"But He Answered and Said, 'I was not sent but unto the Lost Sheep of the House of Ierael'"
St. Matthew XV 24
Notes of a Sermon preached in Union Church, Tientsin, by the Rev. C. B. Darwent.
I might direct your attention, first, to its application to religions and philanthropic work. So many evils are crying out to be righted that societies organized for one purpose are always making the mistake of letting their energies be dissipated by taking up branches of their main work. Paul didn't make that mistake.
This is from the story of the to start a new era in the history of' He made up his mind to plant the seemingly rough answer that Jesus gave to the Syro-Phenician! woman, who had asked Him to heal her daughter, who was! "grievously vexed with a devil." It must indeed be trying to have a! daughter possessed by a devil. When she asked Him He gave her this answer. He gave a similar injunction to the Seventy, when He sent them out: "Go not into any way of the Gentiles, nor enter into any city of the Samaritans; but go ye rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
Obviously there is some great principle behind it, for He never said anything that meant nothing. It has always been asked, why He did it. Were the Gentiles not good enough? Does it not contradict His universal mission? The late Dr. Joseph Parker, of the City Temple, gives this explanation of it: that she addressed Him wrongly, as "Bon of David" and it was only? when she addressed Him as "Lord" that He answered her.
One does not like to disagree with Dr. Parker, who knew his Bible better than most of us; but there are three reasons against his explanation that, I think, are fatal to it. It attributes something very like an unworthy insistence on His strict rights to be our Lord. He was "Son of David." We can call Him what we like as long as we come to Him. He doesn't refuse to save because of names. Again, blind Bartimeus called Him nothing else but "Son of David," and got immediate healing of his sight. Then, the thing that did bring healing to her devil-vexed daughter was her brilliant answer to Him, that the dogs get the crumbs from their master's table. That is probably the world's most brilliant retort. So for once Dr, Parker was wrong.
A Stupue anp Naturat EXxpranaTios.
What then, is the explanation of such seeming needless harshness? It is that even Jesus Christ had to draw the line somewhere. That 18 a simple, natural and sufficient explanation. He could only do a certain amount of work, like the rear of us. No one, however well-intentioned, can do all be would like to do. We may have to refuse to do some kind of really work, go that we may do @ lesser quantity of work better. If we try to do everything good that presents itself, we shall end by doing nothing well.
Jesus had come to found the kingdom of God on earth; He had the race; we believe that the destiny of every soul depends upon that work Ho was to do, by His words, His life, His death and ro-surrection. To do it, His plan was to begin with the Jewish people, and work intensively among them, rather than to try and work extensively everywhere. He could take all Kinds of wonderful truth for granted with them, such as the belief in the unity and holiness of God. He could not among the heathen. He hadn't time to go everywhere. He knew His time would be short. And His strength was limited too, He got weary, and could only cover so much ground. So He refused to go beyond Israel. Tt was not.that He did not want to go to the Gentiles, but He could not do everything, however good. He knew where to draw the line.
Tne Greex "Incas."
Now, it is remarkable that in this He endorsed the great Greek principle of "the Mean." That is the triumph of Greek art and life. They understood where to draw the line. They knew their limit. Greek sculptors never attempt to carve, the pupil of the eye in their statuary, because it is not in the nature of marble to be equal to its representation. The Greeks were athletes, but unlike many of our athletes, they cultivated. their brains too. A Greek could go to hear a play of Euripides, and remember nearly the whole of it. It was not that athletics were wrong, but the Greek saw that too much of them was, if it ruled out the culture of the mind. His idea was to just to all the elements of his nature, mental as well as physical.
Man has not strength to put the whole of his energy into one line of life. He has to draw the line somewhere, in order to give other things a chance. The other things may be all right in themselves, and in their measure, but to give oneself entirely in one direction is wrong, leads to shallowness and inefficiency. We can only do 80 much in any one direction. That is the idea of Jesus in refusing to go to the Gentiles. He cut out all that would have made for mere temporary success. Drawing the line would make His work leeper and eternal.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.