Sermon for Reminiscere – Lent 2

1 Thessalonians 4:1-7  +  Matthew 15:21-28

We met the chief demon in last week’s Gospel, the devil himself, also known as the tempter and Satan. This week, we meet lesser demons in the Gospel. But they’re no less harmful. We meet a woman from outside of Israel whose daughter is severely tormented by demons. Demons can afflict people in various ways. In some cases, they’re able to completely possess an unbeliever’s body, and it’s likely that the Canaanite woman’s daughter had been an unbeliever, as that woman herself likely was for much of her life. But demons also have ways of tormenting believers, influencing believers, and, most certainly, tempting believers to sin, and they already have a strong ally in our own sinful flesh.

But the devil’s temptations often become God’s tool for saving people. What the devil does to destroy us and to separate us from God, God uses to bring unbelievers into contact with Him so that, sometimes, they become believers. As for God, He tempts no one, but He does test His children, even as He tested His own Son in the wilderness, in order to strengthen us, to build up our perseverance and character, to bring us closer to Him and His Word, and to accomplish other purposes that we may never even know about. So the temptations and the testing continue in today’s Gospel. They were brutal. And what was it that overcame all the temptations and testing? What was it that overcame the demons? Faith. Faith overcomes all the demons.

The Gentile woman and her daughter from the region of Tyre and Sidon (to the north of Israel) almost certainly started out as unbelievers, who had been raised their whole lives to worship idols, to believe falsehoods, and to live in sin and depravity. That was their upbringing. But when the woman’s daughter was attacked by the demons, it caused her to go looking for help. And we can surmise from her behavior in the Gospel, and from the way she addressed Jesus as “Son of David,” that she had learned about the LORD God of Israel, and of His promises to send the Son of David, the Christ, as a mighty champion, as the one who would save Israel, but whose salvation extended beyond the borders of Israel. She had learned, even in her foreign country, about Jesus and His goodness and power. She had heard that He was the promised Messiah. And faith came by hearing. Faith overcame her pagan heritage and her unchurched upbringing and the demonic lies that she had believed her whole life. See how already the Lord was turning the torments of the demons into something beneficial!

When the woman heard that Jesus had entered her territory, outside of Israel, she knew she had to find Him and seek His help. She cried out to Him over and over again, “O Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is dreadfully tormented by demons.” You might think that the Lord would have jumped at the chance to help her. But sometimes faith needs to be exercised and stretched so that it grows, or else, if it always gets what it asks for immediately, it may well shrivel up and die. So Jesus tests her new-found faith by not replying to her. He said not a word in reply. Surely the demons were there, tempting the woman to doubt His kindness, to doubt His mercy—as you also may be tempted to doubt when God doesn’t seem to reply when you pray to Him for help. But faith overcame the demons, and she just kept crying out for help.

Then another test to her faith arose, this time from Jesus’ own disciples. As she kept crying out for mercy, Jesus’ disciples came and begged him, “Send her away! She is crying out after us!” Surely the demons were there, tempting the woman to take offense at the disciples’ unloving behavior, at their heartless indifference to her suffering, tempting her to despair of Jesus’ help and to run away in shame—as you also may be tempted to turn away from God when other Christians behave badly, as they sometimes do. But faith overcame the demons, and she stayed right where she was, without anger, without despair, ignoring the behavior of the disciples, focusing only on Jesus, still expecting to receive from Him the help she so desperately needed.

Jesus then responded, but not in a positive way. He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Now, how to understand those words? Well, Jesus was sent first to the house of Israel, to gather their lost sheep, the ones who had fallen away from the faith and needed to be brought back. 99% of His earthly ministry was devoted to serving the people of Israel, because that’s what He had promised in the Old Testament to do for them. But the Old Testament had prophesied that He would also gather people from the Gentiles into His kingdom. And He had already helped other Gentiles by this point in His ministry. How would the woman understand His words? Surely the demons were there, tempting her to take His words as a dismissal, tempting her to despair, tempting her to give up on God, or to find some sort of sinful racism in Jesus where it didn’t exist—even as the demons may tempt you to think that Jesus came to help everybody except for you, either despairing of His help or charging Him with unfairness. But faith overcame the demons, and the woman fell down before him, saying, “Lord, help me!”

Jesus replied with one final test. He answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Clearly He was referring to the Jews as the children and to the Gentiles as the dogs. It isn’t right to take the mercy that was promised to the Israelites, that was intended for the Israelites, and redirect it to the Gentiles. But, of course, that reply implies that God’s mercy is limited! And it isn’t! As the Scripture says, The Lord’s mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness! His mercy endures forever. Still, the demons were surely there, tempting the woman to become indignant with Jesus, tempting her to take offense at being compared to a dog, tempting her to become jealous of the people of Israel who got to sit at God’s table as His children—even as they may tempt you to give up on God’s mercy, or to become jealous when it seems as if God favored other people over you. But, once again, faith overcame the demons, and the woman walked through the door Jesus had left open for her, Yes, Lord. But the dogs do eat from the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.

Then, finally, after the woman had passed all the tests, after faith had conquered every demon, Jesus spoke those words of praise that He had only spoken once before, also to a non-Jew, Great is your faith! And because faith stayed attached to Jesus, glued to Jesus, as it were, the demons who were torturing the woman’s daughter were also overcome. “Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Jesus’ praise of that woman’s faith overcame still other demons that were tempting Jesus’ disciples and would tempt Christians in the future. The Jews—the children sitting at the table!—were regularly tempted to see the Gentiles as inferior, to treat them like dirt, and to praise themselves for being life-long law-keepers. The disciples might have been tempted to dismiss the Gentiles, to ignore them at best or to mistreat them at worst. But Jesus’ praise of this Gentile woman would ring in their ears in the years to come, because they had seen and would continue to see that very few in the house of Israel showed the kind of great faith that the Gentile woman showed in today’s Gospel, and none of them were praised as directly by Jesus for their faith as she was. And so this brief encounter recorded in today’s Gospel has been responsible for overcoming untold numbers of demons over the ages, whenever the demons have tempted Christians to look down on another person for their race, their heritage, their background, or their upbringing. The Holy Spirit shows that great faith can dwell in anyone, and where faith in Jesus exists, there is no longer Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free—or black or white or rich or poor—for all believers are one in Christ Jesus.

In today’s world, the kind of unwavering faith shown by the woman in today’s Gospel, the kind that withstands temptation and that holds up under testing, is extraordinarily uncommon, and, as a result, the demons are having their way among men, whether by internal possession, or external oppression, or the influence toward violence, or the instigation to disbelieve God and to believe any and every lie. Worse still, the demons are having their way among many who call themselves Christians but who refuse to submit to the Bible’s teachings, or who insist on living in sin, causing the witness of the Christian Church in the world to be stifled or skewed, or even to become an anti-Christian witness. The demons are powerful, and they will not be overcome by unbelief. They will not be overcome by false doctrine. They will not be overcome by a tepid or timid faith. But, as we learn in today’s Gospel, they will be overcome—all of them—by a faith that clings steadfastly to Christ and His Word. They will be overcome if you fix your gaze on Christ Jesus, hold fast to His word, endure testing with patience, and wait expectantly for His help to come. Then you will see what the woman in the Gospel saw, that faith overcomes all the demons. For, as St. John writes, whatever is born of God overcomes the world (and the demons with it). And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. See to the strengthening of your faith by immersing yourself in the Word of God and by receiving His Sacrament often, and may God, who is faithful, grant you a firm and steadfast faith, the kind that is fixed on Jesus and His mercy toward sinners. Against such a faith, the demons don’t stand a chance. Amen.

Source: Sermons

Sermon for Reminiscere – Lent 2

1 Thessalonians 4:1-7  +  Matthew 15:21-28

In case you haven’t heard, Franklin Graham’s “God loves you” tour is coming to El Paso next week. I’ve only heard snippets of his message, but it’s basically, you guessed it, “God loves you!” Somehow I don’t think he’ll be bringing up the exchange between Jesus and the Canaanite woman from today’s Gospel. It doesn’t exactly shout out to the world, “God loves you!” But then, every time someone tries to reduce Christianity to a catchy, feel-good sound bite, they fail to represent Christianity adequately. When we oversimplify the message, we end up undermining the message, no matter how good our intentions may be.

“God loves you” is certainly part of the Bible’s message. But so is this: “God hates sin. And you’ve sinned against God. You’re born under the devil’s influence and under God’s curse. You must repent and become entirely different from who you are by nature. God loves you, and that means that He has provided a way of salvation for you, in your wretchedness, through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, so that you don’t receive the judgment and condemnation you deserve. Acknowledge your wretchedness before God, and have faith in the Lord Jesus! Only then will you be safe from the devil!”

That’s bigger than a sound bite and not quite as appealing to the crowds, is it? “Acknowledge your wretchedness before God” doesn’t fill the stadiums and the concert halls. Who wants to hear such a thing? Only those who are willing to acknowledge their wretchedness before God. Because those who don’t get tripped up on that first part make it to the second part. “Have faith in the Lord Jesus! Then you will be safe from the devil!” The woman in our Gospel was just such a person. And she teaches us—or rather, the Lord teaches us, through her unlikely example—to acknowledge our own wretchedness, and then to trust in Jesus with an unshakable faith, and to approach Him with persistent prayer, knowing that, in the end, He will help you, because He is the merciful God who loves you.

The Canaanite woman whom we encounter in today’s Gospel was wretched, and knew that she was wretched, largely, because of her race. That’s a hard thing for people today to hear. The devil is filling the world today with this terrible lie: “Your race is special! Your race is good! Your race is something to be proud of, something to be celebrated and honored—unless you’re white. Only then should you be ashamed of your race.” Of course, he spent plenty of time filling the world with the alternate lie: “Your race is bad—unless you’re white! Then it’s good!” Oh, everybody, just stop it! The devil loves to make people feel, either superior to others, or victimized by others, or both. Because in both cases, he keeps your attention off the real problem: the problem of all mankind’s badness before God, the problem of God’s already-spoken judgment against the human race: “There is no one who is good but One, that is, God.”

But, for a time, there was one race among men that was favored by God. Not because they were genetically superior or naturally better than anyone else, but because of God’s gracious, undeserved choice of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God made a covenant with them and crafted a nation out of their descendants. He sent prophets to that nation and gave His word to that nation. He showed fatherly care for that nation for 2,000 years, while He let the other races of men go their own, sinful way, just as they wanted. So the Jewish race was divinely privileged.

But there was one great disadvantage of being the privileged race: It was so easy for pride to take root in their hearts. We see it throughout the Gospels, especially among the Pharisees, but not only among the Pharisees, the Jews’ reliance on their descent from Abraham, an arrogance in what they regarded to be their cultural and moral superiority over every other race, the assumption that God had chosen them because they were so good, and that He didn’t care about the rest of mankind.

Even Jesus’ own disciples seem to have been affected by this superiority complex to some degree, and it was a problem that plagued the early Christian Church for several years even after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

So how would the Jews who became Christians overcome this superiority complex? How would God get through to them? How would He show the Gentiles that, in spite of the bad behavior of many of the Jews and the wrong message they had been sending about God’s attitude toward the Gentiles, God did care about the Gentiles, He did love them and did have a prominent place for them in His plan of salvation and in His Church? By showing them a striking example, a model of persistent prayer and unshakable faith in a woman who was not an Israelite, who was not a Jew, who was not descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but who had, nevertheless, placed her faith and trust in the God of Israel and, specifically, in Jesus as the Christ, the “Son of David,” as she herself addressed Him in today’s Gospel.

Now, in order for this lesson to have the impact God intended, the Canaanite woman needed to be put through a test. Several tests, in fact, in order for her faith to become clear to all. God knew what she needed, what Jesus’ disciples needed, what the Jews needed, and what all people throughout history needed—all those who would read this account in Matthew’s Gospel. He also knew how well the woman would do with these tests. And so He proceeded to test her.

First, she’s forced to go searching for Jesus. He’s come to her territory. He’s left the territory of Israel and come here to the region of Tyre and Sidon, close to her. But Mark’s Gospel reveals that He wasn’t making some big evangelistic tour of the city. He went to a house and tried not to have His presence become known. But somehow this woman heard that Jesus was near, so she searched for Him and found Him. That was test #1.

Then she called out to Him and begged Him to have mercy on her and her daughter, who was severely tormented by demons. We don’t know what that torment looked like, but we can imagine how terrifying and how heart-wrenching it was for this mother to watch. So she called out to Jesus, O Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! But He did not say a word in reply. What was she supposed to think about that? If she had the mentality of most Americans today, she would yell at Him, “Hey, what’s the matter with you, Jesus? I’m talking to You, Dude! I deserve an answer!” But that wasn’t her response. Her response was very simple. “He isn’t answering, so I’ll just keep crying out to Him! I’ll just keep praying!”

That was exactly the right thing to do! But it wasn’t, in the eyes of Jesus’ disciples. Notice, Jesus didn’t send her away, but they wanted to. Then his disciples came and begged him, “Send her away! She is crying out after us!” You know, giving Jesus advice about how to handle things really isn’t a good idea. Ever. It shows a kind of arrogance, doesn’t it? As if you knew better than He did. As if you had some great bit of wisdom that Jesus lacked, and you think you should teach Him how to behave—like how some people react to this account. They don’t like how Jesus talked to that woman, and they want to tell Him He should’ve been nicer to her. Stop it! Put your pride away. Jesus has nothing to learn from you, but you have much to learn from Him. It wasn’t wise for the disciples to try to guide Jesus, nor was it kind toward the woman, and if she was able to hear them asking Jesus to send her away, that was another test of her faith. When you see people who are supposed to be Christians acting rudely, acting inconsiderately, trying to turn certain people away from Jesus, what are they supposed to think about Christ? We need to be very careful that God’s condemnation can never be directed toward us that was directed toward the people of Israel, “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

But Jesus didn’t listen to His disciples. Instead, He gave this strange reply: He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” God the Father did not have Jesus traveling the world to preach the Gospel. In fact, as far as we’re told, this is the one and only time Jesus ever left the borders of Israel during His entire earthly ministry. But Isaiah, among other prophets, had prophesied about the enlarging of Israel—the enlarging of it to include Gentiles from the farthest reaches of the earth. The Son of David, the Christ, was coming for everyone, to be everyone’s King and Savior!

She passed that test, too. She came even closer to Jesus, fell down before him, saying, “Lord, help me!” But he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” This is the greatest test of all. Will the woman go away in despair at having her race referred to as being one of the dogs? Will she get angry? Will she start bad-mouthing Jesus or the Jews? No, none of those things. She agrees with Jesus and finds hope in His words. “Yes, Lord. But the dogs do eat from the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Oh, woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Such persistent prayer! Such unshakable faith in the Lord Jesus and in His mercy and willingness to help, in spite of what looked, at first, like rejection. It’s worth noting again that this is only one of two instances in the Gospels where Jesus praises someone’s great faith. And it came from such an unlikely place, from a non-Jewish woman, with a demon-afflicted daughter, living outside of Israel, who was content to be compared to a wretched dog, because by acknowledging her wretchedness before God as a Gentile and, more importantly, as a sinner, it meant that, instead of being offended by the apparent rejection coming from her God, she was still able to see Jesus for who He was: the merciful, caring, self-sacrificing Son of God who loved her and would help her.

It’s impossible to say what impact this event had on Jesus’ disciples immediately. But it surely helped the Jews who became Christians to start seeing the Gentiles who became Christians as their equals in the kingdom of God, as their brothers and sisters in Christ, capable of the same faith that the Jewish Christians had, and recipients of the same grace and salvation that the Jewish Christians received.

This is what God would have you see in this Gospel, too, what He would have you learn from this wretched yet wonderful Canaanite woman, that there’s no point trying to deny your wretchedness before God. Swallow your pride and acknowledge it. Then, when you hear God’s holy Law condemning sinners for unholy thoughts and words and deeds, you can say, “Yes, I’m one of those, too, and I’m sorry for the wrong I’ve done. But I know that Jesus came to save sinners and to rescue them from sin and death and the devil’s grasp. And since I’m a wretched sinner, that means He came to save me, too.”

He did. And, through faith in Christ Jesus, God has saved you. And just as Christ flung the demon away from the woman’s daughter with a word, so He will also save you from the devil and from every evil. Keep trusting in Him! Keep praying to Him, and don’t give up! Because…God loves you. Amen.

Source: Sermons