Bible Text: Matthew 15:21-28 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus | Series: Lent 2022 | I can’t stand for very long, so this sermon isn’t going to be very long. So I’ll try to make each word count.
The woman in our Gospel sees and experiences Jesus’ rejection. He ignores her. He says He came only for the Israelites, and she is no Israelite. He insults her and calls her a dog. But she clings to Him through it all. Because she doesn’t trust her eyes and she doesn’t trust her emotions and she doesn’t trust the changing circumstances of her life. She trusts Jesus. Why? Because she knows he’s the God-man. And she applies this beautiful logical syllogism to herself, the logic of faith. This man is God. God has become a man. He hasn’t just become a Jew. What after all is a race? We all come from one man, Adam, and in him we have all inherited not only the same human nature but the same sin that infects it and draws us down to death. So we have all one human race, no matter our color or our ethnicity. And this Jesus joined our human race. So whether you are Syro-Phoenician or Jewish, Ukrainian, Russian, Eritrean, Ethiopian, it doesn’t matter. And this was of course not for kicks and giggles. God became a man to live and die for all mankind, to be the Brother of all men and women and children, to love us all, join us all to Himself, suffer for us all, open the way to His Father for us all. God became a man to draw all nations to himself. So Jesus came for her. He came for all. I am at least part of this all. Even if a tiny part, an insignificant part, a part that can be insulted and called a dog, Jesus came for me. And this exposes a love that cannot be canceled, cannot be overridden, cannot be overshadowed by the changing circumstances of our lives or the vagaries of our feelings.
Is Jesus ignoring you? Have you prayed and prayed for something good, and Jesus hasn’t answered? First, it cannot be because He doesn’t love you. Let your faith be as strong and as directed as this woman’s. Let her be your example. Imitate her. He must love you. He is a man, is He not? All the liberal gobbledygook about the brotherhood of man may mean nothing, may be empty, but this at least is not, this cannot be nothing, must in fact be everything, God is a man and so is your Brother and so very obviously cares for you. This woman trusted in a Savior who had not yet died for her, had not yet risen again; you trust in a Savior who has done it. He lives now with scars on his hands and in his side, lives now having proved to you His faithfulness by His own blood. This woman had only heard a word about Jesus, that he had done some miracles in Jewish lands. You have heard His own words spoken to you, you have lived his greatest miracle – he gives his own body and blood to you. If this woman knew for certain and so persisted even when Jesus ignored her, even when he spoke against her, even when he called her a dog, we must be more certain, more persistent, because we have been given far greater gifts, and to whom much is given, much will be expected.
I don’t ask you to look inside yourself and find in yourself the strength to believe. That is not what this woman did and it is not what Christian faith does. Look to Jesus. Will he answer your prayer? The answer is not found in your sincerity, not found in how many times you’ve asked, not found in how long he has failed to answer, it is found in the fact that Jesus loves you, that He has displayed it publicly by His death and resurrection, that He has put His name on you in your Baptism, that He has called and sent your pastors to teach you his word, that he has brought you into His church and fed you with his body and his blood.
Your certainty, your sincerity will only come from this, that Jesus has been nothing but faithful to you. A husband is convinced and certain of his wife’s love and faithfulness not because he looks inside himself and finds himself worthy of love or sees how sincerely he trusts his wife – that will only make him doubt. He’s convinced by the constant action of his wife, her I love yous, her attention to him when he is in pain, her forgiveness of him when he is a pain, the smile on her face when she sees him. So it is with us and our God. Only learn to see His actions and your trust will be sincere and sure. Learn to recognize his smiles and his attention, firstly and directly from His action on the cross, and then from his action in making you a Christian and speaking His word to you and forgiving you your sins and feeding you with Himself. And then the fact that he has not yet answered your prayer, the fact that He has sent and allowed pain in your life, these facts of trial and cross, these will not make you doubt His love but will only drive you closer to Him, in more fervent prayer, because you know from His actions that He cares about you more than your dearest friend, more than your closest sibling, more even than your father or mother or wife or husband, because He is your Creator and your Brother and your Savior and your Friend. So even your crosses and even your pains and sufferings must be His blessings and signs of His favor and nudges for your to ask so that you may receive.
But this woman is not praying for herself. She is praying for her daughter. Jesus does not tell her that her faith has saved her. Instead he tells her, “Be it done for you as you have desired.” Her desire was for another. This is a very healthy reminder for us in our age of me, my feelings, my problems, where it has become normal to broadcast your feelings and your problems on the internet for everyone to read, to identify yourself by your feelings. It’s gone so far that now if a man feels like a woman he can identify as a woman and our society plays along, even praises it. This is what happens when we base our identity and our life on our own feelings. And we’re all complicit in this, because we can’t escape this mindset that we see all around us.
This woman prays for her daughter. God gave her a daughter. She is a mother. That’s a God-given identity, mother. And as a mother she knows she has certain duties toward her daughter, to pray for her, to care for her, to fight for her. And when her daughter is oppressed by a demon, she turns to the God who not only loves her but loves her daughter. So you have your stations in life. Whether you are a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker. God has set you in relation to others, and this is how a true, godly identity is formed. Look at the Ten Commandments. The first three tell you your station in life with respect to God. Then the last seven tell you your station in life with respect to your neighbor. This is who you are. A Christian who listen to God’s Word and pray to Him and trust in Him and love Him. And then a neighbor, who obeys mom and dad and godly authority, who is faithful in marriage, who respects the property and bodies and reputations of others. All around us tempts us to identify ourselves by our desires, especially our sexual desires, but even our desires for watching sports, or our desires for eating good food or drinking beer. But look at this mother and learn from her. She will give up her honor, give up any desire of her pride, she’ll identify even as a dog if it means she gets to belong to Jesus and if it means she can help her daughter. And the cross she bears solidifies this beautiful identity: she is a child of God and a loving mother.
So it is with us. We all bear crosses. We all bear pains in our lives. God sends them not so that we can obsess about ourselves and what we feel and what we think we deserve, but so that in humility we can know our identity as the beloved of God, who eat from His table, and so that in love we can be the father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker God calls us to be.
So pray for yourself, because you need things from God. You need earthly blessings, house, home, job, health, good friends, family, good reputation. And you need heavenly things, for God to humble you and show you your sin and then exalt you by forgiving you and teaching you His ways. And then pray for one another. Mothers and fathers for your children, that God would keep the devil far from them, that Jesus would always be the strongman who guards the castle of their hearts. Children pray for your parents, that God would give them joy in raising you, that you would be obedient to them and love them as you should. Husbands pray for your wives, wives for your husbands, that your love would increase, workers for your boss and your family, and above all for your church, that we live and act as the family of Jesus Christ our Lord.
This is who you are. A Christian whom God loves, a mother or father or son or daughter or husband or wife or worker who loves others. God will give you so many blessings of body and soul when you see this is your identity and you live it. And when cross and trial come, you will know exactly what to do. Hope is not lost. You belong to Jesus. God is not angry with you or ignoring you, He is testing you because He loves you. And it is not for you that you live anyhow, not for the accumulation of pleasures and good feelings. It is for those around you. And Jesus loves them too. He remembers you, knows you by name; he is the one who has gone through all the trials of this world before you, who did it in faith toward His Father and love toward us His brothers and sisters. So we follow in His steps, clinging to our Savior now and forever. Amen.