Brothers and sisters in Christ, have you ever thought about what impresses Jesus?
The large stones of the temple built up by King Herod did not impress Jesus. While the disciples looked at the construction in wonder, He warned the disciples that not one stone would be left on another. The size of the Roman empire or the authority of Pilate to condemn or release him did not impress Jesus. We even hear at times how Jesus is underwhelmed by the disciples in their response of faith. “O you of little faith.”
The faith of the Canaanite woman however caught Jesus’ attention as she asked for her daughter to be healed: The Canaanite woman came to Jesus in a time of great need, seeking help for her daughter oppressed by a demon. She appealed to Jesus with recognition that he is a descendant of David, that he is of the people of Israel. She acknowledged in her appeal to Jesus her position as an outsider. She communicated by her speech that she was out on a limb in her appeal to Jesus, depending completely on the mercy of Jesus.
“O woman great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” Jesus seems to have reacted in a similar way as he did to the faith of the Centurion in Matthew chapter 8: When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israelhave I found such faith. Faith, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, is what Jesus treasures in this world.
Jesus celebrated the faith of the Canaanite woman knowing that she represented one of the first of many who would come to faith as gentiles- grated into the vine of Israel. God’s word rejoices in the plan of salvation that the gentiles also would come to know God, through a continuation and an extension of the salvation God gave to Israel.
these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”8 The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”
Just as Israel has its outcasts who need gathering back in, so also the LORD promised to gather the nations back to Him. It was never the plan to only provide salvation to Israel and leave everyone else out. Abraham was called to faith so that all nations would be blessed through him.
The promise is there in the scripture that the Lord’s house is a house of prayer for all peoples. Yet just before Jesus praises the faith of the woman, it appears by our modern sensitivities that Jesus was insensitive to the Canaanite woman,
that he was closing the door on her faith in an unloving and unrespectful way. Can you imagine how it would sound in today’s world for someone to tell a woman from another culture that giving to her is like taking food from children and giving it to dogs. This would be called prejudice of the worst kind.
But Jesus is not talking abrasively to her because she is a woman or because she is of another culture- he is simply addressing the fact that she is not an Israelite, she is a gentile- and gentiles did not at that time have a share in the covenant. They were without God’s law in their lives. Jesus is protecting the holiness of God by observing the distinction between Jew and Gentile, clean and unclean.
Jesus sounds insensitive to our ears because the world we live in struggles with accepting that Jesus alone is the way of salvation. Jesus’ short response served to illustrate that there is a way to have a relationship with God, and it is through the covenant, through the temple. If salvation were dispensed to anyone who came up to Jesus, regardless of what they believed, then where would the teaching of God’s Word be?
We are included in the all nations the LORD promised to save- and we also have reason to come before the LORD as beggars, as those who are not worthy of the gifts we receive, as those who ask for mercy- for crumbs from the table. By faith we can recognize that crumbs from the Lord’s table is a richer feast than anything we could make on our own.
The disciples preferred that Jesus would just help her and send her away so that she would not be a bother anymore. They were looking at what inconvenience she brought to their day and missed the big picture that Jesus had come to bring people back into the fullness of God’s love and care.
This woman was a very unlikely candidate for God’s mercy. The people of Canaan were ordered driven out of the promised land for their false idol worship. As a Canaanite woman she would not have grown up following the law, participating in the sacrificial system as a means of receiving God’s mercy and love. The disciples would not have expected her to know much about who Jesus is and what he could do for her.
When Jesus turned her down, it would be human nature for her to plead her case and say how she was deserving of the same bread as everyone else in Israel, or to say all of the good things she had done in her life to deserve what she is asking for- and to talk about how great her daughter’s need was and how innocent her daughter was in this possession that afflicted her.
But she did not try and advance herself before Jesus- instead she stayed focused on His authority to provide for her needs in abundance.
We are all like the Canaanite woman, very unlikely candidates for God’s Mercy. We have done nothing to deserve God’s mercy. We are full of sin, any case we make for our deserving mercy falls flat.
We heard in our Epistle reading from Romans: 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. By disobedience St. Paul is describing Israel’s rejection of the gospel as going against God’s law, and those who are gentiles were in disobedience already before the gift of the gospel.
The result is that nobody can say that they deserve mercy more than another. We cannot say that we deserve mercy more than the people of Israel who rejected the gospel, or more than those people in our neighborhood who would never consider coming through the doors of a church. We are not entitled to God’s mercy as our birthright. It is a gift given to us, which we gladly receive.
The gift sometimes seems to take longer than we would like. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers them out of all of them.” What must it have felt like for the Canaanite woman to work up the courage to ask Jesus for mercy only to be told he has not come for her people?
Did her heart sink for a moment, did she think all was lost? It seems her faith kept her from doubting, so that she could look past rejection and instead keep making the case for the deliverance she knew Jesus was able to give.
We can learn from the perseverance she has in looking to Jesus for her needs. When life presents problems so deep that relief does not seem present to us, when we feel darkness holding us in its grasp, we need to see that Jesus’ mercy does not run out. Mercy to Israel and mercy to the gentiles, mercy that abounds for all. Even the mere crumbs from the table are all we need for a living faith and hope in Jesus.
And Jesus provides us with much more than crumbs. He provides his very body and blood for us. There is more than enough of God’s mercy to go around to us as we approach the Lord with humility and repentance.
As we receive the Lord’s Supper on a weekly basis, we are asking in faith for the Lord’s mercy, repentant of our sins, examining ourselves and seeing that we have once again done nothing to deserve God’s mercy. We taste and see that the Lord is good to us, that even as unworthy as we are the crumbs fall down to us and supply us with all that we need. There in the Lord’s Supper, Christ’s body for the life of the world.
We are here, part of a church at worship because the Father revealed Jesus to us. Considering the unbelief in this world it was through very unlikely circumstances that you received the gift of faith- much of the world is designed to keep you away from faith. It was only because of the grace of God in your lives that you have been given the gift of hearing God’s Word with your ears in faith for your very life, your very salvation.
Jesus was amazed at the faith of the Canaanite woman, and Jesus sees our faith. When we confess that what He provides is more than enough for our needs- then Jesus is greatly pleased. Amen.