Second Sunday in Lent
Matthew 15:21-28
If one were to pick episodes out of the Gospels in order to introduce Jesus to someone who does not know him, I’ll bet that the gospel lesson appointed for today is exactly the one they would never pick. There is, of course, much in the Bible that would not pass muster from the Panjandrums of Political Correctedness, but Jesus’ behavior in this episode takes the modern canons of correct behavior, flings them to the ground, and dances on them.
First of all, he rejects the pitiful cries of help from a woman. Does Jesus anywhere reject a man so bluntly as he rejects this woman? By modern conventions of appropriate behavior, there is more than a hint of sexism here. And, his rejection seems shockingly cold. He doesn’t say a word to her when she begins bawling out to him. Her cries are so constant and compelling that FINALLY it is the embarrassed and frustrated Disciples who appeal to Jesus to send her away. Evidently, THEY were unable to get her to stop hollering out for help.
Next, there is Jesus’ ethnic exclusivity. “I am sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel,” he tells her. She is not Jewish. Jesus is there for the Jews, not the Gentiles. Moreover, she is a Canaanitish woman. Not only does she have no claim on Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, her people were the ancient enemies of the Jews, the ones whom God had dispossessed, the ones whom God sent the Jews to destroy for the depth of their national, cultural, and spiritual sins.
And, finally, there is the flip side of this ethnic priority of the Jews. I’m referring to the ethnic INFERIORITY of Gentiles. To help the woman would be like taking bread made for the children and giving it to dogs instead. Jesus’ point is impossible to miss: “You, woman, and your daughter, are dogs.” How rude! How coarse! How utterly ungracious!
If we explored all the angles which this episode presents us, we could easily generate a 12-week Bible study. But, to be honest, we have only about 12 minutes. So I want to comment briefly on three angles offered by the gospel text in front of us.
The first thing to say is this: the point of Matthew’s penning this episode is to focus a very bright spotlight on a gentile woman’s faith in Jesus. Remember, Matthew’s gospel that has a Jewish audience primarily in mind. For that reason, the primary point of including this episode in Matthew’s gospel would be this: to do what God had always promised he would do to his disobedient and foolish people.
God had warned about this as far back as the Prophet Moses. In his own funeral song Moses sang these words, offering them to the people as the words of God:
“For they are a perverse generation, Children in whom is no faith. 21They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God; They have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols. But I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation;
I will move them to anger by a foolish nation.”
And, so what you see in Jesus’ actions toward this Canaanitish woman is an individual instance what Paul was referring to in Romans 11: “…to provoke [Israel] to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.”
Let me emphasize at this point something which we Gentile Christians almost never keep in mind. The blessing which Jesus bestowed on this woman, like the astounding blessings which come to Gentiles generally – including every one of us here today – ALL OF THESE BLESSINGS have as their ultimate purpose the salvation of Israel. Jesus is STILL the Messiah of the Jews, and his purpose is STILL to redeem Israel from its sins. The salvation of us Gentile Christians is not an afterthought, but neither is it the main point. Our salvation serves another purpose, and that is a purpose toward which Christ at this very moment is still working – the salvation of the Seed of Abraham. As Paul writes to Gentile Christians in Romans 11:
25For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; 27For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins."
There is a second angle on this episode which I might not mention in some other venue, but I am constrained to mention it here among all of you who know me and know our family’s history.
I have stood in the very place where this Syro-phoenician woman stood. I once had a daughter who was grievously vexed. Whether it had a demonic root or not, I do not know; but, I do know that she was grievously vexed, and so were all of us in our family, because we all knew that the tumor which was growing in her brain was going to kill her.
For sixteen months, as I sat in the very pews in which you are sitting right now, I cried out to the same Jesus that this woman cried out to. I did so for the very same reason this Syro-phoenician woman cried out to him – I knew, as she also knew, that Jesus could heal my daughter, that Jesus had extended that power in so many other instances. Jesus’ ability to save Francesca was never in question; Jesus’ willingness to save Cheska was the only thing that we lacked. And, as the Syro-phoenician woman obviously knew, as I knew as well, the only way to secure Jesus’ willingness is to ask.
God only knows how many other Christians were pleading for her life during those 16 months. But, all of us who were pleading know that those pleas did NOT get the answer that this Syro-phoenician woman got.
And, so we come down to this question: why, then, did Cheska die? Why, with this example of Jesus responding to the earnest and persistent pleas of a desperate parent, why was Jesus’ answer in our case “No,” instead of “Yes?”
The answer lies in a single detail that makes my situation DIFFERENT from the Syro-phoenician woman’s situation. Cheska and I and all my family are Christians. UNLIKE the Syro-phoenician woman, our family had a history of identification with Jesus. UNLIKE the Syro-phoenician woman, my family – including Francesca – was united with Christ in baptism. UNLIKE the Syro-phoenician woman, our glory as Christians is not only to share in Christ’s resurrection, but to share in his suffering. UNLIKE the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman, my daughter Cheska found herself called to a calling to which Jesus has called many of his disciples – one which Paul described in this way in 1 Corinthians 4:
8We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed-- 10always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. … 17For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, …”
In a nutshell, Cheska died because Jesus died. From one perspective, God our heavenly Father asked Cheska to do what He had asked his own Son to do – to trust in him. And, this is Cheska’s greatest glory – in the life and in the death of one nine-year old girl, we got to see up close how precious is the faith of such a child in the one who said let the children come to me. And, her death also brought to me a blessing which I could never have acquired any other way. I am no longer afraid of death. This is not a boast, but a testimony to my confidence that as Jesus’ grace was sufficient for my daughter, so it is sufficient for me.
Finally, I wish to direct your attention to something else – a way in which this Syro-phoenician woman’s faith is a continuing blessing to each one of us here today. Obviously, her example is preserved for us here in Matthew’s gospel, as well as in the seventh chapter of Mark’s gospel. And, that example is a blessing and encouragement for us to mimic her faith.
But, for us small-“c” catholic Christians here is another blessing, one which you can obtain each and every time you pray the Prayer of Humble Access in the Eucharist. In a short while, we shall all pray together these words:
“WE do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table.”
Crumbs under the Lord’s Table. Where have we heard those words before? They are the words of the Syro-Phoenician woman, who took Jesus’ words – that she and her daughter were no different than the household dogs – and found in them a cause for hope. The Prayer of Humble Access takes this thought one step further – by acknowledging that we are even LESS worthy than the household dogs.
Why, then, do we approach this, the Lord’s Table? We do so, because of what follows next in this prayer:
“But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy:”
Did you ever wonder about that word “same?” I used to think it was just an archaic artifact of 16th Century Cranmerian English. But, I was mistaken. As we address the Lord in this prayer, we acknowledge that we are addressing the SAME one whom the Syro-phoenician woman addressed. We are saying, “Lord, we know who you are, and that you are the same one who granted this woman the crumbs she asked for. She received those crumbs from you, and because she did, we who are even LESS worthy than she find courage to make our request.” And, that request is found in the next sentence of the prayer:
“Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, …”
The Canaanitish woman happily asked for crumbs AND SHE GOT THEM. We, however, get something far, far more than crumbs. In John 6, Jesus tells us what we receive:
53Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58This is the bread which came down from heaven--not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever."
And so we pray, borrowing our words from the Syro-phoenician woman, to ask for something far, far beyond what she ever dreamed of asking for. And by the faithfulness of Christ and by the power of His Spirit, we receive from Him what we pray for. We do not pray for crumbs from under the Lord’s, but we ask to receive the very bread of heaven.
Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed, through his most precious Blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us.
God grant us that as we speak with our mouths the words of this desperate mother, we may have the same faith she had in the same Lord to whom she appealed.
God grant that when we take in our mouths the bread and the wine of the Eucharist, we may truly feed upon Him by very same faith in that very same Lord.
And, finally, for we whose souls are washed, through his most precious blood, for we whose bodies are made clean by His body, grant that we may find in our very lives the life of the one who died for us, so that we ever more dwell in Him, and He in us.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
