Lent 2
– February 24th and 25th, 2018 – Matthew
15:21-28
In the Name of Christ the Crucified +
In the Name of Christ the Crucified +
Last
week in our Gospel we saw our Lord confront Satan and his lies there
in the wilderness, we saw our Lord put Satan to flight. This Sunday,
our Lord heals a young woman, the daughter of a Canaanite woman,
frees her from demon possession. This should be no surprise – if
you’ve defeated Satan, defeating one of his minions isn’t going
to be a problem. In fact, the healing of this girl is almost
incidental to the story – we never see her, we never hear her.
Instead, we see the interaction between her mother, the disciples,
and Jesus, and in this interaction, we see our Lord fight something
else. We see our Lord take on pride and ego, pride and ego that can
lead to a weakening and even destruction of faith. Let us examine
our text.
“And
Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and
Sidon. And 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.’”
Consider this: Jesus had just been having bitter discussions with the
Pharisees, who were so full of themselves and their own
righteousness, that to get a break, He headed to the coast, left
Jewish territory behind. He is going to take a break from
self-righteousness. And what happens? There, in that place, is a
woman who calls out for mercy, seeking Jesus’ aid. And did you
note what she calls Him? She calls Him “Lord” – that’s a
good starting place, she recognizes Him as divine. Moreover, she
calls Him “Son of David.” Think about this – the Canaanites
were the ancient enemies of Israel, the ones who had fought David –
this is the descendant of folks like the Jebusites, and there she is
calling Christ the Son of David. She is repenting of the sins of her
people – this is astonishing. It would be like a muslim terrorist
suddenly announcing to the world that he has repudiated Islam and is
becoming a Christian – something we should all rejoice over.
But
there is a problem. “But He did not
answer her a word.” Doesn’t this
seem strange? How often do we see Christ ignore someone in the
Scriptures? We don’t see it often – but there is a reason for it
here. Jesus is going to teach His disciples, give them a quiz, see
how they react and respond. And they fail utterly. “And
His disciples came and begged Him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she
is crying out after us.’” I really
don’t know if there is a more chilling sentence in the Scriptures –
I mean, think about this. Here you have the disciples seeing a poor
woman who has confessed Jesus to be Lord, to be the Son of David, the
Messiah… eh, send her away, she’s bothering us. And not just
being dismissive of her – they BEG Jesus to send her away. It’s
hatred and contempt of the most vile sort that these disciples show.
So we have a contrast set before us – this woman who is in
desperate straits throws herself before Jesus for the sake of her
daughter, and the disciples, who when they hear of this woman’s
plight, instead of praying for her, instead of begging Christ to heal
her, beg Him to let her and her daughter remain in suffering, remain
oppressed by one of Satan’s demons.
This
is the battle Christ fights in our Gospel today. The real opponent
isn’t that demon that has possessed the girl – having defeated
Satan a demon is small potatoes. The larger danger is disciples’
approach. The pride, the ego that the disciples had – pride in
being good Jewish men who wouldn’t stoop to dealing with a
Canaanite woman, pride in being the real disciples of Christ as
opposed to this foreign trollop. The disciples saw themselves as the
good people, the righteous ones, the ones that Jesus owed something
to, and they had nothing but disdain for woman. And this makes them
cold and callous… this pride drives from their hearts any semblance
of love or compassion… and at this moment, these disciples are
nothing.
Hatred
kills faith. Disdain and ego and pride kill faith. They twist our
eyes back onto ourselves where we think only of ourselves and ignore
both God and neighbor. Send her away, for she is annoying us because
she’s crying, she’s making a scene, and we don’t want to be
bothered. I’m hard pressed to think of more faithless words in the
Scriptures. And so, Jesus decides to use this Canaanite woman to
teach the disciples, teach us what faith is, teach us what to repent
of when pride and ego stir up hatred to attack our faith.
“He
answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.’” Note this – Jesus is
answering the disciples here – He is responding to them. Alright,
you guys are so proud of being of Israelites, that’s what you think
is important – alright, let’s do it your way, I’m here just for
you. Guess she’s not My problem, deal with her yourselves in your
own arrogance. This is throwing the disciples’ pride back in their
face, this is throwing ego right back at them. And it stops the
disciples flat. They got what they wanted – they wanted a Jesus
that was just going to deal with them… and it doesn’t do them any
good. This is throwing their failure right at them, showing them
they have gotten an F.
Then
the Canaanite woman comes forward, and she shows what faith is. “But
she came and she knelt before Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’”
The disciples were brash, telling the Lord what to do, how He should
or shouldn’t treat others. This woman is humble simply asking,
pleading for help. She doesn’t command, she simply pleads. There
is great humility here. And Christ is going to show the depths of
her humility, her faith. “And He
answered, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw
it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the
crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’”
And Jesus insults her – you deserve nothing, you little dog, you
wretched little thing. Now, imagine for a moment what the disciples’
reaction would have been if Christ had called them wretched and mangy
dogs. Think of how incensed they would have been, how angry – how
their pride would have flared up – how dare you say such things.
We are Israelites, we aren’t dogs, we are the good people. In
fact, we’ll hear a conversation like this with the Pharisees in
just a few weeks. That pride, that ego would blot out and blind
everything.
The
Canaanite woman doesn’t approach Christ with ego, with pride. She
comes with humility. Christ tells her, “You are lowly, you are
poor and wretched and deserve nothing.” And she says yes. Yes,
You are right, I am poor and lowly and I deserve nothing… but You
are good and kind and You will see that crumbs fall my way. To which
Jesus says, “O woman, great is your
faith! Be it done for you as you desire.”
And her daughter is healed – she has shown the disciples what
faith looks like.
The
question we must ask ourselves is this. How do we approach God? Do
we approach God as those who are worthy of His blessings, as those
who can say, “Because I am so wonderful, I demand that you treat me
well?” That isn’t faith, that’s pride. Or do we approach our
Lord and say, “I have sinned in thought, word, and deed by my
fault, by my own fault, by my own most grievous fault”? – do we
approach God seeking mercy not because of who we are but of His
boundless mercy and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter
sufferings and death of Christ Jesus? This is the approach of faith,
where we cling not to ourselves, not to our own righteousness, but
cling to Christ. For this is a battle that Christ comes to wage –
He wages war not only against Satan, but against our own sinful
flesh. If left to our own devices, we would do nothing but fight
against God – our sinful flesh wants everything our way, our sinful
will thinks only of what seems good to us, feels good to us, makes us
look nice and proper. We need this sinfulness in us broken and
destroyed – that is the point of praying “Thy Will Be Done” –
God’s will is done when He breaks and
hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our
sinful nature. In our text, it was not the
disciples’ will that was done, but rather Christ’s gracious and
merciful will – and in faith, we call out to God to see that His
will is done, indeed, to see that the power of His Gospel, His love,
His forgiveness come crashing into our lives and change us, break us
free from our sin and ego and make us to grow in love. That’s the
prayer after the Supper – upon receiving His gifts “we implore
You that of Your mercy You would strengthen us through the same in
faith towards You and in fervent love toward one another” – that
God would increase our faith, that we would learn ever more to not
only cling to Him but to love our poor and wretched neighbors who
need Christ as much as we do.
Lent
is a season of repentance, it is a time of self-examination. And
when we look at ourselves, we see the little flares of pride and ego
pop up, pride and ego that would hinder and prevent us from showing
love, pride and ego that would make us want to close our eyes to our
neighbor and turn our backs upon God. But Lent is also the season
where we see Christ Jesus go to battle for us, for our sake, and part
of that battle He fights for us is against our sinful flesh. He
reproves us and corrects us, shows us our sin that we might repent of
it, but more than that, He shows us mercy, shows us His goodness and
kindness, teaches us that we need not have any ego because it is not
our worth that earns His love – rather He freely gives it, that He
sees that we are fed, takes us poor miserable sinful dogs and
washes us in Baptism and says, “You are now My brother, My Sister,
indeed, My own Body, and all that I have, My righteousness, My
holiness, My life – it is yours. See, I love you, and I will stop
at nothing, not even death, to free you from sin.” Christ fights
for us, dear friends, and that is a wondrous and humbling thing. It
is His fighting for us that gives us the gift of faith by which we
have life in His name, all thanks be to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In the Name of Christ the Crucified +