Refuse to Be Dismissed - Matthew 15

The series Finding Jesus in Real Lives continues

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Transcript

Sermons from 

Mission Hills UCC

San Diego, California

Rev. Dr. David Bahr

david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org

August 2, 2026

“For What Are You Tired?”

Matthew 15: 1-2, 10-11 – Common English Bible

After that, Pharisees and religion scholars came to Jesus all the way from Jerusalem, criticizing, “Why do your disciples play fast and loose with the rules?”

10-11 He then called the crowd together and said, “Listen, and take this to heart. It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up.”

Last week, Matthew ended chapter 14 with crowds bringing the sick to Jesus, and everyone who touched even the hem of his garment was healed.

Then chapter 15 begins: "After that, a group of Pharisees and religion scholars came all the way from Jerusalem to ask:  'Why do your disciples play so fast and loose with the rules?'"

Think about that for a moment.  While ordinary people had been bringing Jesus those who needed healing, religious authorities were walking more than a hundred dusty miles from Jerusalem to bring him... a complaint.  What was so important?

His disciples weren't washing their hands before they ate.  

Now, this wasn't about hygiene or good manners.  It was about a religious practice intended to honor God's holiness but it had become a way of deciding who was doing religion correctly.  A way to dismiss people who weren’t being observant enough.  Who weren’t “clean” enough. 

While Jesus keeps asking, "Who needs mercy?"  

They keep asking, and judging, "Who's doing religion right?"  

Of course, what is right if it doesn’t involve mercy?  That’s what Jesus has been saying over and over.

They then have a long, extended discussion about eating and what happens after eating – involving a little too much information, seriously TMI.  After that, Jesus and his disciples leave those religious leaders behind. 

They leave Jewish territory and head about 50 miles toward the Mediterranean coast.  They enter into Gentile country.  

Matthew tells us the story of a Canaanite woman who came down from the hills to meet Jesus.  Curiously, he didn’t call her a Gentile woman – a typical term for the time.  Matthew reaches all the way back to a name associated with Israel’s ancient enemies.  Listeners ears would have perked up.  

She pleaded, “Master, Son of David!  Have mercy!  My daughter is afflicted by a cruel, evil spirit.”  

Notice that this Gentile slash Canaanite woman called him "Son of David."  That's Israel's title for the Messiah.  Why would she say that?  

But honorific title or not, the disciples didn’t care.  They complained, “She’s bothering us.  Tell her to go away.”  They see an interruption.  Not a desperate mother.  

Jesus doesn't even answer her.  Not a word.  Finally, he says... “I’m here for the lost sheep of Israel.”  Basically, it sounds like, “I’m not here for the likes of you.”

If we're honest, Jesus comes across like something of a jerk.  It feels completely at odds with everything we've watched Jesus do for fourteen chapters.  But it only gets worse.

The woman drops to her knees, and begs, “Master, help me.”

Jesus was always talking about mercy, right.  But he didn’t relent.  He said, “It’s not right to take bread out of children’s mouths and throw it to dogs.”

But she didn’t flinch at the insult.  Instead...she refused to be dismissed.

She came back quickly:  “You’re right, Master, but at least dogs get scraps from the master’s table.”

Jesus stopped.  He looked at her and said, “Woman, you have great faith!  What you ask for you will get!”  And right then, her daughter became well.

Now, if those religious leaders from Jerusalem had been there to witness this encounter, you can almost picture them nodding their heads vigorously and elbowing one another.  "Finally.  He's come to his senses."  Right up until that last sentence.  

But, Matthew has turned everything upside down.  Jesus makes a point of praising this particular, unexpected, woman for her faith.  A woman who refused to be dismissed or dissuaded or deterred for the sake of her child.

She makes me think of Mamie Till-Mobley.  Emmett Till’s mother.  

In the summer of 1955, Mamie allowed her fourteen-year-old son to take the train from Chicago to Mississippi to visit relatives.  He’d never been in the South before.  She tried to warn him, but he had too cheerful a spirit to think anyone would want to harm him.

It didn't take long for the deadly realities of Jim Crow to find him. 

He was accused of offending a white woman in a country store.  Some said he whistled.  Others said he spoke out of turn.  In the end, the details didn’t matter.  False or exaggerated accusations like these had been used for generations to justify racial terror.

And so, Emmett was kidnapped in the middle of the night, he was tortured beyond recognition, murdered, and thrown into the Tallahatchie River, where his body remained under water for days.

After he was discovered, Mississippi authorities wanted him buried right then and there, quietly and quickly.  Mamie refused.

She brought her son home to Chicago.  Then she made a decision that would help change the course of American history.  She insisted on an open casket.  Many begged her not to do it.  He was too disfigured.  No mother should have to look at her child that way.  No one else should have to see it either.

But Mamie understood something.  Black Americans had lived with racial terror for generations.  They did not need photographs of his body in a coffin to know what false accusations become. 

But white America needed to see it.  Mamie’s determination was clear: “Let the people see what I have seen.”

More than 100,000 people walked past Emmett's coffin.  Millions more across the country saw the photographs.  She refused to let what people had done to him and countless others go unseen.  She refused to let her son's life be explained away as just another tragedy.  

History often remembers Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat.  We should also remember that, just three months earlier, Mamie Till-Mobley refused to close her son’s casket.  She would not be dismissed.

The Gospels are full of parents like that.  Jairus, a leader of the local synagogue, who throws himself at Jesus' feet because his little girl is dying.  The official from King Herod's own court who walks 20 miles to beg for his son.

There's another father who brings his son to Jesus.  Years of heartbreak have taught him how dangerous hope can be.  He comes anyway on behalf of his son and tells Jesus, "I believe.  Help my unbelief."

Different circumstances.  Different children.  But with the same resolve.  And each time, whether they are peasants or government officials or religious figures, Jesus responds.  Which only deepens the mystery of the Canaanite woman.  Why does this encounter unfold so differently?

It’s one of the great mysteries of the gospels.  But whatever was happening in that moment, Matthew is unmistakably clear about how it ends.  A Canaanite woman who refused to be dismissed is praised:  "Great is your faith." 

To this day, we can recognize her in every parent who won't stop fighting for their child.  Or foster parents, and grandparents, and anyone who steps in to parent when others can’t.

Making it work as they wonder how they will pay for this week's groceries.

Fighting for the services their child needs.

Waiting as long as needed outside juvenile detention.

Crossing a border to give their children a better life.

Spending years advocating, appealing, explaining, hoping, praying.

And not just for children.  Sometimes it’s for your husband, your wife – years of advocating, appealing, explaining, hoping, praying... or for your parents... a dear friend.  

Because that's what love does.

Discouraged or not.  Love fills out another form anyway.  

Disappointed or not.  Love makes another phone call anyway.  

Exhausted or not.  Love sits through another appointment anyway.  

It’s the cost of great love.  

That’s the "I believe. Help my unbelief" kind of faith.  A love that refuses to be dismissed.  I’ve always appreciated the trust of that father.  Not dramatic.  Not certain.  Just faith that refuses to quit on someone.

I wonder if any of you are carrying that kind of faith right now.  Overwhelmed by grief or fear or exhaustion and wondering what to do.

Maybe all you need today is to recognize that this, too, is faith.  

The courage to keep loving.  The courage to keep going.  The courage to persist through disappointment.  The courage to say, "I refuse to be dismissed."

You know, Jesus has a name for that.  He calls it:  "Great faith."