12 March 2017
Text: Matt 15:21-28
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
“O
woman, great is your faith!” says our Lord to the Canaanite woman. “Be
it done for you as you desire.”
Jesus
has come into our world to mend it, to restore it, to heal it. He has come to repair that which is broken –
especially each one of us. We suffer
physically: sicknesses that burden us, accidents that suddenly incapacitate us,
pains from the toll of age, and even death itself. We suffer mentally: depression, frustration,
mental health issues, and emotional pain.
We suffer spiritually: temptations, doubts, demonic harassment, loss of
faith, and fear of God’s wrath, or perhaps even worse, a lack of fear of God’s
wrath.
No
matter who we are, we suffer. No matter
how fine we are at times, we are catastrophically broken at other times. And nobody gets out of here alive.
And
it isn’t just us. Everyone on the
planet, great and small, rich and poor, men and women, famous and obscure – all
of us suffer this brokenness.
The
Canaanite woman had a lot of strikes against her. Being a woman in her day and age was not easy.
Her toil was hard and the rewards were
few. She was not respected by men of any
nationality. And being a Canaanite, she
was outside of the covenant of the people of God – who looked down upon her because
of her ethnicity. She was probably
raised to believe in false gods. And her
daughter was disturbingly sick. And to
top it all off, her daughter did not suffer with an ailment that could be cured
by doctors and medicine. For she was
possessed by a demon. And being a
Canaanite, who can cast this demon out? Could her pagan priests? Would a Jewish rabbi or prophet come near
her?
Somehow,
some way, she knew where she had to go to get help. Against her own religion, and contrary to the
customs of her heritage and even the whole region, she knew that she had to go
to Jesus, to beg for His mercy, and for Him to exercise the power He has to
cast out the demon and restore her daughter to health and wholeness.
She
indeed believes that Jesus can do this. And yet this is only part of the picture of
faith. Just knowing that Jesus can do
something is not the same as knowing that Jesus will do something. And what of her faith when that faith is
challenged? Does the faith hold on, or
does it wither away?
This
Canaanite woman teaches us the complexity of faith, dear friends, the kind of
faith that conducts salvation from Jesus, to us, and heals, the faith that taps
into the grace of Jesus and delivers.
This
kind of faith isn’t knowledge – for even the demons “believe” in this way, and
they shudder. This kind of faith isn’t
even asking Jesus for mercy, for the demons do that as well. This kind of faith isn’t even a hunch that
Jesus will do something for us – for this woman is given no indication that
Jesus will heal her daughter. For when
she knelt before Jesus and begged for His help, His initial response was less
than encouraging: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel…. It
is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”
Such
a reply could easily have destroyed any faith of this woman. But it doesn’t. She argues with Jesus: “Yes, Lord, yet even
the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” She doesn’t argue her own righteousness, for
she lays claim to the very derogatory insult of being a dog. But rather she points to the pity of the dog’s
Master, the Master’s natural inclination to love His dog. She holds God to His promise to be merciful to
His creatures – not because they are worthy, but rather because God is God.
And
she acknowledges Jesus to be God, breaking through her own paganism and
confessing the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But
notice something about this faith of the Canaanite woman: her faith is
stubborn. It is unrelenting. She refuses to take “no” for an answer. She is spiritually clawing and kicking to
receive the answer to her prayer – not unlike the stubborn Jacob, who wrestled
God in human form, and refused to let go until he received a blessing.
This,
dear friends, is true faith. It is
saving faith. This is the faith that in
a very real way compels Jesus to bless and heal and save the one who seeks His
blessing. Faith is not like answering a
question on a test. It is more like
winning a wrestling match or a debate. Faith
– the kind of faith that heals the sick, casts out demons, and raises the dead
is just this sort of stubborn faith. It
is faith that refuses to let go, will not take “no” for an answer, and somehow
knows that Jesus has what we need, and is willing to make demands of Jesus by
appealing not to our worthiness, but rather to His worthiness.
It
is as though this Canaanite women were confessing Jesus as God so forcefully
that she is almost daring Jesus to try not to be divine. He cannot do it. He cannot refuse her, because He is God, and
God is love, and love will not refuse the one in need, the one who asks, the
one who cries out to God in mercy.
Her
confession is not rooted in knowledge or a theological education, but rather in
her stubborn trust that Jesus is unable, by His very nature, to refuse her
entreaties.
And
she is right.
Jesus
tests her faith, and Jesus tests our faith. True faith simply refuses to be shaken off. True faith holds on for dear life – because that
is exactly what we receive, dear friends: dear life. We hold God to His promises, including the
promise that is also a declaration: your sins are forgiven. And because Jesus has come into our world to
save us, because He went to the cross, because He shed His blood and died as
the perfect ransom, we lay claim to eternal life, dear brothers and sisters.
So
let us refuse to quit. Let us refuse to
give up. Let us hold on to our Lord
Jesus Christ with everything that is in us. Let us ever remind our Lord that
even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table. And let us receive an invitation to not just
crumbs, but even to the Lord’s body itself, and the blood that saves us, and the
Word that absolves us, and the Gospel that strengthens this faith into a holy
stubbornness. Let the Lord no longer
call us dogs but rather His brothers and His sisters by virtue of His Sonship
of the Father.
For
He is God. He is love. He is merciful. He is faithful. We will not refuse your entreaty, O woman, nor
yours, O man. Your faith will make you
well by placing your infirmities and iniquities in the nail-scarred hands of
our merciful Lord. He will cast out the
demons that harass you and the doubts that assail you. He forgives the sins that vex you and the
weaknesses of faith that wear you down.
But
He is not worn down. He never tires of
us or of our prayers. His mercies are
without limit and His grace without measure. Hold on tight and remind Him of His Word and
His promise. And let us all hear this
blessing as we refuse to let go: “Great is your faith! Be it done for you
as you desire.” Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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