Lent 2
Mt
15:21-28
2/21/16
As parents we recognize that
eventually, we won’t really be able to know what our children are doing. Up through the high school years we have a
pretty good chance. Most of time they
are in school. Online tools have made it
possible to check the status of their schoolwork any time that we want. We pay the bills and are the parents, so we
have every right to look at what has been going with their phones and internet
history – at least that’s the way it works in the Surburg house. They come to church with us each Sunday, so
we know whether they are going to church or not.
But we also know that someday this
won’t be the case. They will go off to
college or move out. I know that for me this
is coming down the road. But because I
am a pastor, I have already started
to experience it. A pastor seeks to
teach the faith to the children and youth of the congregation. We do this every
Sunday in the Divine Service. We do it very directly during catechesis. We do it in the setting of youth activities.
But when youth who go off to
college, that’s the end of what I can do and what I can know. I no longer have any real interaction with
them. I have no way of knowing whether
they are going to church and receiving the Means of Grace. I have no way of knowing how the setting of
academia – which in our culture today can be so hostile to being a Christian –
is impacting them.
And so I was very pleased this week
to receive a message from Rachel Peterson who is attending the University of
Nebraska. She sent me an article from
the New York Times about the so called “Prosperity Gospel.” I was pleased for three reasons. First, I was
glad to see that she was interested in reading about a topic like this. Second,
the content of the article and her comments indicated that she was exactly correct
about the matter. And third, I was just thrilled she thought of her pastor!
And now, I guess, I have to add a
fourth reason I am pleased – namely that the article she sent has helped me
with the introduction to this sermon.
Kate Bowler, a historian of religion describes the Prosperity Gospel as “the
belief that God grants health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith.” In many ways it is a “Christianized” version of
“the power of positive thinking.”
“Blessed” is the one word summary
that usually expresses this view. Bowler
notes that, “It is the humble brag of the stars. #Blessed is the only caption
suitable for viral images of alpine vacations and family yachting in barely
there bikinis. It says: ‘I totally
get it. I am down-to-earth enough to know that this is crazy.’ But it also
says: ‘God gave this to me. [Adorable shrug.] Don’t blame me, I’m blessed.”’”
The problem is that “blessed” often
starts to turn gift into reward. Bowler observes that it can express pure
gratitude: “But it can also imply that it was deserved. ‘Thank you, me. For
being the kind of person who gets it right.’”
The reason that Kate Bowler’s article
is so fascinating is because she, a historian who just wrote a book on this
topic entitled “Blessed,” has been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and a massive
tumor in her belly. She expects to die, and that puts her in a unique position
to reflect upon the way that the Prosperity Gospel deals with life in a fallen
world. She comments, “The prosperity
gospel tries to solve the riddle of human suffering. It is an explanation for
the problem of evil. It provides an answer to the question: Why me?” Rather
than admitting our inability to understand these things, Bowler concludes, “The
prosperity gospel popularized a Christian explanation for why some people make
it and some do not. They revolutionized prayer as an instrument for getting God
always to say ‘yes.’ It offers people a guarantee: Follow these rules, and God
will reward you, heal you, restore you.”
The problem is, what do you do when
it doesn’t work? What do you do when the
cancer doesn’t go away and the person ends up in Hospice? My mom saw when she was a Hospice nurse and and
then director. At times person about to die became very isolated because in facing
the certainty of death they were what others considered to be a failure of
faith.
Today’s Gospel lesson speaks to this
issue. Jesus has just had a
confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes.
As he does on a couple of occasions in this Gospel, he then withdraws
away from the conflict. Jesus is
fulfilling a plan. He will die at the
right place and time. He will die in
Jerusalem at the time of the Passover and he will not allow any circumstances
to prevent this.
He goes northwest into the area
along the Mediterranean – the area of Tyre and Sidon. This was pagan territory and not a Jewish
one. In fact, it was pagan territory
with a history. This had been the home of Jezebel, the daughter of the king of
Tyre who had been married to King Ahab of Israel in the ninth century B.C. and
had promoted the worship of the false god Baal.
Matthew tells us, “And behold, a Canaanite woman from
that region came out and was crying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David;
my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.’”
Matthew uses the archaic and pejorative term “Canaanite” to describe the
woman. But coupled with this we hear something very surprising. First she asks Jesus for help and calls him Lord.
And second, she addresses him as “Son of David.” She uses a term that identifies Jesus as the
Messiah descended from the king of Israel!
We know
that the report about Jesus had gone out into all of the area surrounding
Galilee and Judea. So we can understand that she had heard about his
miracles. But how had she learned that
Jesus is the Davidic Messiah and concluded that somehow this Jesus had meaning
for her? We aren’t told. Clearly someone
had carried the word of the Gospel into the region of Tyre and Sidon and spoken
it to the woman.
“Have mercy
on me, O Lord, Son of David” – you really could not find a more perfect
statement addressing Jesus. And how did Jesus respond to this plea by a mother
on behalf of her daughter? He didn’t. He didn’t say anything. He
ignored her.
This is the
part of our text that should sound familiar. Because at some point, every
Christian has the experience when they are calling out to God for help and
there seems to be no answer. There are
problems of physical or mental health; there are problems in our marriage or
family; there a financial or employment problems. There are problems, and so we ask God for
help. And nothing happens. Or things actually get worse.
In fact,
that is precisely what happens in our text.
Ignored by Jesus, the woman kept crying out to him. We know this because the disciples became so
annoyed that they came to Jesus and were asking him, "Send
her away, for she is crying out after us." Instead, Jesus replied that she
just wasn’t his problem. He said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus was the Christ, Israel’s Messiah.
Ignored and rejected as one who
didn’t count for Jesus’ mission, the woman didn’t quit. Instead, the woman came right up to Jesus,
knelt before him and said, “Lord, help me!” She humbled herself before Jesus
and begged for his help. But Jesus said, “It is not right to take the
children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” Jesus’ reply was to call her a dog.
And while modern Americans treat our dogs like special members of the family,
in first century Palestine – and still in Middle Eastern culture today – this
was not the case.
When we feel that God is ignoring
us, we react. We get frustrated with
God. We get angry with God. We despair
that God does not care. We are tempted
to give up on the whole God thing.
The Canaanite women did not stumble
in this sin. She just kept looking to
Jesus. She was convinced that he could
help and the even the smallest help from him was more than sufficient to meet
her need. She said, "Yes,
Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters'
table." She had a faith that refused to turn away from Jesus.
Finally
Jesus responded, "O
woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And Matthew
tells us that her daughter was healed instantly.
Now perhaps
adherents of the Prosperity Gospel would say: “See, she finally got it right!
That’s why Jesus cast out the demon and healed her daughter. You can have the same thing!” The problem with this is that Jesus says the
Christian life brings the cross and even death.
In the very next chapter he says, “If anyone would come after me, let
him deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me. For whoever would
save his life will lose it, but whoever
loses his life for my sake will find it.” This is not “your best life now.”
Instead,
today’s Gospel lesson teaches us that the Christian life is one of persistent
faith in Jesus. It is a faith that
refuses to be turned away and clings to the Lord – like the Canaanite woman bowing
down before Jesus and uttering the simple words: “Lord, help me!”
Faith does
this, not because we think that we if just hold out long enough we will finally
get the answer we want. Instead faith
does this because of what God has already
done in Jesus Christ. As a pastor,
there are many times when I deal with situations in the lives of congregation
members that have been produced by the fact we are fallen people living in a
fallen world. I can provide no answer to the question: “Why me?” I can’t answer the question: “What’s going to
happen? When will things get better?
Instead the
only “answer” I have is to speak the Gospel. The only answer is to hold up
before people the fact that God sent his Son into this world in the incarnation
in order to suffer and die on the cross in our place. He received God’s judgment against our
sin. And then on the third day he rose
from the dead.” That is God’s answer. That
is the proof and guarantee of God’s love and care for you. And the thing we can never forget is that
God’s most powerful saving action for us occurred on a cross. It occurred in a
way on Good Friday that did not look like God was anywhere to be found. And yet
… it was the moment when he was most powerfully present for us.
Because we
have seen God do this, we can continue to believe and trust that God does love
us and will care for us. And this faith
is far more than just the power of positive thinking. Instead it is the living hope of the
resurrection. The crucified One emerged
from the tomb as the risen Lord. In
baptism we have received a share in Jesus death, and have received the
guarantee that we will be raised too.
The Holy Spirit within us – the Spirit who will transform our body on
the Last Day to be like that of the risen Jesus – is the down payment of our
resurrection. The body and blood of the
risen Lord received into our mouth in the Sacrament of the Altar is the assurance
that our bodies will be raised, for Jesus said: “Whoever eats my flesh
and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
There are times when it seems that
Jesus is treating us like the Canaanite woman in our text. Yet the woman demonstrates how faith reacts
to this. It continues to cling to Jesus;
to call upon him. It does so because we
know who Jesus is and what he has done for us.
We know that he is the crucified and risen
Lord who already now has given us forgiveness and salvation. And we know that he is the One who will raise
us from the dead on the Last Day.
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