Matthew 15:21-28 - Jesus Grooms Great Faith in Hard Times - August 30, 2020

If the old adage is true that bad news “sells” better than good news, then now is a great time to be in the news business isn’t it? There is definitely no shortage of bad news. The ongoing coronavirus epidemic, fires raging out of control in California, hurricane Laura, a derecho which leveled large areas of already flat Iowa, yet another officer involved shooting in Kenosha which resulted in the now-expected rioting, destruction and looting – oh, and did you know it’s a presidential election year? What are we to make of these hard times? Ultimately we should make of them what the Canaanite woman made of her demonized daughter; that we learn to see how Jesus grooms great faith even, and especially, in hard times.

If we’re going to learn that lesson, we can’t miss the hard times. And you’re thinking “How could you? The hard times are plastered on every mainstream and social media outlet in the world, how could anyone miss them?” You can miss them if you don’t make of them what the Canaanite woman made if hers: an occasion to run to the Lord and plead for his mercy. And that can easily happen if we view bad news from a purely worldly, secular perspective. When Christians do that, it’s called practical atheism – living as if God is not God at all; that the God we claim to worship in here has no active role in the world out there. For example, the world alleges that hurricanes and wild-fires and derechos are nothing more than the results of man-made climate change. That the coronavirus is nothing more than a mistake made in a lab in Wuhan, China or an unsavory leftover of a bad bat stew. That the wide-spread rioting which has consumed our nation is nothing more than the result of institutional, systemic racism. To the unbelieving world, God has nothing to do with these crises; he can’t possibly be speaking through these things; he can’t be speaking from out of the hurricanes, as he did to Job (Job 38:1); he can’t be teaching us anything about ourselves through the mirror of societal division and upheaval (1 Kings 12:24; Amos 3:1; 5-6; Luke 13:5; James 5:1-6). And of course the unbelieving world can’t believe that because, by definition, the unbelieving world doesn’t believe in God.

At the same time, Christians, and especially confessional Lutherans, are very cautious to suggest that God is sending a specific and unique message through a particular natural disaster or tragedy. And there’s a good reason for this. Ever since the time of the apostles, there have been false teachers who have claimed to know exactly what God is saying through particular current events – most often that it is a sign that the End is near. These teachers have mislead and damaged the faith of many – when their prophecies are proven wrong. We are rightly skeptical of anyone who says “This is what the Lord says” regarding any contemporary event when Scripture is silent. Anyone who says that is claiming to have received a message from God outside of Scripture, and once you go down that path you can say absolutely anything and claim that it is the Word of the Lord. That’s dangerous. That’s blasphemy (Revelation 22:18-19).

So let’s not go there. Instead, let’s go to our text; to a mother whose daughter is being terrorized by demons – and whose prayers are ignored by Jesus. Because, let’s face it, there are times when we are crying out to the Lord for help and it feels like he’s just ignoring us, excluding us, insulting us. Jesus’ interaction with this Canaanite woman is a portrait of all Christians of all time who feel like they’re getting the cold shoulder from God – and how he can use that for our good. And the first thing we need to notice is that when this woman was struck with the crisis of a demonized daughter, what did she do? She ran to Jesus. She knew and believed that Jesus was big enough to handle this situation. The question is: do we believe that he is big enough to handle our troubling situations? Do we see hard times as opportunities to plead for his mercy? If we don’t, we are acting like practical atheists; like unbelievers – and our faith will not, cannot grow.

If these current hard times can be explained by meteorology and geology and politics and economics and systemic racism then why would you turn to the Lord for help like this mother did? If God is not the one who sends fire and hail, snow and fog, and storm winds as Psalm 148 says, why turn to him when wildfires rage and winds roar (Psalm 148:8)? If our lives and livelihoods – not to mention our childrens’ education and future – are just in the hands of some power-hungry bureaucrats and elected leaders – and the Lord doesn’t really rule the kingdoms of men (Daniel 4:17), why would you throw yourself at his feet as the woman did in our text? If all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18) haven’t really been given to Jesus, then why come to him at all?

If, however, you conclude with the mother in our text that any and every hard time you face in life lies in the hands of the Lord – then you will keep crying out in prayer like she did. You will call upon him in your days of trouble (Psalm 50:15) even when he doesn’t answer you or gives you the opposite of what you’re asking for. You will keep on asking, seeking and knocking (Matthew 7:7-8) like this woman did even when Jesus treated her like you would never treat your dog. I’ve never owned a dog, but I’ve seen dogs beg for food kind of like this woman did. They start at a distance, they slowly get closer and closer, they make that whining, moaning sound, they paw at your leg, they put their head in your lap and give you those big puppy dog eyes. When they do that, I can’t imagine any pet owner slapping their nose the way Jesus slapped away this woman. But she kept coming – and that’s the first element of great faith – persistence in coming to Jesus; persistence grounded in the fact that all our times – and all our hard times – are in his hands.

But where does faith like that come from? Faith that persists in spite of being ignored and treated like a dog? It does not come from us (Ephesians 2:8-9). Great faith is not the result of our feelings, intellect or effort. Faith that comes from us is all-too-often no more than positive thinking, looking on the bright side, seeing a silver lining in every storm cloud, making lemonade from lemons, telling ourselves that others have it worse than we do. Faith that comes from us finds hope in weather forecasts, in declining unemployment and a rising stock-market, in getting “our guy” elected into office. But man-made faith doesn’t lead anyone anywhere, does it? Except perhaps to cynicism or despair. It certainly doesn’t lead anyone to Jesus. If this Canaanite mother had man-made faith, she wouldn’t be on her face in front of Jesus begging for help. No, she’d be looking on the bright side; she’d be foolishly thinking that everything will turn out all right in the end – including her demonized daughter.

This woman didn’t have man-made but God-made faith. Where did that come from? The Bible is clear that faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is comes through the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). What “word of Christ” woman heard? Even way up in the pagan lands of Tyre and Sidon she had apparently heard about his words and deeds that proved that he was the Lord and so that’s what she appeals to. She doesn’t base her request on her great need or her great worthiness but on who Jesus is. Three times she calls him Lord – acknowledging that everything – even her daughter’s demonization – are in his hands, and that what he says is authoritative. Great faith means knowing who Jesus is and taking his Word as authoritative, as the last word.  

For us to have Jesus as our Lord means believing the Law. The Law which says that we deserve far worse pandemics than we are experiencing right now. The Law which says that we deserve no relief from the riots and violence that are tearing apart our nation because his Law says that sinners deserve only wrath and punishment (Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:3). Not one of us can call God unfair, not one of us can claim injustice when we get what our sins deserve: including hurricanes and pandemics and riots and cancer and disruptions to our lives and schedules and careers – for we deserve much worse. Therefore, when hard times strike, Christians see this as the Lord’s call to repentance, and quickly agree with the Law through repentance (Luke 13:4-5).

But, thank God, having Jesus as Lord means we also believe the Gospel. That he does not treat us as our sins deserve. He does not repay us according to our guilty deeds (Psalm 103:10). That God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). The good news is that because Jesus endured the punishment we deserved both now and eternally, we can be sure that no matter how hard the times, God is not punishing us for our sins (Romans 8:1). Because God had no mercy on his Son on the cross, we can be sure that he has nothing but mercy for us. That because we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God and can boldly and persistently pray to him for Christ’s sake (Romans 5:1-3).

That’s great faith. Great faith says “Yes” to both Law and Gospel. Luther says that like this Canaanite woman we must “say God is right in his judgment which he visits upon us” because “then we have triumphed and caught Christ in his own words” (Luther’s Church Postil 1.2:148). What does this mean? How does confessing our sinfulness catch Jesus in his own words? Because when we agree with the Law’s verdict that we are wretched sinners, then we can say, “And Lord, you said yourself that [you] did not come to call the righteous, but sinners (Matthew 9:13). Did you catch how the woman did this? He called her a dog and so she responds yes, Lord, yet their little dogs also eat the crumbs that fall down from their masters’ table. She humbly and honestly identifies herself as a sinful dog, but she catches Jesus in his identity as a Lord who is so powerful and so generous that just a crumb from his table is enough to save.

She was confident of this because she knew Jesus not only as her Lord but as the Son of David. This is a title for the Christ, the Messiah, the Redeemer – the One God sent to redeem not just Israel, but the world (Isaiah 49:6) – and she knew that just one crumb from his table of salvation would be enough for her. While there’s no guarantee in Scripture that when we pray for relief from hard times, we will receive it – when we come here, we are guaranteed to receive more than crumbs. While just one drop of baptismal water gives eternal life, Jesus gives us the whole font! While one word forgives the sins of a lifetime, Jesus gives us his Absolution every day and every week! While there is enough forgiveness, life and salvation in just a drop and crumb of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus invites us to pull up a chair at his table and feast on his body and blood week after week until he returns. Natural disasters don’t show how Jesus truly feels; the water of baptism does. Words from a doctor about disease don’t show Jesus’ true face; his own words do. The hard times we face in this life don’t show us the character of Jesus, the body and blood he shed on the cross and gives us here on this altar do. Great faith doesn’t come from how we react to hard times out there, but on receiving our Lord’s grace through Word and Sacrament here.

I suppose the big question we haven’t answered yet is: Why? Why does Jesus treat people this way? Why does he sometimes appear deaf and distant? Why does it sometimes feel like his love and his salvation are for other, better people, and not for us? Why does he sometimes appear to insult us, like he did this woman? Because that is how he grooms great faith. Like a child holding his parents to their promises – the Lord loves it when we hold him to his Word. Luther described it as God’s “yes” hidden inside his “no.”[1] In other words, when the Lord we see in the world doesn’t match the Lord we see in the Word – what are we compelled to do? To dig deeper in his Word, to cling harder to his promises, to be even more persistent in prayer! And when hard times drive us deeper into his Word, then, under his careful grooming, our faith, too, will become “great.”

So, what should we make of the hard times that are happening in our world, our nation, our community, and our families? We should understand that because hard times are in the Lord’s hands we should run and cling to him in prayer and we should understand that when the Lord we see in life doesn’t match the Lord we hear in the Word – he is driving us ever deeper into his Word. Through this often hard and always mysterious process, he grooms great faith even, and especially, in hard times. Amen.

[1] Lenker, J. N. The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Company, 2000) 1.2:153