Matthew 15:21-28 (Pentecost 12)
St. John, Galveston 8/16/26
Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

    The message this morning is based on the Gospel reading from Matthew 15. It’s the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman.

    It all happened after Jesus fed the 5,000 near the Sea of Galilee. He withdrew to the region along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, near the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon were pagan cities, and so, it’s little wonder that Jesus encountered there a Canaanite woman. I’m sure you remember Cain from the Book of Genesis. He’s the one who killed his brother, Abel. As a punishment, God banished Cain to the land of Nod, just east of the Garden of Eden. Thus the Canaanite people came into being.

    When this Canaanite woman heard that Jesus was in her area, she cried out to Him for help. “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” You can sense the desperation in her cry. Who knows how long she looked on helplessly as the demon tormented her daughter. It’s a parents worst nightmare, to not be able to put an end to the suffering of their child. “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David.” It was a perfect opportunity for Jesus to show His compassion to this woman by casting the demon out of her daughter.

    The disciples watched as the situation unfolded. For their part, they wanted Jesus to send the woman away. After all, she was bothering them with her incessant cry for help. After first ignoring the woman, Jesus finally said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Now, that wasn’t good news for this woman, because she wasn’t one of those, a lost sheep of the house of Israel, that is. No, she was a Canaanite. Still, not to be deterred by Jesus harsh words, the woman knelt down and pleaded all the more. “Lord, help me (she said).”

    At this point, Jesus said something that seemed, to our ears, so unlike Him. “It is not right (He said) to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” He was making reference to the long standing difference between Jews and Gentiles. As the Apostle Paul would later write of the Gentiles, “at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” That’s description that best fit the Canaanite woman. And so, Jesus said,“It is not right, to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

    Several days ago, I heard a sermon on this passage from a “pastor” of another denomination. The preacher said, to understand this passage, you first have understand some of the cultural customs of the people of that time. Women, the preacher said, were not generally held in very high esteem. Gentiles too, that is, non-Jews, the preacher said, were also looked at as “second class” citizens at best. That being the case, Jesus, in His encounter with this Canaanite woman, was just responding to her according to the custom of His day. Sure, His response to the woman was bigoted, but that’s just the way people were in those days. And so, this passage, the preacher said, is about Jesus being “schooled” by the Canaanite woman in how to properly treat people, be they Jew, or Gentile, male or female. 
    
    Wow!! I suppose, to some, that explanation of the passage might be somewhat satisfying. It may even sound reasonable. If only it weren’t so darn heretical! Jesus was not then, nor has He ever been, a “product of His time.” He is the infinite God. He is pure and holy in all that He says and does. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. “He is the image of the invisible God (the Scriptures tell us), the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Jesus isn’t to be “schooled,” so to speak,  in anything, much less in the wickedness and the bigotry of humanity.

    “It’s not right (Jesus said) to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” The Canaanite woman listened as Jesus spoke those rather harsh words, but she wouldn’t be deterred. She was, after all, on a mission to save her daughter. More than that, she was in a battle of epic proportions, a battle against the prince of darkness himself. Indeed, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” At stake in the battle that this woman valiantly fought was her daughter, and perhaps even more, her own faith in Jesus as the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.

    Did you ever notice when you sit down at a table to eat, if there is a dog in the house, they know exactly where to sit. They know who the dog lovers are, and who is most likely to “drop” something in their vicinity. This Canaanite woman, no doubt familiar with that little bit of wisdom, said to Jesus, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Essentially, what she was saying is, “Lord, all I ask of you is a crumb, just a crumb, from the table of your grace.”

    This Canaanite woman had profound understanding of Jesus, both of His power, and of His goodness and grace. These words hadn’t been penned yet, but it seems that she understood what would be written later about Jesus, the Messiah. “I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations.”

    Just a crumb, Lord. It is all that I ask. It was at this point that Jesus commended the woman for her great faith. “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.” It’s not that the woman’s faith healed her daughter. That’s not what this passage teaches us. Rather, it shows us how faith, the faith you received in the water of your baptism, holds onto to Christ, even when He doesn’t seem to hear your cries for help. The faith that holds on to Jesus, does so, precisely because of who He is, and because of what He has done for you and still promises to do in your struggle against “the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Indeed, along with the Canaanite woman, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

    “As the author and perfecter of your faith,” Jesus is the great physician of your soul. As such, He administers what is needed in your life, so that you recognize and thank Him for the salutary benefit of anything and everything He gives. Yes, Lord, just a crumb from Your table is better than anything else in all the world. 
    
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +