West Cocoa Chat

Matt. 15:22 And behold, a Canaanite woman came out from that region, and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed."15:23 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came to Him and kept asking Him, saying, "Send her away, for she is shouting out after us."15:24 But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."15:25 But she came and began to 285 bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!"15:26 And He answered and said, "It is not good 286 to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."15:27 But she said, "Yes, Lord; but 287 even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."15:28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; be it done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at 288 once.

I was reminded of an article Steve Weathers once wrote for Wineskins back in 1992. His comment on Jesus’ answer in verse 24 was basically, the Creator of the Universe just told this Canaanite woman, “No.” What ever your hermeneutic might be, it’s hard to argue with God when He says, “No.”

But we all know this story. Not only does she not accept Jesus’ answer, she comes back with a counterpoint in verse 27. Then Jesus, the Jesus of John 1, the divine being who was present before “matter” mattered, changes His mind and grants her wish for her daughter to be healed. I believe Steve Weathers made the point that God isn’t an inflexible text but a living, breathing being.

This article was resurrected in my mind due to the incident I mentioned yesterday. Our teens are leaving Thursday for “Winterfest” (a 10,000 kiddo youth rally) in Gatlinburg, TN. Our church has a long standing policy – only those from grades 7 – 12 are allowed to attend such events. That’s the policy, no questions asked. Then came Johnny.

Johnny (his real name) has been dating one of our teen girls, Debey, (not her real name) for about a year. He doesn’t come to church very often. When our youth minister put out the sign up sheet for Winterfest, Debey’s mother signed Debey and Johnny up for the trip. Not too big a deal except the fact that Johnny is 19 going on 20. He graduated from H.S. last year. None of us were aware of that fact. We had just assumed that Debey’s mother would only allow her daughter to date someone in H.S. As to why she didn’t disclose this information is another story.

Johnny’s age was discovered about 2 weeks ago. Our youth minister asked if he could remove Johnny’s name from the list and we gave him our blessing. This was a clear violation of the policy.

Our youth guy was going to inform Debey’s mother until he found out that she was in the hospital with high blood pressure. Rightly or wrongly, he didn’t want to burden someone who was at a severe (240 over 130) risk of a stroke. So a few more days go by and now were at this past Sunday. Youth guy asks Jeff and me for help.

I couldn’t help but think of the Canaanite woman and Jesus. Jesus says here’s the policy, Canaanites need not apply. Our policy, 19 year olds don’t make the trip. Clear cut, right?

We met with Debey and Johnny, as well as her parents. We told Johnny about the policy. The first thing he said was that he understood the policy and he also understood there was a possibility that we would have to remove him from the trip. It was at this point that this hard-line (that would be me) guy no longer understood what I had thought to be a clear cut position.

This young man out of high school became a person to me and all of us in the room. Especially when he said that Debey had been after him for about a year to attend a Christian event with her. He said he felt himself starting to search for answers.

We have a policy. It’s clear-cut. But then we had a young man who said he was searching. We allowed him to go on this trip. Big mistake? Did we get duped? Are we being wishy-washy? I don’t know. All I know is I kept hearing a woman’s voice in my head saying, “Please heal my daughter.” Or maybe it was a son?

By the way, in case you think we totally lost our minds – our youth guy agreed to allow him to go. We drew up a behavioral contract and had him sign it. Debey’s mother is going on the trip as a chaperone.

We might have blown this one but I pray that we just opened the door for a young man searching for the Lord.