Sermon Text: Matthew 15:21–28
Date: August 20, 2023
Event: Proper 15, Year A (The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost)
Matthew 15:21–28 (EHV)
Jesus left that place and withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22There a Canaanite woman from that territory came and kept crying out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! A demon is severely tormenting my daughter!”
23But he did not answer her a word.
His disciples came and pleaded, “Send her away, because she keeps crying out after us.”
24He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25But she came and knelt in front of him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
26He answered her, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to their little dogs.”
27“Yes, Lord,” she said, “yet their little dogs also eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
28Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, your faith is great! It will be done for you, just as you desire.” And her daughter was healed at that very hour.
God’s Promises Are for All
If you were hosting a barbeque at a park and you had more food than you knew what to do with and someone came up to you that you did not know and was not part of your group, but was hungry and wondered if he could have something to eat, what would you do? I would assume unless there was a really good reason not to, most of us would give him as much of whatever he wanted—maybe finding a way for him to take more home than he could multiple meals from your grilled abundance.
But does that change if you’ve made a very carefully proportioned meal for your family and there’s just enough of everyone’s favorite foods for everyone to have enough? What about a special meal celebrating a birthday or anniversary? What if someone came up and asked if they could have that food?
At that moment, while we would want to help the person certainly, maybe we would be hesitant to give up that specific food. Maybe you’d offer to order something else, take him to the grocery store, or do something else to help provide for his needs. But that special food prepared for a special purpose? Perhaps we would think that off limits, and understandably so.
It appears that we have something similar going on in our Gospel for this morning. We are picking up Jesus’ ministry just after the feeding of the 5,000. As we heard last week, Jesus met the disciples by walking out to them on the water. That was when Peter displayed bold yet fragile faith in asking to come out to Jesus on the water. After that, they landed at Gennesaret, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus healed many of the sick people in that area.
The Pharisees came to him from Jerusalem to try to accuse him of wrongdoing because Jesus did not have his disciples keep all the man-made traditions of the people. Jesus was clear with them about how some of the traditions they followed put them at odds with God’s actual commands, and so they were in error in thinking that the traditions needed to be upheld at all costs.
At the start of our Gospe for this morning, having finished the conversation with the Pharisees in Galielee he learn that Jesus left that place and withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon were cities outside of Judea and Galilee, northwest of Galilee right on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in Phoenicia. Depending on where exactly they were at any given time, they could have been 30-50 miles away from the cities around the Sea of Galilee. This was no small trek; the crowds would not follow this far. Perhaps now they would get the alone time they were all desperately craving after hearing that John the Baptist had been killed.
Not quite. There a Canaanite woman from that territory came and kept crying out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! A demon is severely tormenting my daughter!” Can you feel it, deep in your bones? How must the disciples have been feeling, hoping that they would finally have time to rest after they make this trek, that surely no one here would recognize them—or Jesus? And then, not his name, but very specific titles ring out through the air: Lord, Son of David! These are titles that express clear faith in the promised Messiah, and they are identifying Jesus as the fulfillment of the promise of the Savior for the world. These are the words of a believer.
But which mouth speaks these words? Not the religious leaders from Jerusalem who were just accusing him of wrongdoing. Not the crowds in Galilee who were looking for the next free meal from Jesus. This is not a Jewish believer living in this Gentile area who happens to recognize Jesus. No, these words are spoken by a Canaanite woman—a Gentile herself. She was not a part of Israel or of the bloodline of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; in the parallel account in Mark’s Gospel, we learn that she was Greek (Mark 7:26).
How does Jesus respond to this amazing, faith-filled pleading of this Gentile believer? He did not answer her a word. That seems a touch out of character for Jesus, doesn’t it? Doesn’t the Bible emphasize time and again that God hears and answers the prayers of those who trust in him? God doesn’t say there’s a chance that he’ll ignore our please when we cry out to him. Even the disciples recognize that this is a bit weird for Jesus to literally say nothing and they encourage him, “Send her away, because she keeps crying out after us.” In other words, “Jesus, we’re not sure why you’re not helping this woman or acknowledging her, but if this is really the plan, can you do something to make this constant yelling stop?”
At this, Jesus does respond to the woman, but not in any way that we might expect. He doesn’t heed the call of the disciples and shoo her away, nor does he have clear compassion on her. In fact, he’s kind of… rude? “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Yet, despite this cold response, she is not deterred. Her daughter is not well with supernatural suffering and nothing will stand in her way to get the help she knows Jesus can provide. She came and knelt in front of him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
And if Jesus’ first statement was questionably rude, his second statement seems unavoidably in that realm: “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to their little dogs.” How might you have responded? I know how I would have been tempted, were I in her shoes, “Oh, I’m a dog then? Who do you think you are to speak to me that way?!” Or at least, just throw my hands and seek another solution to my problems, because this guy clearly wouldn’t or couldn’t help.
But the woman knew who Jesus was and also knew that he was not really speaking falsehoods, was he? She had every reason to give up, to not trust what God had promised. She wasn’t Jewish, therefore not a part of the “chosen people.” She was being ignored and even rebuffed by Jesus, but still, she holds on, still, she clings to the promise and the object of her faith—that Jesus could and, in fact, would heal her daughter. “Yes, Lord,” she said, “yet their little dogs also eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
Can you see Jesus’ face? Can you see how wide his eyes get? Can you see the corners of his mouth, probably coldly stern for this whole scene, now curling into a delighted smile? Jesus knew her faith; as God, he could see it. But he wanted her to see her faith for what it is, and for his disciples to see as well. And if we’re thinking broadly enough, he also wanted you and me to hear this woman’s bold, persistent, confident faith.
Was it true that Jesus was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel? Hardly! Many times in the Gospels we see Jesus journeying into Gentile and Samaritan lands, teaching and working miracles for them as well. But even beyond that, we know that the promises of Jesus’ work beyond teaching and miracles were not for one group, but for the world. We heard this promise of God through Isaiah’s pen in our First Reading: Then the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him and to love the name of the Lord and to become his servants… I will bring them to my holy mountain, and I will make them glad in my house of prayer.… For my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples of the world.… “I will gather still more people to my house besides the ones already gathered” (Isaiah 56:6-8). The Messiah’s work of forgiveness of sins was always for all people, regardless of race or gender or ethnicity or anything else that might divide one group of people from another.
But does it always feel like that? Do you ever feel like an outsider looking in at church? Do you find yourself comparing yourself to what you know about the people sitting around here? Do you feel like you don’t measure up to others? Do you feel that you don’t deserve good from God?
Well, you’re right. You don’t deserve good from God; you don’t measure up to God’s standards of perfection. But God’s promises are thankfully not based on our merit but on his love and faithfulness. He doesn’t love you because you are loveable; he loves you in spite of your being unlovable by nature. He doesn’t forgive your sins because you’re so good (what a wildly contradictory statement that is!); he forgives you because you need him to, he’s promised to, and Jesus lived and died in your place to accomplish that.
As you sit here in a worship service, Satan is fuming. He can’t stand the fact that you’re, once again, putting yourself in contact with God’s Word. So, he’s got one trick up his sleeve even as you are in this space. Earlier, when we went through the confession of sins and the declaration of grace, did you hear him? Did you hear Satan’s whisper, the doubt he tries to place in our hearts? “Oh, yes, when the pastor says the congregation’s sins are forgiven, they surely are—for everyone except you. God could never forgive you for what you did and said. If these people here knew your thoughts, they would never let you set foot in this place.”
Does that sound or feel familiar? If not, I’m very thankful for you, but I can assure you that it feels all too familiar for me. This is powerful because it is, as Satan normally works, a half-truth. There are things there that resonate; he’s not just making things up whole cloth. Can you imagine the reaction you’d get if everyone here could read your thoughts? What if they knew everything you had ever done? Would they ever want to associate with you at all? Would they ever speak to you again? Would they ever listen to another sermon fumbled by these unclean lips?
The half-lie part of that doubt from Satan, though, is that it doesn’t matter what other people think of us, it matters what God thinks of us. And it’s true that if we compare ourselves to others, we come up lacking because we don’t know all of their faults and we’re very aware of our own. But Satan’s lie is that God’s promise of love and forgiveness could be rendered void because of who someone is are or what someone has done, as if we had the power to twist and change God. That does not happen.
What is the promise? That God loves you and forgives you and nothing can possibly change that. That was Jesus’ whole purpose—to live a life of perfection for us and to die on the cross to pay for the sins of the entire world—including ours. And that promise stands, unmovable, even if Jesus himself wondered out loud why he should give someone like you the blessings he’s promised. Faith clings to the promises of God and holds God accountable to those promises. And this, my dear brothers and sisters, is what God loves. So firmly trusting what he’s promised that we would even hold him responsible for those promises? Not letting anything deter us for calling out to him? That is not insolent or arrogant. No, rather, at this he says to you and to me, “Your faith is great!”
This has implications for us as a congregation as well. No one walks through those doors for whom Jesus did not die. Maybe someone walks through them not knowing that, or not believing it’s for them, or really doubting that there’s any possibility of this applying to them. But everyone who comes into this space, regardless of age, gender, languages spoken, or anything else, is a precious soul whom Jesus gave his life to save. We should be ready to share the love of our God with everyone—even the people who don’t look like us or think like us or have experiences like us.
And it’s not just true of people walking into this church. This is true of every single other people you ever meet. The greatest philanthropist, the most hardened criminal, the wealthy, the poor, the powerful, the weak, all of these groups from the world’s standards couldn’t me more different, right? But what is the commonality they all share? All are sinners in need of forgiveness, and all have that forgiveness freely given in the blood of Jesus shed for them.
So God’s promises are, in fact, for all. No one is left to be the starving dog outside, unable to eat and destined to perish. No, everyone is forgiven for Jesus’ sake. Everyone; the world. My dear brother, my dear sister, that includes you as well. Thanks be to God! Amen.
