Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 15A)

August 20, 2023

Text: Matt. 15:21-28

            I dare you to compare your prayer life to that of the Canaanite woman.  Everything, and everyone, is against her.  The disciples.  All Israel.  The devil.  And even, it appears, the Lord Jesus Christ.  She has no earthly reason to hope that Jesus will hear or answer her petition.  He ignores her, and He rebuffs her.  Yet she prays.  She confesses Jesus as the Lord, the Son of David, Israel’s Messiah, and so the Savior of all nations.  She confesses Him to be merciful, and she holds Him to His mercy.  Make no mistake, that is faith.  Would you be so bold?  Would you be so confident, so persistent?  Or would you shrug your shoulders in resignation and despair?  “Jesus doesn’t want to hear my prayer.  Jesus will not answer.”  Be honest with yourself.  Go ahead.  I dare you.  Put yourself in this woman’s place.  Desperate and crying out to a God who is deaf to your supplication.

            Why does He treat her this way?  Ignoring her, refusing her, calling her a dog?  Well, that’s what Jews call Canaanites.  Dogs.  Heathen.  Unworthy of attention.  Mongrels who scrounge for scraps and refuse.  Yes, she is a Canaanite, one of those the Israelites were commanded to eliminate from the land, devote to complete destruction (Deut. 7:1; 20:17).  So Canaanites and Jews never spoke to one another.  She’s from the region of Tyre and Sidon, the place of idolatry (Really?  Your daughter has a demon?  Who would have imagined?)  And she is a woman.  Women were never to speak with men in ancient Israel, never apart from their husbands or fathers. 

            Well, Jesus makes sure everyone knows just who this woman is, including the disciples, including the woman herself.  That is why He ignores her.  That is why He refuses to help.  That is why He calls her a dog.  It is to put her in her place.  She has been separated from God by her sin and idolatry.  He should justly stop up His ears to her prayers.  She has no right to demand anything from Him.  The demon, after all, is only claiming what belongs to him.  For, in worshiping idols, the Canaanites worship demons.  So there you have it.  And beloved, this is all true.  Don’t let your politically correct sensibilities cloud the issue.  And Jesus, well… He was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. 

            The lost sheep of the House of Israel.  Ah, those words are pure Gospel.  And the woman knows it.  She hears it.  And the words… the words of Jesus!... bestow faith.  But which words?  What Gospel does the woman hear?  Well, first of all, lost.  Jesus was sent only to the lost.  And Israel doesn’t have it so all together as the scribes and Pharisees and Twelve Disciples think they do.  They are lost.  In sin.  In self-righteousness.  But Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).  Israel failed in their role as God’s children, as His representatives and agents of salvation for the world.  So God sent His Son, Israel reduced to One, to do what Israel did not, and could not, do.  Jesus is faithful Israel.  Jesus is God’s Representative to the world, the revelation of God to the world, the Word made flesh who is with God and who is God (John 1:1).  Jesus is God’s Agent of salvation for the world, the Savior of the world.  The world.  Which includes Canaanites like this woman.  And in coming to Jesus, this Canaanite woman is brought into Israel.  She is brought into the House!  She has a place there.  And even if that place is at Jesus’ feet (where we find her prostrate in our text), that is enough.  That is all she needs.  A place with Jesus.  A place in the House of Israel.  This lost one, found.

            So, “Yes, Lord, I am what You say.  I am a dog.  But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Master’s Table.  And the crumbs are all I need.”  “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David… Lord, help me” (Matt. 15:22, 25; ESV).  “O woman”…  Not dog, now, but woman… daughter of Eve, a human being with all the dignity pertaining thereto, the designation Jesus uses for His own mother, Mary, at the wedding in Cana (John 2:4)… “O woman,” a mother yourself, “great is your faith” (Matt. 15:28).  For you’ve acknowledged who you are apart from Me, an unworthy dog, a wicked idolater.  And you’ve confessed who you are in Me, a member of the House of Israel, a lost one found, one of My own, precious and redeemed.  And you’ve confessed Me to be merciful, which is just what I am, Mercy-Incarnate.  “‘Be it done for you as you desire.’  And her daughter was healed instantly” (v. 28). 

            You see what the Lord is doing to you in this text, don’t you?  You are the Canaanite woman!  I hope you can see how this Gospel is profoundly good news to a room full of Gentiles who should, rightly, have been devoted to destruction long ago.  Dogs!  That’s what we are.  Apart from Jesus, mongrels scrounging around for scraps of hope and help and meaning in what is, in fact, the refuse of demons.  Futile in our thinking.  Exchanging the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, and birds, and animals, and creeping things, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator, consumed with passion for one another, filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.  That is St. Paul’s assessment in Romans 1.  Is it not true? 

            Confess it.  Examine yourself, and then say of yourself what God says of you in His holy Law.  Let Him put you in your place.  Recognize, O Scribe, O Pharisee, O Missouri Synod Lutheran, that you, too, are lost.  And then hear that Jesus came precisely to seek and to save the lost.  He came for you.  To take away your sins.  Your idolatry.  Your unrighteousness.  Your self-righteousness.  All that separates you from God and makes you unworthy of His help, of His mercy.  He came to suffer for it.  To shed His blood for it.  To die on the cross for it.  And then, risen from the dead, to take you into Himself.  Into His righteousness.  Into the House of God, the House of Israel.  Which is to say, into His Body.  That is what we just saw Him do with little Hezekiah this morning in the saving waters of rebirth and renewal in Holy Baptism. 

            When you confess your sins (which is always a return to Holy Baptism), you are saying to God, “Yes, Lord, I am what you say.  I am a dog.  I am not worthy of your help and salvation.  I am not worthy of any of the things for which I pray.  I’ve made a big mess of my life, and the lives of others, and of the world.  In fact, I’ve rolled around in death and in the stuff of Satan, and that’s where I’ll stay unless You help me.  But have mercy.  You are merciful.  And you were sent for dogs like me.  Bring me into your House, even as a dog at Your feet.  That is enough.  I’ll just lick up the crumbs that fall from Your Table.  That’s all I need.  To be with You.”

            And make no mistake, that is faith!  Faith that receives the Lord’s Absolution: “I forgive you all your sins.”  Be it done for you as you desire.  You are healed.  The demons are cast out.  You are no longer a dog.  You are a son, a daughter, a child of God, a member of the House of Israel.  There is a place for you here.  In Jesus.  Because of Jesus.  And yes, the crumbs are sufficient.  But Jesus sets out more than crumbs.  He sets out a Feast!  His crucified and risen body and blood, given and shed for you, whom He has named royal priests and heirs of His Kingdom.

            Now, this is the new reality.  You are a child of God, and you have the Lord’s ear.  But it does often happen (and you know this from experience) that the evil one touches your life, and those you love, with some great affliction, or temptation, or attack.  It is a desperate situation, and you plead with the Lord for mercy and help, but He seems to be silent.  Or even to rebuke you.  Even to insult you.  What are you to do with that?

            From this Gospel, you learn at least three things you are to do with it.  First, you are to receive it as a chastisement calling you to repentance and confession of sins.  Take your place as a dog at the feet of Jesus, knowing that your Master will not be sparing when it comes to offering you the crumbs that fall from the table.  And that is the second thing.  Keep your eyes on the Master.  For He won’t only give you crumbs.  He is Mercy-Incarnate.  He has come for you.  He has set a Feast, and there is a place for you at the Table.  Finally, keep praying.  He does hear.  He will answer.  In His time, and in His way, which is to say, in the way that is best for you.

            So, go ahead, I dare you.  Don’t just compare your prayer life to that of the Canaanite woman.  Let your prayer life be that of the Canaanite woman.  Put yourself in her place, which is precisely the right place for you to be.  Confess your sins.  Confess your confidence in the Lord’s mercy.  Take your place at His feet, and at His Table.  And ask.  In every need, ask Him.  Do not despair.  Jesus will not fail you.  Not now.  Not ever.  You belong to Him.  And so, you have every reason for confidence that He will hear and answer your petition as He knows best.  And on that Day when He removes the veil, and all things are revealed, you will see that He has done all things well.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.