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. In every direct encounter between the disciples and Jesus we hear about in the scriptures, we never hear about Jesus being particularly impressed by the disciples in their response of faith. Often Jesus is telling them, “O you of little faith.”
The faith of the Canaanite woman certainly caught Jesus’ attention: “O woman great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly. 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 Israel have I found such faith.
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.
Jesus celebrated her faith 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 through the way Israel was given to know God, the gentiles would also come to know God, as crumbs from the table of 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. 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 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 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 sounds insensitive to our ears because the world we live in struggles with the scandal of particularity, 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 God’s Word be?
The disciples preferred that Jesus would just help her and send her away so that she would not be a bother anymore. They missed the big picture that Jesus had come for more than quick fix solutions, but instead 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 tak 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 will never be in the same situation as her where our identity as gentiles provides uncertainty if we will be able to receive God’s mercy. But we do face situations where we do not see deliverance as soon as we would like.
Here we are in the middle of August and most of us are weary of five months and counting of hardships and sacrifices we must make because of the spread of the virus. We wonder when life will feel like it used to. Like most American, we may even experience more moments of despair and depression than we other wise would have.
When 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 have been receiving 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.
The scripture does not explain how this woman held a living faith in Jesus. However the scripture does tell us in a general sense how she trusted Jesus as her Savior. She knew in the same way, we all do- because the Father revealed it to her through the message of the gospel. She knew that the Messiah had so much to give that even the crumbs left over where all that she needed. We are reminded of the parable of the sower a few Sundays back where we were taught that the seed is sown generously.
We are here, part of a church at worship because the Father revealed Jesus to us. Maybe you grew up in the church from as early as you can remember, or maybe you came to know Jesus as an adult.
In either case 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.
Jesus was amazed at the faith of the Canaanite woman, and Jesus sees our faith and is greatly pleased as we confess that what He provides is more than enough for our needs. Amen.