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Sermon for Reminiscere – Second Sunday in Lent 2014
Isaiah 45:20-25 + 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7 + Matthew 15:21-28
To understand today’s Gospel about Jesus and the Canaanite woman, we’re going to start where the story ends. We’re going to skip to the end so that we can then go back and see what Jesus is doing in this Gospel for the Canaanite woman and for us. How does the story end? It ends with mercy and salvation for the woman and her daughter. And it ends with an extremely rare word of praise from Jesus recorded in the Scriptures, “O woman, great is your faith!” Do you know how many people in the Bible are attested by the Holy Spirit as having “great faith”? Two, from Genesis to Revelation. Two—both in the Gospel according to St. Matthew. And, significantly, both Gentiles: The Roman centurion who sent to Jesus to heal his servant and said, Just speak the word, and my servant will be healed. And this Canaanite woman in our Gospel, who is only mentioned only by St. Matthew.
So what? A tiny faith that relies on Christ still saves. If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. If you die with but a little faith, you die still clothed completely in Christ Jesus and counted worthy of eternal life because of Him. But who in his Christian mind makes it his goal to have as tiny a trust in Christ as possible, especially when He feeds you His faith-nurturing Gospel, in Word and Sacrament, to make your faith grow and bud and flourish? He does that today by holding before your eyes this example of what great faith looks like. See how well it turns out for this woman who clings to Jesus in faith, in spite of every outward appearance. See how blessed! See how greatly rewarded! See how highly praised!
Great faith looks, first of all, like a Canaanite woman, one of the most cursed races of men on earth. Isn’t it something that Jesus shows us what “great faith” looks like using the example of a Canaanite woman? He shows us that pedigree and lineage and nationality don’t matter a bit before God. Faith in Christ is what matters, because Christ became the most cursed man in human history by His death on the cross, in order to rescue all the cursed sinners by faith in Him.
It was faith in Christ that prompted this woman to come to Jesus in the first place, although she didn’t have to go far. It says that Jesus went out from [the land of Israel] and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. But He didn’t go forcing Himself upon the people. He made Himself available to the people and let His Spirit do the convincing through the Word.
How do we know that? Because this woman hears about Jesus coming into that territory and she immediately knows who He is better than the Jews did. “Lord, Son of David,” she calls Him. That’s a confession of faith. “Son of David” is another way of saying “Christ!” Messiah! And not only does she believe that Jesus is the Christ, but that He has come to help Gentiles as well as Jews. She believes He’ll show mercy to her, so she calls out, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! Such is the great power of the Word of God, the simple word that went out to this woman about Jesus and absolutely convinced her that He was the merciful Lord, the Son of David, who had come to earth, who had come to her to help.
So she pleads for Jesus help and mercy for her dear daughter, who was severely demon-possessed. The devil and his dark forces were afflicting her daughter somehow. The power of evil was in her home. It doesn’t get much more serious than that. What power did she have—what power do any of us have against the devil, against the demons?
She brought her troubles to Jesus, who alone is powerful against the demons. But notice what she didn’t bring. She didn’t bring money. She didn’t bring a long list of all the good things she had done, or of all her promises to do good things in order to bribe Jesus to help her. Works don’t count. Your deeds, past or future, don’t count. But seeking free mercy and favor from Jesus because of who He is—the gracious Lord and Christ, Son of David—that counts. That’s faith.
Her faith was tested by Jesus. She came crying out for help, but at first, He answered her not a word. Knowing how the story ends, we know that He did this to highlight the great faith of the woman, because it’s a tiny faith that only trusts when prayers are answered immediately. It’s a tiny faith that trusts only in how outwardly nice and friendly Jesus appears to be. But it’s a great faith that trusts Jesus enough to wait for His help. It’s a great faith that sees past the appearance of outward indifference on the part of Jesus to the merciful, loving heart of Christ.
The woman’s faith, as we know, was great. So she kept calling out to Jesus. Then Jesus’ disciples spoke up, Send her away, for she cries out after us. Literally, “Dismiss her.” Were they asking for Jesus to dismiss her with His blessing and help, or to just get rid of her? Jesus’ answer leads us to conclude that they were interceding for the woman, trying to encourage Jesus to help her. Christians do this all the time, praying for others to receive the help that they haven’t yet received. Sometimes we, like the disciples, wonder why God makes His dear people cry out so long and wait so long for the promised mercy.
But Jesus’ answer again makes it sound like He doesn’t want to help this particular woman. He answered and said, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Knowing how the story ends, we come back to this saying of Jesus and wonder what He means by this. Because He can’t lie or deceive, and if He was only sent by His Father in heaven to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, then He cannot deviate from the Father’s mission just because the woman is persistent, and yet, by giving her divine help and praising her great faith, He most certainly demonstrates that He was, in fact, sent to this woman who was not from the house of Israel.
Or was she? That’s really the question, isn’t it? Who are the lost sheep of Israel? I mentioned earlier that only St. Matthew records this encounter with the Canaanite woman. St. Matthew wrote his Gospel especially to the Jews. The Jews generally thought of themselves as the people of God based on their lineage from Jacob, from Israel. But here again, in this encounter between Jesus and the Canaanite woman, just as in the encounter with the Roman centurion, Jesus demonstrates who the true house of Israel is, in God’s eyes. Not those who can trace their ancestry back to Jacob. But those who believe in Jesus as the Christ. In fact, it’s through the Gospel that the Holy Spirit invites people into the house of Israel, so that all people may enter through faith in Christ.
That’s the lesson here, and it’s bigger than the Canaanite woman. It’s also for Jesus’ disciples. It’s for all the Jews. It’s for all the Gentiles, for you and for me, so that we may know what the house of Israel is and how it has been opened to all people by the blood of Christ shed on the cross, and that we may know Christ as the door to the house of Israel, and faith as our entrance into Him.
The Canaanite woman still saw that that door was open to her. Jesus hadn’t sent her away, nor had He said that she wasn’t part of the house of Israel. She bowed down before Jesus and said, Lord, help me! Then one final test for her faith: Jesus answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” Now, if there had been any sinful pride in this woman, her pride would have been offended by this. If she had no faith, she would have perceived Jesus’ words as her final defeat and slunk away in despair.
But we know how the story ends. Her sinful pride has already been brought low. And her faith in Jesus has already been kindled. She sees the Door to Israel wide open at this point and says, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” And she was not disappointed. On the contrary, she was highly rewarded and praised by the Son of God. O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire. Her faith was tested, but here is why her faith was called great: The testing of her faith revealed that all the impurities, like pride, like carnal security, like despair and doubt, had already been removed by the Holy Spirit, so that what was left in this woman was a simple, humble trust in Jesus, that she, a poor sinner, would receive mercy from the Son of David, not because of her worthiness, but because of His greatness.
That’s what great faith looks like: an unshakable trust in Jesus’ greatness, especially His greatness in earning and bestowing the forgiveness of sins. May the Word and the body and the blood of Jesus continually work such faith in your hearts, so that not only today, but tomorrow and until the end of your earthly story, you learn more and more to rely on God’s mercy ever and only in the Person of Jesus Christ. Amen.
