MAKING CHILDREN OUT OF DOGS

The Second Sunday in LENT

28 February, AD 2010

TEXT:  St. Matthew 15:21 – 28.  

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

“Then Jesus answered and said unto her, ‘O woman, great is thy faith:  be it unto thee even as thou wilt.’  And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”  (St. Matthew 15:28).

During the season of Gesimatide, we explored virtues that have been made available to us to use, not only during the season of Lent, but throughout our Christian journey with our Lord Jesus Christ.  They are known as the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, which the King James translation cites as charity.  Now that we have begun another Lenten journey, we hear and see in the Gospel lesson this morning an example of the workings of one of these theological virtues; namely, faith.

Jesus has left Jewish territory and has entered the region of Tyre and Sidon, the country northwest of where He has just been ministering.  This is the first of two times that our Lord will enter the land of Gentiles during His earthly ministry.  We are not sure why He has gone into Gentile territory, but the first person He meets there is a Canaanite woman, as St. Matthew describes her – using the name of her ancient ancestors who were enemies of the Jews.  The Canaanites were the original inhabitants of the land that became Palestine and through the history of their interaction with the Hebrew people, they were found to be sexually immoral idolaters, whose lingering presence in the land tested and tempted Israel at every turn, so, historically, there was a lot of “bad blood” between the Canaanites and the Jews.  So it is that this Canaanite woman comes out and approaches Jesus and His Apostles and says to him, “Have mercy on me Lord, Son of David; my daughter is possessed by a demon.”  The term Lord, that she uses, is out of respect and humility, not because she knows Jesus as “Lord”.  But she does call Jesus, Son of David, which betrays the fact that she has some idea, at least from a Jewish perspective about who this man is.  But Our Lord takes no notice of her and does not respond to her plea.  Evidently she cries out loudly and follows Jesus and His group, so much so that, the Apostles, exhibiting the classical prejudice of Jews towards Canaanites, finally ask Jesus to send her away because she is making a scene.  It is then that Jesus says, within earshot of the woman presumably, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”  Again the Canaanite woman approaches Jesus and, this time, kneels at His feet and worships Him.  In essence she says, “I’m not asking for myself, but for my daughter.  Please heal her!”  It is now that Jesus responds directly to the woman and says, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”  Immediately the woman responds, “Yes Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  Jesus is clearly moved by her response and says, “O woman, great is your faith!  Be it done for you as you desire.”  And the Gospel tells us that her daughter was healed instantly.

There are many questions raised in this encounter of Jesus with the Canaanite woman; so many that we could spend all day examining them and applying them to aspects of our Christian journey, but we have only enough time to mention some very important ones here, this morning.  First, what moved the woman to come out to Jesus in the first place?  If she was a pagan, clearly as all Canaanites were, why did she not go to the temple of the pagan god of healing, Eshmun, which we know was only about three miles away?  What drove her out of her city to seek Jesus and His healing word for her daughter?  Why did Jesus ignore her at first and then act as if He were not going to help her, but seemingly insulted her by calling her a dog in front of His Apostles?  And, finally, what do we hear in her words that moved Jesus to have compassion upon her and heal her daughter?  For these answers, we have to go all the way back to Genesis, chapter 12, verse 3, and hear God’s promise to Abram when he first called him.  That verse reads, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you will I curse, and in you all the peoples of the earth shall be blessed.”  Now move forward several thousand years to the ministry of Our Lord and how is message of salvation was received by the majority of Israel.  How many Jews believed God’s message of salvation through Jesus Christ when He lived and worked among them?  Precious few.  Nevertheless, that was God’s plan – to offer salvation to all people through the Israel of God.  This is why Jesus told the woman, I have come only to the lost sheep of Israel.  The Lord’s mission was to His own people – at first – to receive salvation and blessing from God.  But it was not to stop with them.  It was then to spread to all people of the earth through God’s chosen people, the Jews.  But the Jews rejected Jesus by and large as Messiah.  In contrast, the Gentiles were ready to accept the Good News of salvation by faith, based not on arrogance, pride, or racial privilege, but through a deep, faithful, and humble sense of need!  This is what drove the Canaanite woman out of her pagan city to Jesus at first – the need for her daughter to be healed and the realization of the promise of God to all peoples of the earth.  In fact, it is Epiphanius the Latin, a Bishop in the late 5th, early 6th century AD that calls this woman the Mother of the Gentiles, because through this encounter with Jesus, she is the first to receive the blessing and promises of God and begins the Gentile mission of salvation to the world!

So why, then, did Jesus ignore her when she first approached Him?  It wasn’t that He didn’t have compassion upon her, but He wanted, instead, for her to make manifest to those around her the magnitude of her faith and to use her faith, in particular, as an opportunity to teach that faith is available to all people – Jew and Gentile alike!  This is why Jesus said to her, “I came only to the lost sheep of Israel.”, so that she would implore Him to heal her daughter precisely because of her faith.  

Finally, in order to bring her faith fully out into the open for all to see, Jesus says, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.”  Meaning, that my message is for the chosen children of Israel only, not for those other than to whom the promise was given, originally.  By calling her, figuratively, a dog, Jesus is here contrasting the Jewish attitude towards “people like her” with His own, because He knows He is going to heal her daughter.  He is also showing those around Him that it isn’t a matter of racial heritage or privilege who will receive salvation but one who has faith.  To which the woman immediately responds, “Yes Lord, that is true enough.  But even the dogs who sit under their masters’ table get the crumbs that fall beneath it!”  In essence she is saying back to Jesus, “I know, Lord, that the Gentile people are dogs for worshipping idols and barking at God.  But you came to the Jews and manifested yourself to them, and they didn’t accept you.  What they rejected, give to us who are asking you for it!”  Again it is Epiphanius the Latin who says in his commentary, “Faith accepts what work does not merit, and through faith the Gentiles were made children of God out of dogs.”  This is what moved our Lord to comment on the public expression of this woman’s faith and say, “O woman, great is thy faith!  be it unto thee even as thou wilt!”  And the woman’s daughter was healed from that selfsame hour.

We know, through the witness of the Holy Scriptures, that many Jews lost God’s blessing and salvation because they rejected Jesus.  Conversely, many Gentiles found salvation because by their faith and humility, they recognized and accepted God Incarnate.  Do you begin to understand how powerful a spiritual tool faith is and what it can do for your eternal soul?  There is a reason for hearing about all the theological virtues just before Lent begins and then seeing and experiencing them being put into action for us. We, like the Canaanite woman have been made children of God through our own faith in Jesus Christ and our acceptance of Him as Our Lord and Saviour.  As you continue your Lenten journey and move ever deeper into those recesses of your soul where selfishness, egoism, and pride still dwell, as they do in us all, use the powerful gifts of humility and faith to drive them away and bring you more perfectly into your being a Child of God both now and for all eternity.

And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due this day both now and forever; world without end.  Amen.

SOLI DEO GLORIA – JEU+