Lent 2
Mt
15:21-28
3/17/19
“Man’s best friend.” There is a very good reason that people have
applied this description to dogs. In
living with two dogs – and sometimes three when the one belonging to Amy’s
brother is staying with us – I never cease to be amazed at how true this
description is.
Dogs want to be with people.
Wherever we are sitting, that is where the dogs want to be. And it’s not that they just want to be in the
same room. They want to be sitting right
next to us, or even leaning up against us.
When we go to bed, the dogs have to be there too, sleeping on the beds
with the members of the house. Their
desire to be with people is remarkable.
However, I am not naïve. There is one setting where the dog’s presence
certainly has an ulterior motive. When we
are getting dinner ready, the dogs are right there in the kitchen, at our
feet. Now admittedly, I use “we” in a
rather broad sense here. My contributions are usually limited to cutting up
some fruit, making sure the table gets set, and doing whatever else Amy asks me
to do. But I digress.
The dogs are right there in the
kitchen – right underfoot. They are
there looking up expectantly at the counter – ever vigilant; ever alert. They are ready to pounce on any food that
falls on the floor. They are there in hopes that we will toss them something to
eat. And when we sit down at the table, it is more of the same.
We learn from our Gospel lesson this
morning that in two thousand years, not much has changed. Where there are
people and food, dogs will be present.
However, a difference exists in the connotations that are associated
with dogs, and in this difference we learn about a woman’s great faith.
Our text begins by telling us, “And Jesus went away from there and
withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.”
Jesus has just had a conflict with the Pharisees and scribes about the
ritual washing of hands that the Pharisees demanded. Jesus had said to them, “You hypocrites! Well
did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their
lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as
doctrines the commandments of men.’”
There are
several occasions in Matthew’s Gospel when after an intense conflict with the
Pharisees, Jesus withdraws to another place.
Our Lord has a time and a location for his death. He will die at the
Passover in Jerusalem, and he won’t allow circumstances to change this.
Jesus went
northwest to the area along the Mediterranean Sea. The area around Tyre and Sidon was a Gentile
area – it had been the home of Jezebel who married King Ahab of Israel in the Old
Testament. 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.’”
We have
heard enough of Matthew’s Gospel to know that when he says “and behold,” he is
calling our attention to something surprising or important. And everything about this woman is
surprising. Matthew calls her a
“Canaanite woman” in order to emphasize this.
In his
Gospel, Mark calls the woman a “Syrophoenician” which was the accurate term for
the first century A.D. “Canaanite” was an archaic term that called to mind the
opponents Israel faced when they conquered the promised land. It would be kind of like calling a woman from
Alabama a “Confederate woman.” This was
an entirely negative description.
Yet this
Canaanite woman came out to Jesus and was repeatedly crying, “Have mercy on me,
O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” There are three things to note about her
statement. First, she called Jesus
“Lord.” In fact, she does so three times
in our brief text. In Matthew’s Gospel
this is the term that believers use to address Jesus.
Second, she
called out to Jesus for help – specifically help for her demon oppressed
daughter. She cried, ““Have mercy on me, O Lord.” This is the exact same
expression that we use when we say “Lord have mercy.”
Finally,
she called Jesus, “Son of David.” This
was a phrase that identified Jesus as Israel’s Messiah. Matthew began his Gospel by saying, “The
book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David.” This Gentile woman –
this Canannite woman - confesses
exactly who Jesus is, as she asks for help.
You will be hard pressed to find a
more heartfelt and correct expression of faith in Jesus. And how did our Lord respond? He ignored her. He didn’t say a word. This
didn’t stop the woman from continuing to cry to out Jesus for help. We know
this because disciples then said to Jesus, “Send her away, for she is crying out
after us.” As far as they were
concerned, the woman was a nuisance because she was making a scene.
Jesus
wasn’t answering the woman’s cry for help. And he stated there was a reason for
this. He said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Because we know Jesus as the Savior of the world, it is easy to forget that he
came as Israel’s Messiah. He was the fulfillment of the promises made
to God’s covenant people. He was their Messiah. He wasn’t hers. And he wasn’t
yours. You and I have no right to
claim Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ.
Instead it is only by God’s grace that we have been included among those
who can now call Jesus our Christ.
Jesus had
ignored the woman. He has just said that
he had not come as Messiah for her. But
the woman was not deterred. She was not
put off. Instead, she approached Jesus,
knelt before him and uttered the plea, “Lord, help me.” Surely Jesus would now help her. But instead he replied, “It is not right to
take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” He called her a dog who was not worthy of his
efforts. While we treat dogs like they
are beloved members of the family, in that culture – and also today in the
Middle East – they did not hold such a position. This was an insult – a slap in
the face.
The woman
approached Jesus in sincere and true faith.
She asked him to help her daughter. And she got nowhere. He ignored her. Next he said she wasn’t his
problem. Then he insulted her. We see in
her experience the way things sometimes seem to go for us. We face challenges and difficulties. Our family member or friends experience
problems. In sincere and true faith we
ask Jesus for help. And nothing happens. Things don’t get better. Perhaps they
even get worse.
God has
said in his Word that he loves us. He
has promised to care for us. Yet then,
it seems as if God is ignoring us. It
looks like God doesn’t care at all. Preaching
on this text, Martin Luther said, “It is a very hard blow when God appears to
be so stern and angry and hides His grace so very deeply. This is well-known by those who feel and
experience it in their hearts and think that He will not do what He has said
and will let His Word be false.”
When this
occurs, the temptation is to think that things are in fact as they appear – God
doesn’t love or care about us. We are tempted to conclude that God’s Word is
not true. And if God has given up on us, shouldn’t we just give up on God? After all, what’s the point?
It would
have been very easy for the Canaanite woman to do this. But instead of
despairing and giving up, she doubled down on faith. She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat
the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” She admitted that no, she was
not a Jew. But then she asserted that Jesus’ love and help were so abundant
that even the leftovers of what Jesus had to offer were more than enough to
meet her need. She pressed on towards him in faith and asserted that he was the Lord who could help.
Then Jesus
answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you
desire.” Our Lord praised her faith
which had proven itself to be great by ignoring appearances and pressing on
toward Jesus. As a result, we learn in
our text that the daughter was healed instantly.
There are
times God is silent in order to draw us closer to him; in order to lead us to
stronger faith. Martin Luther said of
this text, “But see how Christ drives and pursues faith in His people so that
it becomes strong and firm.” In the
midst of discomfort God is at work. This
is not a foreign concept. We see it in
athletics and physical fitness. To get stronger; to get faster; to get in
better shape you have to be pushed beyond what you want to do. You have to be made uncomfortable.
The same
thing is true in the life of faith. Yet
as we think about our text and reflect on the times of silence that we
experience, we need to remember why we
are able to press on in faith. We can
because Jesus Christ is the risen Lord. He is the crucified Lord who demonstrated his
boundless love by suffering and dying for our sins. And he is also the One who
rose from the dead. As St. Peter wrote,
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great
mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
The
resurrection of Jesus Christ provides us with the living hope that sustains
us. When God seems to be saying “no” and
ignoring us, the resurrection of Jesus gives us confidence that God’s Word is
true. God promises love and care for his
children. These promises are true – as
true as the body of Christ who had been buried in a tomb, but now invited his
disciples to touch and feel him.
The risen
Lord is God’s great “Yes!” that carries us through all challenges and
temptations. He is the “Yes!” that enables us to cling to God’s Word, and tell
God that we know he has to be true to his promises. Martin Luther said of this: “Our heart thinks
there is nothing else but only no, and yet that is untrue. Therefore, it must
turn away from this perception and with a firm faith in God’s Word grasp and
hold onto the deep, secret yes under and above the no, as this woman does.” We do not despair. We do not give up
hope. We believe and trust in Jesus
Christ’s love because the crucified One has risen from the dead.
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