The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Matthew 15:21 “And Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman came out from that region, and began to cry out, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.’ 23 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came to Him and kept asking Him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she is shouting out after us.’ 24 But He answered and said, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ 25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me!’ 26 And He answered and said, ‘It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’ 27 But she said, ‘Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’ 28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, ‘O woman, your faith is great; be it done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed at once.” (NASB)
Humility, contrition, an acknowledgment of our individual and collective unworthiness before God, as well as kindness and graciousness toward others seems to have lost their status as virtues in our culture. Remember the old 1970’s ad campaign? “You deserve a break today.” Well, today the word and idea is inescapable. Unless you isolate yourself in your own house, turn off the TV and stereo, and avoid reading or looking at any publication that has advertising, I doubt you can get through the day without hearing the word “deserve.” We deserve…. You deserve…. The people of the United States deserve better. For decades we have told that we deserve this or that for absolutely no good reason at all, just because.
Two maybe three generation of westerners think they deserve just about anything they want or think they need. When it looks like they might not get it, they throw a temper tantrum, issue demands, and may even threaten to burn the system down. People deserve free health care, universal income without working, free housing, reparations for something that happened to someone else 160 years ago, and most of all, people deserve a life wherein they are not offended by the law or anything else. All because people think more highly of themselves than they ought to think. Our culture is filled to over flowing with entitlement thinking.
This is yet another reason for the church to value and keep the biblically rooted and theologically sound liturgies of the western churches and hymns as the primary diet of the Christian Church and the Christian for worship services.
The confessions of sin for example, “I a poor miserable sinner deserve Thy temporal and eternal punishment.” We make use of a great many hymns that make a clear distinction between our sin and helplessness under the Law and the grace, forgiveness, salvation, and victory given in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And today, through the Gospel lesson we see what great faith looks like.
Jesus had led His disciples to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon were towns in Gentile territory north of Galilee. We know the area today as Lebanon. In His effort to get a little rest and privacy Jesus had moved from west side of the Sea of Galilee to the north east side. There He taught and fed the 5,000. He directed His disciples to set sail again, back to the east side of the sea. He stayed behind to spend a night on a mountain praying before walking on the water to meet the disciples and still a storm.
From there, Jesus lead the disciples north and east to the two coastal town Tyre and Sidon outside of the Jewish territory of Galilee. Perhaps there they would find a little more rest.
“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 15:22) When that happened, Jesus did a very “unlike Jesus” thing. He ignored her. 23 “But He did not answer her a word.” The only other time I can think of when Jesus remained silent what when He stopped talking to Pilate.
The Canaanite woman came to Jesus crying out. Her tears and plea for help was met with silence. The disciples interpreted that silence as Jesus’s indifference toward the woman and her daughter. Jesus kept silent and just kept walking. He put a little distance between the woman and Himself. The woman persisted in following the Jesus and the disciples. This must have gone on for a few minutes anyway because the disciples’ patience came to an end. “His disciples came to Him and kept asking Him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she is shouting out after us.’”
But Jesus knew something about the woman that the disciples didn’t know. Jesus knew that she was a Gentile who had been taught the faith of the Old Testament prophets. They called people like her, God fearing Gentiles. How do we know that? When she approached Jesus for the first time, she addressed Jesus as “Lord, Son of David.” That’s an Old Testament address applied only to the promised Messiah. By pleading to Jesus for a miracle and by using the title the woman demonstrates that she (1) understands the Old Testament doctrine and (2) she is a woman of faith, a God fearing Gentile.
Someone had taught her the Law and Gospel. She knew the fundamentals of the faith. Maybe she knew more than the fundamentals. She also had heard about Jesus. She measured what she knew of the Old Testament God against what she was hearing about Jesus the Nazarene and concluded that Jesus was indeed the Son of David.
When she addressed Jesus as “Son of David,” Jesus knew that she was a woman of true Christian faith and He wasn’t going to let her faith go unnoticed by His own disciples. Jesus was going to make use of her stubborn confidence and humility to teach the disciples what true faith looks like and what it does.
“Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed. His disciples came to Him and kept asking Him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she is shouting out after us.’”
Jesus answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24) The woman’s plea was first met with an “un-Jesus” like silence. As she continues pleading for mercy, she is told that she isn’t a Hebrew, thus not a member of the house of Israel, and not one of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Jesus’s makes it clear His first priority is the people to whom the promise Messiah was given. She was met with silence rather than speaking, then exclusion rather than inclusion.
Instead of giving up, she runs around the disciples, gets in front of Jesus, dropped to her knees before Him, and continued to plead her case. 25 “But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me!’ 26 And He answered and said, ‘It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’
The woman is met first by silence, then a statement of exclusion (she doesn’t belong to the right bloodline), then Jesus likens her status before the Master to that of a dog. Jesus told the Gentile that here status before God is the same as a dog before its master.
So far we have an un-Jesus silence in the midst of a plea for mercy. We have a statement that tells the woman she doesn’t belong to the right group of people, thus she isn’t entitled to mercy and healing. Now, He likens her to a dog.
Jesus wouldn’t last long as a CEO of any major corporation today. He certainly wouldn’t fair well in a modern day political campaign. In fact, He’d be called a misogynist. At best He’d be ranked as one of the best trolls ever. Everything He has said thus far sounds like racist and sexist dog whistles.
Yet, look at the woman’s response “ 27 But she said, ‘Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’”
If Jesus says that I am a dog, then I am a dog. Whatever Jesus says, no matter how offensive or seemingly ridiculous it is, it is the truth. If Jesus says, [John 14:6] “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” then that is the truth. If Jesus says, [Luke 5:31–32] “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance,” then that is the truth. When Jesus said “no one is good except One,” then no one is good except one and I know that one isn’t me and you.
When it comes to the self-righteously proud, there is no one more offensive than Jesus because both the Law and the Gospel offend. The words of God offend because they always put us in our place.
The Word of God teaches us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is no one who is good, not even one. All of our works are filthy rages in God’s sight. Jesus is teaching here that none of us is qualified to receive His salvation based on anything we do or are.
Paul echos the lesson Jesus teaches here with the Canaanite woman in 1 Timothy 1:15, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” The Apostle Paul is doing the same thing that the Canaanite woman did.
If Jesus says I am a dog, then I am a dog. If Jesus says I am a sinner, then I am a sinner. If Jesus says I am undeserving, then I am undeserving. Christ died for and the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies those who but for the work of God would be an offense to God. The comfort in knowing that you are a sinful dog is knowing that Christ died for you and God that Father has elevated you to the status of son or daughter.
The woman said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” (Matthew 15:27) The woman takes hold of the image of the dog, owns it, then provides a counter example that even dogs get something from the master’s table. They eat from the unintentional crumbs that fall from the table as the children eat. (And that is a lot of crumbs). She understood that even a crumb from Jesus’s table would be enough to drive out the demon.
Her faith produced a God pleasing humility. She deserves nothing and happily receives the crumbs. Psalm 51:17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.” (Matthew 23:12)
Like the Canaanite woman, we do not deserve to be at the table of the Lamb of God. No one is automatically qualified to receive the crumbs of the Lord’s Supper, let alone sit at it. Reception of the bread/body and wine/blood requires faith, humility, and a right understanding of the Lord’s Supper. All churches use to understand that, and they got along just fine. Even though we do not deserve what Christ gives in the means of grace, the Lamb offers Himself and His work to us in His church and at His table.
Here, in this Gospel account, we see that it is those who confess that they are poor miserable sinners … those who confess that they deserve temporal and eternal punishment … those who confess that they love themselves more than God … those who confess that they exploit their neighbors whom they should love … it is these who receive the healing forgiveness that the Lord earned for them with His holy life and His innocent suffering and death on the cross.
Within the greater context of Gospel of St. Matthew, the Canaanite woman stands a contrast with the scribes and Pharisees who thought they had earned, deserved access to God and His favor. I am sure there was no shortage of people who took offense at the praise Jesus heaped on the Canaanite woman. The self-righteous others looked down people like her. But Jesus praises her and holds her up as an example for the rest of time of true Christian faith and humility.
What a strange and wonderful God is He. Even though we begin as sinful dogs, He will call, make, and adopt us as His children and seat us at His table in His kingdom.
AMEN
May the Peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.