Sermon: Reminiscere (Lent 2) - 2020

8 March 2020

Text: Matt 15:21-28

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Are you worthy of God’s mercy?  The easiest way to answer this question is to examine your life in terms of the Ten Commandments?  Do you keep them?

If you say “Yes,” you are definitely unworthy of the Lord’s mercy, for by your own claim that you are perfect, you are saying that you don’t even need God’s mercy.  And you are a liar to boot.  For you know that you don’t keep the commandments.

If you say, “No,” then you are a poor, miserable sinner, in rebellion against God and His Law.  And that being the case, why would you think that you are worthy of God’s mercy?  Why shouldn’t He simply ignore your prayers and let you lie in the bed that you have made?  Why should God even care if demons are oppressing you or a member of your family?  Why should He hear your prayers if you are an outlaw and a traitor?

The Canaanite woman was well aware of her unworthiness.  In the Old Testament, God scolded the Israelites for not exterminating every man, woman, and child among the Canaanites.  According to the Word of God, His Law, and His divine justice, she should not even exist.  And she knew the resentment and the ostracism from the Jews in her own day.

She also had a daughter who was “severely oppressed by a demon.”  It is likely that her daughter was engaging in some kind of evil activity that opened the door to the demonic realm.  Maybe she was engaging in some kind of sorcery or witchcraft, or some kind of wicked behavior that brought Satan in on herself.  

Finally, the Canaanite woman was being ignored by Jesus when she asked for help.  She was also shunned by the disciples, who “came and begged [Jesus], saying, ‘Send her away, for she is crying after us.’”  Jesus even seemed to agree with their annoyance, as He shunned her based on her ethnicity: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Was the Canaanite woman worthy of the mercy she begged for?  Absolutely not.  She was a Gentile, worse yet, a Canaanite, she had a demonic daughter, and she was making a pest of herself to Jesus and the disciples.

And so in her unworthiness, what does she do?  Does she give up and leave?  Does she lash out in anger?  Does she seek to destroy Jesus?  Look at her response, dear friends.  “She came and knelt before Him, saying, “Lord, help me.”

I remember a few years ago, there was a fad among some Christians praying this obscure prayer from First Chronicles in the Old Testament, called the Prayer of Jabez.  Praying this prayer was supposed to be a formula for success and power.  This was, as expected, latched onto by the same people who watch TV preachers and other religious charlatans on crazy cable channels.  

But as far as powerful prayer goes, the prayer of the Canaanite woman is powerful: “Lord, help me.”  It isn’t a very impressive-sounding prayer, like the prayer of Jabez.  It doesn’t have the poetic beauty of our historic collects of the Church.  “Lord, help me” is the prayer of the desperate, and of the prayer of the believer: the one who believes that Jesus will hear and that Jesus will help.  “Lord, help me” is a prayer that acknowledges the Lordship of Jesus, and His mighty power to put right that which is broken.  It is the prayer of a loving mother who believes in the power of Jesus over the devils.  And the power of this prayer is the faith of the one praying – her faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

And still, the Lord tests her persistent faith: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

This is rather inflammatory language.  He is comparing a woman who belongs to a race that is often treated as inferior to a dog.  

And notice her response.  She does not deny that she is to be considered a dog.  “Yes, Lord,” she says.  And yet, she prays boldly, as one who is not worthy, saying, “Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

And her admission of unworthiness, and yet her willingness to ask for help from Jesus anyway is a sign of her faith!  Our Lord says so: “O woman, great is your faith!  Be it done for you as you desire.”  And the daughter of the persistent Canaanite woman “was healed instantly.”

Dear friends, we are not worthy of God’s mercy.  And yet, Jesus does not answer our prayers based on our worthiness, rather, He hears our prayers for mercy because He is merciful.  He is worthy to be praised and worshiped.  He is the very definition of love.  He will not refuse the prayer: “Lord, help me.”  He has come into our fallen world for their very purpose.  He comes to help the unworthy and the humble, those who lack worldly standing and power, and those oppressed by the devil.

For indeed, the Master takes care of all of His creatures – even dogs and sparrows and the grass of the field.  He provides food to all, in due season, at the proper time.  He opens His hand and satisfies the desires of every living thing.  And in His open hand is the scar of a nail – the wound of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the Lamb who is worthy to open the seals, the Lamb whose blood atones for all of our sin and unworthiness.  

And we too receive the crumbs from the bread of life, dear friends, the small wafer of bread that is truly the body of the Lord, and the small sip of wine that is truly the blood of the Lord.  These are indeed gifts from the Master’s table, the worthy for the unworthy.  But through His worthiness, by His grace, in His mercy, we, the unworthy and declared worthy!

This is the good news that Jesus came to deliver not only to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” but to the lost sheep of Canaan, and of Gretna, and of the whole world.  

And when we receive His gospel, His Word, His body, His blood, be assured that the demons are cast out, the devil is in retreat, and our prayer “deliver us from evil” is answered, even as the Lord hears the prayer of the unworthy Canaanite woman.  Let us emulate the persistent faith of this sinner-become-saint in her prayers for help, and let us be made worthy by faith, through grace, by means of the Crucified One, whose worthiness makes us worthy of God’s mercy.  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.