The humanitarian organization, Doctors Without Borders, is on a mission to mobilize doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to provide medical aid to people in parts of the world where it is most dramatically lacking. If there’s a need, this group attempts to cross all borders to meet it.

God, similarly and more perfectly, is a God without borders, constantly condescending to help, provide, sustain, and save a creation in desperate need. It is important for the people of God to be reminded that they serve a God who seeks to provide aid and that, his Son—he whom he sent into this world because of his love for this world—is likewise a Messiah without borders. He goes where there is great need.

As we conclude Matthew 15, we are going to see Jesus, Israel’s anticipated Messiah and King, modelling a border-traversing mentality he wants all his followers to mimic, including you and I.

SERMON MANUSCRIPT

Most of you have heard of the humanitarian organization, Doctors Without Borders. Founded in the 70’s, this work seeks to mobilize doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals, to provide medical aid to parts of the world in which it is lacking most. If there’s a need, this group attempts to cross all borders to meet it.

Whether they know it or not, they are copying God. The God of the universe is a God without borders, constantly condescending to help, provide, sustain, and save a creation that is in dire need. 

He clothed Adam and Eve after their sin. He covenanted with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He freed the Hebrews from Egypt. He fed them in the wilderness. He corrected his people when they strayed. He promised a land and kingdom. He gave his one and only Son. He sent his Spirit to teach and convict. He commissions his church to declare salvation.

It’s important for us to be reminded that we serve a God without borders and that, his Son, he whom he sent into this world because of his love for this world, is likewise a Messiah without borders. He goes where there is great need.

As we conclude Matthew 15 today, we’re going to see Jesus, Israel’s anticipated Messiah and King, modelling a border-traversing mentality he wants all his followers to mimic, including you and I.

Expected Blessings

In order to appreciate the impressiveness of Jesus’s border-crossing ministry, I want to first draw our attention to something that, at this point in our study of Matthew, is relatively commonplace. That is, the expected blessings of the Messiah. 

Before Jesus arrived on the scene, Israel had very specific expectations about what this promised messiah would be like, do, and say because God himself, through their Scriptures (our Old Testament), told them. When the messiah came, he was going to bless his people in some very specific ways, ways that we’ve already seen in the first fourteen chapters of Matthew and we see highlighted again in chapter 15.

For example, we see the expected blessing of the messiah’s humble mercy (vv. 22, 25, 28). We’ve seen this mercy already in Matthew (see 5:7; 9:27). And we’ll see it again in the chapters ahead (20:30–31). These people expected that, when the Messiah arrived, he’d demonstrate humble mercy.

They also expected benevolent compassion (see Zech 1:16). And we’ve seen that in Jesus as well (see 9:36; 14:14; 15:32).

Another expected blessing that Israel’s messiah was to bring was restorative power (see Isa 35:5–6). And, as we’ve seen throughout Matthew, we find in this text that same blessing on display (vv. 28d, 30–31, 34–38).

Finally, there was this expected blessing of an eternal reign of the messiah (see 1 Sam 7:12–13, 16; Isa 9:7). In Matthew 15 we see this expectation articulated as well (15:22).

Humble mercy and benevolent compassion, restorative power and an everlasting reign; these were blessings that were expected of Israel’s messiah, things he was supposed to be like and supposed to do when he eventually came as God promised his people he would.

It’s like someone walking into their surprise birthday party having already been told that it’s happening. They may act shocked, but they shouldn’t be because they knew what to expect. It doesn’t mean they’re not going to enjoy the party, the people, the food—in fact it surpassed their expectations. It’s just that they aren’t shocked.

Israel had been told about this party. They knew what to expect from the messiah when he came. They could still enjoy it and celebrate it, but the surprise was rightly dampened.

Unexpected Recipients

So, what Jesus is doing in Matthew 15 is not surprising. However, it’s where he’s doing it and who he’s blessing that’s the shock. While these were all expected blessings, they are being bestowed upon unexpected recipients. 

First, there’s the woman with the demonized daughter. Matthew wants to make it clear that she’s not Jewish (see v. 21). This is primarily Gentile territory and the first thing we’re told about Jesus’s welcome party is that she’s a Canaanite woman from that region. 

But she’s heard about Jesus—not just his power but of his identity as Israel’s Messiah (v. 22). We have a Gentile calling upon the Jewish Messiah; a non-Israelite pleading with King of Israel. Picture a Canadian, in danger while traveling through Australia, seeks help at the Brazilian embassy. The Canadian has no standing there, no right to help, and the Brazilians have no obligation to give it.

Jesus points this out (v 24). Israel’s promised Messiah was sent to Israel, to call them to repentance that he may bless them with expected blessings. She’s not of Israel. She’s not his problem.

But, this woman is persistent, so Jesus has to explain his refusal (v. 26).

Now, to us, that sounds much more offensive than it is. Jesus is simply explaining the priority of his mission. Think of it this way: Many of you have pets at home. You love and care for them as part of your family. But, if you have children, the pets are demoted. It’s not that you don’t care for them, it’s just the kids have to eat first. They’re the priority.

Jesus’s priority is the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He’s Israel’s Messiah, after all. They are the children. It would be inappropriate for him to care for non-Israelites at the expense of Israelites. He’s not insulting her, and she’s not offended. She understands and seems to agree with his assessment of his mission. Her response is fantastic, and even Jesus thinks so (v. 27).

“She does not claim to be one of the children, and has no thought of depriving them of their bread. She excepts the position of one of the family dogs. But such animals are members of the household, and they get what the children do not want. Without confusing the difference between Jews and [Gentiles], and without depriving the Jews of anything that is theirs, [Jesus] may grant her request. The metaphor which Christ had used as a reason for rejecting her petition she turns into a reason for granting it” (Plummer, Exegetical Commentary, 217).

This Gentile, knowing she has no right to Jewish blessings from a Jewish Messiah, comes in humble faith. And it’s because of that faith her request is granted, not because of her relationship to the covenant people of God (v. 28). Expected blessings to an unexpected recipient.  

But it doesn’t stop there. We move from the woman to the crowds. Jesus spends days healing all their sick and, then, as we start reading in verse 32, we get some deja vu.

We’ve been here before, recently! As we keep reading we notice some striking similarities to the feeding of the five thousand one chapter ago! There’s hungry people, a compassionate Jesus, hapless disciples, and hardly any food. Jesus, like before, takes what little they had, prays, breaks, distributes, and feeds multitudes with enough for doggie bags.

That begs the question: Why would Matthew record this story twice? There are some tiny differences, but none of them seem significant enough to demand a re-telling.

Except for the fact that Jesus has crossed borders. While the miracle meal in chapter 14 was for Jews, this one’s for Gentiles. We know they’re not Jewish because of where Jesus is travelling, starting in Tyre and Sidon (21) and moving along by the Sea of Galilee and, because of how the people react after all the miraculous healings (v. 31).

Not only that—and, admittedly, this one is subtle—but look at the take-out containers (v. 37). The Greek word here translated as large baskets is not the same Greek word used in 14:20. The word used in chapter 14 is one for a specific type of basket, smaller, that was used by Jews. The word in our text is larger and typically used by Gentiles.

So, Jesus is repeating the same miracle—a demonstration of messianic blessing—but on the other side of the border with Gentiles! Expected blessings to unexpected recipients.

Jesus can cross any border—national, financial, spiritual, physical, psychological, philosophical, intellectual, familial. It was the spiritual blessing of saving grace that reached across the border of hostility and turned Saul of Tarsus into the Apostle Paul, the church’s chief opponent into its chief advocate. And it was God’s amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that reached across the border and saved a wretch like me, and you. Undeserving and unexpected recipients of expected blessings.

Coming Expectations

In Matthew 15, Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, is showcasing his universal availability and accessibility. But, for what purpose?

I mentioned a number of weeks ago that Matthew often uses patterns when presenting his account. At the end of chapter 13 and into 14 we saw Jesus opposed, withdrawing (14:13), and then teaching his disciples through miracles—a mass feeding and the walking on water, the latter of which was a lesson in faith. Opposition, pull-back, miraculous teaching of disciples.

In chapter 15, the same pattern repeats. Last week we saw the opposition, not from his hometown or Herod but from Pharisees and scribes. Then, today, Jesus pulled back (v. 21), and then teaches his disciples through miracles—a mass feeding and the healing of a demonized daughter, the latter of which was a lesson in faith.

All that to say, he’s teaching his disciples something here as he crosses borders, as he repeats miracles he originally performed for Israel now to Gentiles. Jesus is preparing his disciples for coming expectations that are going to be put upon them when he leaves; a task they’re going to receive in the not-too-distant future.

Yes, they’re still struggling to keep up with Jesus (vv. 23, 33). But he’s preparing them for a coming expectation. Just as Jesus brought expected blessings to unexpected recipients, so too will his disciples have to learn to do the same.

Back in chapter 10, Jesus sent his disciples out as extensions of his earthly ministry (10:5–7). Fast-forward to the end of Matthew and we read something different (28:16–20).

While the expectation on Jesus’s disciples had been to take the gospel of Israel’s king and kingdom to the people of Israel, the coming expectation is for them to take the gospel of salvation through faith in Israel’s messiah to all nations. They, like he they follow, are going to be crossing borders. Jesus is preparing them, and modelling for them, this coming expectation.

But this expectation, this privilege of crossing borders and boundaries with the gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ, is not limited to first-century followers of Jesus. It extends to twenty-first century followers of Jesus as well. 

(See 2 Cor 5:17–20.) You and I, being recipients of heart-changing, sinner-reconciling grace, are to be ambassadors for Christ without borders. We’re to give Jesus to all people!

While we may not struggle as much with the Jew/Gentile divide, we have our own hurdles to overcome, borders we need to do away with by God’s power and for his glory. As Jesus modelled for us in Matthew 15, there isn’t a boundary we shouldn’t be willing to traverse for the sake of his name. We’re expected—and invited!—to give Jesus to all people.

Let’s bow together now and, with our minds’ stilled, I want to encourage us all to do three things. First, let’s remember that God through Christ crossed borders to get to you and I. If not for that, we would be lost. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We are propelled by gratitude, awe, and joy.

Second, think of an individual or group of people right now that, if you’re honest, you’re least likely to want to talk with about Jesus or, if you’re really honest, to even see saved. Terrorists, sex offenders, people in your own life who have wronged you in horrible ways, in laws. No doubt, there are evil people in this world and others who drive us crazy. These are people across a border from you and I.

Third, let’s repent of that pride and pray for those people right now.

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