 00:18:23.640 --> 00:18:26.559 front of a crowd using the word dog in the 295 00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:30.160 same sentence as the image that described her. For a 296 00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:33.519 mother who had already swallowed the silence, and who had 297 00:18:33.559 --> 00:18:36.559 already swallowed the eye was sent only to the sheep 298 00:18:36.599 --> 00:18:41.359 of Israel. This was the third wave, and the highest one. 299 00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:45.119 It was the exact moment when most of us would 300 00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:49.200 have exploded or collapsed on the ground, or let loose 301 00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:52.400 a bitter sentence before turning around to never come back. 302 00:18:53.319 --> 00:18:57.279 What she did instead is going to challenge everything you 303 00:18:57.400 --> 00:19:01.279 believe about how you respond to a hue umiliation. And 304 00:19:01.359 --> 00:19:03.920 here is the first thing you need to understand. The 305 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:06.359 thing the vast majority of people who read this in 306 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:11.759 English completely miss because the Greek word Jesus uses is 307 00:19:11.799 --> 00:19:14.880 not the word for a wild dog. In the first century, 308 00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:18.079 there were two completely different words for dog. The first 309 00:19:18.319 --> 00:19:22.799 was chion, and chion referred to the stray dogs scavengers 310 00:19:23.119 --> 00:19:26.680 that roamed the streets of the ancient cities, eating garbage, 311 00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:31.960 dangerous animals, dirty carriers of disease. Nobody wanted them near. 312 00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:35.960 And when some Jewish teachers use the word kion to 313 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:39.440 speak of the gentiles, it was the cruelest insult the 314 00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:44.319 language allowed. It was to dehumanize the other completely. Jesus 315 00:19:44.359 --> 00:19:48.039 does not use that word. The word he uses is kinarian, 316 00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:53.240 and kinarian is a diminutive in Greek, just as in English, 317 00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:59.559 diminutives usually carry tenderness, closeness, affection. Kinarian does not mean 318 00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:04.200 stray dog. It means little dog puppy, the pup of 319 00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:07.839 the house, the one that lives inside, under the family's care, 320 00:20:08.279 --> 00:20:11.000 the one that sleeps beside the children and eats under 321 00:20:11.039 --> 00:20:13.759 the table. To feel the weight of that, you have 322 00:20:13.839 --> 00:20:16.519 to imagine what a house of that time was really like. 323 00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:20.599 There were no high chairs around a formal table like ours. 324 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:24.400 The family ate reclining or sitting on low benches and mats. 325 00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:28.640 The dishes within reach, the floor always close, and in 326 00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:31.799 many homes on that coast, especially in the Greek world, 327 00:20:31.799 --> 00:20:35.359 that surrounded this woman, there were small dogs that weren't 328 00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:38.480 from the street. They were of the house. They walked 329 00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:42.960 among the children's feet, waited patiently beside the food, received 330 00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:47.000 what fell. No one drove them off with stones. They 331 00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:49.839 were part of the landscape of the home. When Jesus 332 00:20:49.960 --> 00:20:54.119 chooses that word Canarian, he is painting exactly that picture, 333 00:20:54.599 --> 00:20:57.400 Not the mangy animal that flees through the alley, but 334 00:20:57.480 --> 00:21:02.119 the puppy resting under the family table, so hidden beneath 335 00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:05.279 what sounds like a door slamming, there's a tender image 336 00:21:05.319 --> 00:21:08.839 waiting for someone to discover it, an image of belonging, 337 00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:12.839 not of contempt and this woman who knew that scene 338 00:21:12.880 --> 00:21:16.119 as well as anyone, because she came from exactly that culture, 339 00:21:16.559 --> 00:21:21.240 saw it instantly. And this is not an unimportant grammatical detail. 340 00:21:21.759 --> 00:21:25.839 It's the key that unlocks the whole conversation, because look 341 00:21:25.839 --> 00:21:29.839 at what Jesus has just done, almost without it being noticed. 342 00:21:30.279 --> 00:21:33.799 He's not comparing her to a dangerous, sick animal of 343 00:21:33.799 --> 00:21:38.240 the street. He's placing her inside the house, under the table, yes, 344 00:21:38.839 --> 00:21:42.480 not yet eating from the plate, yes, but inside, in 345 00:21:42.559 --> 00:21:47.359 the home, present, at the family meal. There's an invitation 346 00:21:47.559 --> 00:21:51.359 hidden inside the numberday. There's a door left Ajar inside 347 00:21:51.400 --> 00:21:55.000 what sounds like a slamming door. The question is whether 348 00:21:55.079 --> 00:21:58.640 she's going to see it. And here, this nameless mother 349 00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:02.920 with no education, with no tool but the desperation of 350 00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:06.680 her heart, does something so sharp that the most brilliant 351 00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:10.319 minds of every century since have stopped to admire it. 352 00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:14.319 She doesn't flinch, she doesn't fall down crying, she doesn't 353 00:22:14.319 --> 00:22:18.319 turn around humiliated. She takes the exact image Jesus put 354 00:22:18.359 --> 00:22:21.240 in front of her, that image of the house, the table, 355 00:22:21.599 --> 00:22:24.880 the children, and the little dogs, and she uses it. 356 00:22:25.359 --> 00:22:28.480 She turns it, she converts it into her own weapon. 357 00:22:28.839 --> 00:22:32.400 And she answers yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs 358 00:22:32.440 --> 00:22:35.519 eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. I 359 00:22:35.559 --> 00:22:39.599 want to show you slowly the genius of what just happened, 360 00:22:40.119 --> 00:22:42.480 because it's one of the great moments in all of 361 00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:46.160 ancient literature, and almost no one stops to see it 362 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:50.519 up close. She begins by saying yes in Greek nigh. 363 00:22:51.079 --> 00:22:54.519 She doesn't argue with the metaphor. She doesn't claim rights, 364 00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:57.759 she doesn't demand a place at the table. She doesn't 365 00:22:57.759 --> 00:23:01.359 tell Jesus he's wrong, or that he's unfair, or that 366 00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:04.880 she deserves more. She accepts each and every one of 367 00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:09.960 the terms. Yes, there's a table, Yes, the children eat first, Yes, 368 00:23:10.359 --> 00:23:14.519 I am the little dog. Agreed, All conceded, And then 369 00:23:14.599 --> 00:23:17.920 she finds the one thing the metaphor hadn't taken into account. 370 00:23:18.319 --> 00:23:21.200 If the little dogs are under the table, they're not 371 00:23:21.319 --> 00:23:25.519 outside the house. They're inside, and in any house in 372 00:23:25.559 --> 00:23:29.759 the world, while the children eat, crumbs fall not because 373 00:23:29.759 --> 00:23:33.000 someone hands them out on purpose, not because anything has 374 00:23:33.079 --> 00:23:35.960 to be taken from the children, but because that's how 375 00:23:36.119 --> 00:23:41.319 meals work. There's abundance. There are pieces that fall, and 376 00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:45.920 those pieces naturally reach the floor where the little dogs 377 00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:49.759 are and notice the word she chooses for crumbs, because 378 00:23:49.799 --> 00:23:52.960 here is the finest detail of the whole exchange, the 379 00:23:52.960 --> 00:23:58.000 one almost no one notices. In Greek, it's psycheon, and 380 00:23:58.119 --> 00:24:03.200 psycheon is also a diminutive. It's the tiny crumb, the 381 00:24:03.240 --> 00:24:06.880 smallest piece that exists, what's left of what's left over. 382 00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:10.559 Do you realize what she did? Jesus spoke to her 383 00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:15.000 with a diminutive Canarian the little dog, and she answers 384 00:24:15.079 --> 00:24:20.880 him with another diminutive sacheon the tiny crumb. She follows 385 00:24:20.920 --> 00:24:24.359 his lead on his own ground. She tells him in essence, 386 00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:27.920 you're right, I'm only the little dog of the house. Well, 387 00:24:27.960 --> 00:24:31.559 then give me only the tiny crumb. I'm not asking 388 00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:34.200 you for the children's bread. I'm not asking you to 389 00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:37.359 leave the table. I'm not asking you to interrupt your 390 00:24:37.400 --> 00:24:40.240 mission with Israel for even a moment. I'm only asking 391 00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:43.200 for what falls on its own while you're seated feeding 392 00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:46.680 your own. She has taken the very argument that seemed 393 00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:49.720 to leave her outside and turned it into the perfect 394 00:24:49.759 --> 00:24:53.839 reason why she should be included. She doesn't ask Jesus 395 00:24:53.880 --> 00:24:57.960 to deprive Israel of anything. She asks for what overflows 396 00:24:57.960 --> 00:25:01.319 from the abundance. She tells him, your table is so 397 00:25:01.599 --> 00:25:04.599 rich that even what falls to the floor is enough 398 00:25:04.640 --> 00:25:08.440 to save my daughter. It's brilliant, it's humble and fierce 399 00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:12.359 at the same time, its faith and intelligence braided into 400 00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:16.559 a single sentence, and it is, without question, one of 401 00:25:16.599 --> 00:25:20.319