“A Lesson on Faith from a Canaanite Woman”
Matthew 15:21-28
8/17/08
Last week St. Matthew taught us a lesson on faith
from the Apostle Peter. We learned that though faith itself may
be weak and fragile, it clings to a strong Savior in Jesus Christ, who
calms storms with His Word. As long as we keep our eyes on Him,
we can walk with Him on top of the waves and waters of tribulation that
threaten to take us down. Today Matthew gives us another lesson
on faith, this time from a Canaanite woman. She teaches us
perseverance in prayer, showing us how we ought to hope in our
Lord’s mercy in spite of what we might hear or experience to the
contrary. In doing this, she herself receives the mercy she
counted on from Jesus, even though at first it seemed that He was her
enemy.
We can identify ourselves with this woman, in that,
like us, she too was not a Jew. She was a Gentile, specifically a
Canaanite. And if you know your O.T. history it was the
Canaanites whom God had commanded His people, the Israelites, to drive
out of the land once Joshua had brought them in. They were to be
driven out because they worshipped idols, and God didn’t want His
people intermarrying with them, lest their hearts be turned away from
Him to those false gods. But God’s people were unfaithful
to His testament and disobeyed His command. They didn’t
drive out the Canaanites but did intermarry with them, and they did
abandon the true God, the God who had declared Himself to be their God
and they His people, the God who had delivered them from their slavery
in Egypt and brought them into a land flowing with milk and honey.
The Canaanites, then, were still living among
God’s people though they were not God’s people. They
were in fact enemies of God’s people. They had no claim to
His promises, no right to live under His protection, no right to call
upon Him for help. Instead, they were under His curse, under His
sentence of extermination on account of their sin. And
that’s where we Gentiles are by nature. The Apostle Paul
describes our condition in this way: He says, “Remember
that... you Gentiles... were at [one] time separated from Christ,
alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the
testaments of promise, having no hope and without God in the
world.” Like this woman, we are idolaters by nature in our
hearts, under God’s curse, under His wrath, bound to be driven
out of His presence into a place of torment for all eternity.
Like this woman, we have no right to address Jesus as our Lord.
We have no right to call upon Him, the Son of David, as if He were our
Messiah. As Son of David Jesus comes from the Jews to the
Jews. St. Matthew’s Gospel account is written to the
Jews. This woman realizes that Jesus is the Messiah of the Jews,
and yet she, a Gentile, comes to Him for help.
By the way, not only is she a Gentile, but
she’s also a woman, and in those days in Jewish tradition a man
was taught to avoid women. They were not to talk to women or to
teach them. They were not even to greet them. They were not
to make any gestures at them or wink at them. So, not only did
this woman not have any right to appeal to Jesus for help because she
was a Gentile, but also as a woman she could scarcely hope for an
audience with this Jewish Man.
And again, you and I must confess that we in no way
deserve an audience with Jesus. We are Gentile dogs, unworthy
sinners, people of another god, who don’t deserve the
Lord’s ear, let alone His mercy. Jesus comes from the
Abraham and David crowd to seek after those who have strayed from His
flock. We have no right to call Him our Messiah.
But all of this will not deter this Canaanite woman
from coming to Jesus for mercy anyway. “Have mercy on me, O
Lord, Son of David,” she cries. “My daughter is
severely oppressed by a demon.” “Rightly so,”
Jesus could have answered her. “Both you and she are
children of the devil.” You and I, too, on account of our
sin and rebellion against God rightly belong to the devil. Not
only do we deserve to be oppressed by demons but possessed by
them. But Jesus says nothing to the woman. He remains
silent. He ignores her. He pretends not even to hear her,
giving her the strong impression that He doesn’t care about her,
further confirming that He’s not her Messiah. It seems
cruel of Jesus not to answer this woman, but again, He’s under no
obligation to do so. The woman and her daughter deserve this
suffering on account of their sin. You and I deserve the
suffering we experience in this life on account of our sin. We,
too, deserve the silent treatment from God because of our rebellion
against Him. And sometimes when we pray to God for mercy it seems
like He does give us the silent treatment. Is He listening to
us? Will He answer us? Does He care for us?
It’s during those times that we need to ask ourselves, Will
God’s apparent silence deter us from proceeding further with our
prayers? Will God’s silence keep you from trusting in the
mercy He promises you in His Word?
The Canaanite woman knew that Jesus was
merciful. She had heard of the mercy He showed His people in
forgiving them their sins and healing them and their children of their
infirmities. Would He show that mercy towards her, even though
she wasn’t a Jew? She would pursue Him until she got
it. The disciples of Jesus, on the other hand, act according to
the Jewish traditions of the day and ask Jesus to send her away,
because she’s such a bother with all her crying and
begging. The devil likes to sow these kinds of thoughts into our
heads too. “Leave God alone. Don’t you know He
doesn’t care about such trivial things? If He hasn’t
answered you yet He isn’t going to. You’ve sinned too
much to expect His mercy. You don’t have any right to ask
Him for help, so stop!”
But the woman won’t go away, and Jesus
doesn’t send her away. Instead, He says, “I was sent
only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He’s
finally spoken some words, but they are still no words of mercy.
They’re not even addressed to her directly. Jesus
hasn’t even showed her the courtesy of speaking to her face to
face yet. And with these words He seems to further confirm to her
that He is not her Messiah. She is not among the lost sheep of
the house of Israel. She’s not a Jew. She’s a
Canaanite. Therefore, she can expect no mercy from Jesus.
At this point we might be wondering, What kind of
Jesus is this? What does He mean He was only sent to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel? Does this mean that only the Jews
can be saved? Where does that leave me, a Gentile? Is there
no hope, no mercy for me? At this point if it were you or I who
was there begging Jesus to have mercy upon us we probably would have
returned home in despair. Everything Jesus has said and done thus
far has seemed to make it clear that He is only the Savior of some, and
those some are the Jews. These alone are those for whom He
died. They alone are His people. They alone have the right
to request His mercy. But does all this deter the woman?
No! She has virtually been rejected by Christ, and yet she
continues pleading with Him. She even kneels before Him and begs
Him, “Lord help me!”
Now, by this time we’d expect that Jesus would
stop torturing this poor woman and grant her request. But
no... Instead, He says, “It’s not right to take the
children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” He
finally addresses her personally, but still His words seem to throw up
road blocks to her request for mercy. He even calls her a
dog. What is Jesus doing with this woman?? He’s
testing her faith. Will she cling to the word she’s heard
about His mercy and persist in asking Him for it until she gets it no
matter what else He says, or will she let the road blocks He seems to
be putting up cause her to give up in despair? The Lord tests you
and me in the same way. It’s a hard lesson to learn.
It’s like a final exam that Jesus is giving us, and the question
is, When you cry to the Lord for mercy, will you persevere in your
pursuit of it even when He seems to ignore you, even when He seems to
be your enemy, even though you don’t deserve to address Him as
your Lord, even though He calls you an unworthy sinner and a dog?
Will you cling to His promise to be merciful to you even in spite of
any words He speaks which would seem to suggest otherwise, or will you
give up in despair?
This woman does not give up in despair. She
passes the test, and she does it by catching Jesus in His own
words. She freely confesses herself to be a dog.
“Call me a dog; that’s okay. But if you’re
going to do that, may I remind you that even the dogs eat the crumbs
that fall from their masters’ table.” And with these
words she’s trapped Jesus; there’s no way of escape for
Him. He could simply say, “I’m not going to help you;
stop bothering me” and move on, but His words won’t allow
Him to do that. If His words are true and she’s a dog and
even dogs benefit from what their masters give to their children, then
He’s bound to be merciful to her, a Gentile dog who is feeding
off the crumbs of the Bread of Life that the heavenly Father is giving
to His children. Jesus is bound by His own words to have mercy on
this woman. And so, it’s at that point that Jesus praises
her faith and grants her request.
He says her faith is great. It’s great,
not because it boasts in something it did to earn Jesus’
mercy. Faith is great, not because of the quantity or quality of
it, but because it clings to the Lord’s promise of mercy in spite
of any words to the contrary. Jesus’ words of mercy trump
His words of condemnation and judgment. Faith trusts in
Jesus’ words of mercy even when it hears Jesus’ words of
Law. Faith believes that all the promises of God are
‘Yes’ in Jesus even when all it seems to hear from Him is
‘No.’ Faith holds onto God’s promised mercy
towards us in Christ and pursues Him for it even to the point of
trapping Him into a corner with His words until we get it. Jesus
wants you to do this with Him. He wants you to corner Him with
His Word. When you do that, your faith is called great and it
gets what it requests. In the woman’s case she got the
mercy she requested of Jesus: He healed her daughter instantly.
The lesson on faith from this Canaanite woman, then,
is twofold: First, we must confess that we like her are unworthy
sinners, beggars before God, children of the devil by nature, who
neither deserve to call Jesus our Lord nor to ask anything of Him,
least of all His mercy. Instead, we deserve His wrath. But
secondly, the Gospel accounts tell us that Jesus is not just the Savior
of the Jews, but that He is the Savior of the whole world, wishing to
pour out His mercy upon all. This Jewish Messiah has made Himself
your Messiah, too, who took your sins and your unworthiness upon
Himself on the cross. Now, by way of your Baptismal faith in Him
you have been declared righteous and given the right to be the true
children of God, children who at one time were far away but who have
now been brought near by the blood of Jesus. And as God’s
children you are no longer considered dogs who simply feed on crumbs,
but at His gracious invitation you get to eat of the Bread of Life that
God feeds you with here at His Table. And furthermore, you have
been given the right to call upon God for mercy with the promise that
He hears you and that He will grant your request. There may be
times when God appears to be silent, when it seems that He
doesn’t care, when it seems like He’s all but telling you
that you can’t count on Him for help. But nothing could be
further from the truth. It’s at those times when you need
to cling to His words of mercy and throw those words back at Him.
Trap Jesus in His words as this Canaanite woman did, and expect Him to
keep His Word. The Lord loves it when you do this to Him.
It is such faith that Jesus praises and calls great, and He grants His
mercy to all who call upon Him in such faith. Amen.