Lent 2
Mt
15:21-28
3/1/26
At our house Amy turns in to go to bed earlier than I do. So on most nights I will go upstairs to our
bedroom to say goodnight to her and see if there is anything we need to talk
about for the next day. When I walk into
the room, I am always greeted by the sight of our little white dog Noel, and
our golden retriever Luther there on the bed with her. Sometimes there is the
trifecta as our cat Martin has also decided to join the party.
In our house the dogs are a beloved part of our family life. And here in the United States there is
nothing unusual about that. I am sure that many of you feel the same as well.
However, in other cultures things are very different. For Islam dogs are
considered haram – forbidden. They fall into a spiritual category in which they
are considered to be sinful and must be avoided. This leads Muslims to carry
out acts of brutality against dogs in killing them.
Dogs in Jesus’ world seem to have held a position that was
somewhere in between these two poles. They probably weren’t sleeping on the
same bed like part of the family. They were after all, dogs. But as our text
describes they were also present in the house, and under the table, ready to
eat anything that fell to the floor.
Our Gospel lesson begins by saying, “And Jesus went away from there
and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.” Jesus goes away because he has
just been in conflict with the Pharisees and scribes who had come from
Jerusalem looking for a fight. They had
asked, ““Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For
they do not wash their hands when they eat.” These religious leaders attacked
Jesus because he and his disciples weren’t living according to the rules that
the Pharisees had added on top of the Torah itself – the rules they described
as “the tradition of the elders.”
Our Lord responded to them sharply as he condemned the manner in
which they were creating commandments that were not from God. He said, “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.’”
After this had finished, our text describes how Jesus withdrew from
Galilee as he went north along the Mediterranean Sea into the region of Tyre
and Sidon. This is a regular pattern in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus has said that
he is going to suffer, die, and rise from the dead. He is carrying out the
Father’s will, and it is going to happen according to the Father’s timing.
Nothing will be allowed to preempt this. In the face of conflict with the
religious leaders, Jesus withdraws until the time is right for their hatred and
anger to cause his death.
Tyre and Sidon were pagan country. It had been the home of the Baal
worshipping queen Jezebel in the days of Elijah. Matthew emphasizes this point
by describing the woman who came to Jesus as a “Canaanite.” This was an anachronistic term from the past.
It would be like calling someone from Alabama as “secessionist” or “a
rebel.” But the label “Canaanite”
resonated with ancient pagan past of that area.
Matthew has identified this woman in way that leads us to view her
as just another pagan who doesn’t believe in the true God. For this reason, the
first words out of her mouth are surprising.
We learn, “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.’”
Her first words were, “Have mercy on me, O Lord.” These are the
same words that we just used in the Kyrie of the liturgy as we said, “Lord,
have mercy.” They are a cry for help. But the remarkable thing is that the
woman addresses Jesus as “Lord.” In Matthew’s Gospel only people who have faith
in Jesus use this word to address him.
Even more striking is the fact that she calls Jesus “Son of David.”
Matthew’s Gospel has made it clear that Jesus is the descendant of King David
who fulfills God’s promise of the Messiah. But we don’t expect a Canaanite
woman to confess that Jesus is the One promised to Israel by God.
The woman came to Jesus with the language of faith on her lips. And
this included her plea for help as she asked Jesus to rescue her daughter from
demon possession. How had she heard
about Jesus? We don’t know. The Gospels emphasize how crowds came from far and
wide to hear Jesus. Word about Jesus had been carried north into this region,
and the woman believed that Christ could help her daughter.
With the language of faith, the woman had appealed to Jesus to help.
And what was Jesus response? He didn’t answer her at all. He was silent.
The silence of God is something his people experience. We encounter hardships and difficulties, and
ask for God’s help. Yet none arrives. Or things even get worse. We find this
experience expressed in the Psalms such as when David says, “How long, O Lord?
Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”
In response to this, our Lord teaches that faith continues to call
out to God. It continues to ask him for help.
It believes and trusts that God is the loving and caring God he has
revealed himself to be in his word. And so it keeps calling out to him.
Jesus taught that we should always pray and not lose
heart in the parable of the persistent widow. There an unjust judge would not
give justice to the woman. But she kept
coming to him again and again and again. Finally he said to himself, “Though I
neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I
will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual
coming.” Our Lord teaches us to continue to come to God in persistent prayer
because that is the approach of faith.
Jesus had been silent. But the woman continued, persistent in
crying out to Jesus for help. We know
this because the disciples got tired of hearing her. They approached Jesus and
begged him saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” They asked Jesus to give her what she wanted
so that she would just go away.
But Christ answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel.” He refused to do
anything because he said he wasn’t there for her. These words are probably
surprising to our ears. Yet they are a reminder that as the Son of David, Jesus
was Israel’s Messiah. When Jesus
sent out the apostles to heal and proclaim the reign of God that was present in
Jesus he said, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the
Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
It is a reminder that as Gentiles we are the wild olive branches that have been
grafted into the cultivated olive tree that descends from Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob.
Jesus had said that he wasn’t there for her. But the woman did not
cease to press on in faith. She approached Christ and knelt before him saying, “Lord,
help me.” Surely, Jesus would finally
grant her request. But instead he answered, “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 what he had to offer.
But the woman was not deterred by this. She replied, “Yes, Lord,
yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” The
woman granted that she was not descended from Israel. She didn’t dispute the
fact. But she asserted that Jesus had so much to offer that even the crumbs –
even the leftovers of his saving work – were sufficient to save her daughter.
The woman had not been turned away. Her faith had been persistent
as she kept pressing on into Jesus with her entreaty. Then Jesus answered, “O
woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you
desire.” And we learn that her daughter was healed instantly.
In our Gospel lesson today we do not find the Jesus that we expect.
He is unresponsive to the woman as first he doesn’t answer her; then he says
that he isn’t there for her; and finally, he calls her a dog. But we see that
at the end of the our text he heals the woman’s daughter by freeing her from
demon oppression.
This action leads us to recognize who Jesus is, and what he has
done for us. Our Lord declared that in his person the saving reign of God had
entered into the world. On another occasion when he had healed a demon
oppressed man and was accused of doing so by being in league with the devil,
Jesus announced, “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out
demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
Jesus was the presence of God’s reign to free us from Satan, sin,
and death. We noted earlier that Jesus had withdrawn into the region of Tyre
and Sidon because it was not yet time for his conflict with the religious
authorities to result in their action to kill him. But during Lent we are
preparing to remember that as our Lord had said, that day did arrive during
Holy Week. In the Father’s timing, Jesus carried out the Father’s will as he
suffered and died for our sins. Christ
offered himself as the ransom to free us from the judgment of God.
He redeemed us in the weakness and shame of his death. But then on
Easter God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead. The Father
demonstrated that he had been at work in Jesus’ death to restore us to himself.
And in Christ’s resurrection God defeated death forever.
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ now is the defining
feature of how we look at life. God has acted in the sacrifice of his Son to
reveal his love and bring us salvation. In the resurrection of Christ we have
received the confirmation that the way of the cross led to victory over death.
In his Word, the Spirit of God has made this known to us. Through baptism the
Spirit has given us new life as the people of God – a people who know that our
sins have been washed away.
God’s Word has revealed what he has done in Christ. In the life and
death of Jesus, God has given us his love. As the Gospel God, his word declares
that his love and care for us will never end.
There are times when we must listen to that word, and not to our
perception of what is happening. When we
experience hardships, and God seems to be silent, because of Christ we listen to
the encouragement of God’s Word that his love for us has not ended and that he
is still at work in our life.
Scripture teaches us that God uses these experiences
to cause us to grow and mature in faith.
St. Paul told the Romans, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that
suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and
character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s
love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been
given to us.”
God works through these things to
produce endurance, character, and maturity.
These are important traits for a Christian, but they are not things
achieved with ease and little cost. Their acquisition is the process of moving
from life lived as old Adam, to life lived as new man in Christ. But for that to happen, God must put to death
the old Adam in us. Faith and maturity as Christians grow in the midst of this
experience as we are led and sustained by the Spirit.
In our text, the Canaanite woman
kept drawing near to Jesus. She didn’t stop. She did it verbally as she kept
calling out to him. She did it spatially as she approached and bowed down
before him. And in this, she is an example for us in two different ways.
First, at all times, but
especially in times of hardship, we need to draw near to Christ and hold on to
him. We do this by listening to his word and receiving his sacraments. Through
these Means of Grace Jesus is present for us. His Spirit works through these
gifts to sustain and strengthen us in faith to face all challenges.
And second, we continue to turn to
God and call out in prayer. Prayer is
the cry of faith, and faith is exercised through the act of prayer. We continue to ask, seek, and knock in prayer
because our Lord tells us to do so in the confidence that God does hear, and
does answer in his time and way. We can trust this, because Jesus Christ died
on the cross for our sins, and then rose from the dead.
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