Did he really mean it?

I'm reading in Matthew right now. In chapter 15 Jesus says that he has come only for the lost sheep of Israel. But one has to wonder if those are words that we are to take as true or as a challenge to his disciples--who certainly think that as a Rabbi Jesus comes for the lost sheep of Israel. The reason I think we should see Jesus using these words as a challenge rather than reality is that not only does he heal the Canaanite's daughter (Matthew 15.28), but the next thing we see is Jesus in the area of the Decapolis (a Gentile area) and he is healing all kinds of people so that these people glorify "the God of Israel". Those lost words "the God of Israel" alert us to the fact that these folks Jesus is working with and healing are not the lost sheep of Israel. The next thing we find (Matthew 15.32-39) is Jesus feeding the 4000--which is a feeding not of Jewish people (that was the feeding of the 5000), but of Gentiles. In this gospel story it is fun to see the number 7 used since it was the teaching of the Jewish people that the decapolis was the area where the 7 nations that were driven out of the land during the conquest went.

It seems to me that we are too quick at times to take the words of Jesus as meaning literally what he says, rather than, listening to them as his disciples would have heard them given all that was going on in deeds as well as in words.

If you want to do more thinking on this kind of thing look at Jesus' words about why he speaks in parables (Matthew 13.14-15). He quotes Isaiah and infers that he speaks in parables so that people will not understand. But then in 13.34 (the summary verse) we're told that he speaks in parables to fulfill a prophecy from Psalm 78. Psalm 78 is not about hiding things, but about telling them to the next generation so that they see the wonders of God's kingdom. So which is it? Is Jesus trying to hide things from the people or tell them the wonders of the kingdom? Could it be we need to think differently about what Jesus means when he quotes Isaiah?