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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated.
Consider both miracles in this morning’s Gospel. The first miracle occurs with a Syrophoenician woman. Now, coming from Syrophoenicia, she comes from a very famous place that hates the prophets and killed them. So Jesus was kind of bold and brash to even go in that region. So he does. Now, this woman has faith. Where she picked it up, meaning at what point in her life, we do not know. But she had heard and believed in the promise that Jesus could do something for her daughter. So rather than her faith just sitting there for her to contemplate upon, she acts out on her faith. She had to have faith to entrust her child into the hands of other people while she left to go find Jesus. That was faith’s work.
Having left her child, she had to leave that house and go search for Jesus where they heard that he might be found. That was an act of faith. Faith’s work. Having found Jesus, she had to have the boldness to weasel her way in and speak to him face to face. That itself was an act of faith, faith’s work. She then fell down on her knees and begged him with these words, “Heal my daughter.” That was an act of faith, faith’s work.
Having been told by Jesus that the bread is not given to the dogs, but to the children first, she’s content with what crumbs she gets when she says, “Yes, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” In faith, that’s what her faith produced within her, that work of statement of faith. Then Jesus tells her, “Your daughter is healed.” And rather than staying there and going, “How do I know?” No. She acts on that faith and leaves Jesus to go back and find her child healed.
Her faith and what happened to her child wasn’t just for her and her child, was it? Everybody that surrounded that woman that knew of her, that babysat her child while she left, whether it was her parents or some other children or who knows, all of those people’s lives were changed because this woman acted out on her faith.
Now, while she was doing this, did she stop and think to herself, “What a great act of faith for me to leave my child here with these people while I go talk to Jesus?” Yes. Did she reflect on the fact that it was a great act of faith when she finally finds Jesus and speaks to him? Every one of those things that she did as a work of her faith, she was unable to reflect upon and say, “Wow, what a great act of faith.” And in fact, if you were to stop her at any point in time and ask her, “Do you feel like your faith is really strong at this moment?” she would say no. And yet her actions showed otherwise, didn’t they? Interesting, isn’t it?
Then there’s the deaf-mute. They didn’t have American Sign Language like you’ve seen done here with our sister parish, Jesus Lutheran Church for the Deaf. So there wasn’t a way of communicating like sign language. However, they still communicated to one another. And this deaf-mute man somehow, by some act of God, believed that Jesus could heal him. He had saving faith. He acted out that faith by the help of other people to bring him to Jesus.
He trusted that Jesus had his best intentions when Jesus took him away from his friends privately. He trusted that what Jesus did when he put his fingers in his ears, spit and put it on his tongue, would be a part of God’s healing for him. He saw his lips move with one word, “Ephatha,” and he’s healed. He’s healed. Did he just stay there and reflect, “Wow, look at what my act of faith did?” No, because his life was forever changed, wasn’t it? Now he, who probably has gotten by by begging, now has to work. His life is forever changed because of his faith expressing itself like it did.
And not just his life, but the friends who brought him to Jesus— their lives were forever changed by his act of faith. But if you were to ask him, “Did you realize that your act of faith influenced these people?” he would say, “No way.”
Faith is a living, creative, active thing. Faith is a living thing. It is not a dead thing. Faith is a creative thing, doing things within you; it’s not a destructive thing. Faith is an active thing. It is not a passive thing. Praise the Lord for active children, right? But faith, like active children, have to be fed. Because faith is a living thing. And the only place where faith is fed is in God’s promises of His Word.
It is especially here, in this cafeteria, that God has given us to feed upon. Here is where faith is fed. But faith is not fed so that we can sit back and go, “Ah, that was a great meal. Now let’s take a nap.” No. Faith is like taking a step out of the ball game to take a breather, to rest. And then faith, God does not just let you, having been fed, stay there on the bench, but thrusts you back out into the game. Which, by the way, that probably would have helped Texas a little bit more yesterday, maybe. That was right there, wasn’t it?
Faith is fed and then faith is exercised. That’s the two sides of it. Look what God did with the Syrophoenician woman. God gave the Syrophoenician woman faith, but he didn’t just let it sit there. He had fed it with the promise that he would heal her daughter, but he didn’t let it sit there. He pushed her to act out on it.
And all the while, while she was acting out on faith, did she ever see the miracle of faith’s work along the way? No. Faith’s work is hidden. Faith’s work is always hidden. One could say, “Well, but pastor, the Syrophoenician woman, when she saw her child healed from the demon, wasn’t that seeing her work of faith?” If we’re thinking that, don’t worry, the Holy Spirit will correct that in a heartbeat.
But what faith’s work says at the end of the day is, God is the giver of this gift, period. Not me, not my actions. Since faith is a living, active, and creative thing, it has to be fed, and then it’s always pushed back out to be exercised. Being fed and being exercised. Being fed and being exercised. And as you’re being exercised, as your faith is producing the work that you don’t even realize it’s producing, God is giving you another promise to rely upon as you’re walking in faith so that you’re not alone.
But interview anybody who is living out the faith like you and me, and you and I will not say, “Oh yes, I can see God’s hand here and here and here and here.” It’s always been there. Great. What does that mean whenever you don’t sense it? Is God gone? No. So to whom is leading you, pushing you, and feeding you? Your loving Father is, and no one else.
This hidden aspect of faith’s work is how God has always done things. The Syrophoenician woman and the deaf-mute are the examples of it, but they’re not the only examples. Did you hear in the Old Testament, the people’s faith was being challenged by God? They had to have cried out to God and were fearful, for why else would God tell Isaiah, “Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not, your God will come and save you.” That’s feeding them promises. That’s feeding them promises. For what purpose? So that they then can be stretched and pulled and pushed and broadened and thrust into the fray that God wishes our faith to do.
The people in the epistle reading are also having their faith stretched. They thought in terms of their faith being complete, and God then reminds them through James, “You know, if you show partiality, that’s a sin.” Now granted, it’s very important to show partiality to your husband over other men and to your wife over other women. It’s important to show partiality to your children over other children, but outside of that, it needs to be shown to everyone equally. Their faith was being challenged, and God gave them food to eat because of what God has done for them so that they would then be pushed, stretched, and challenged.
This is how God does things. And isn’t it interesting that when we find ourselves relying on God’s promises the most is when we feel the least capable, when we feel the most drawn out, slapped down, wasted, and spent? That’s when we tend to cry out to God the most, and we tend to rely upon his promises the most is at those states in our life. And that is probably when our faith is the most strong. Because we’re relying upon the promise and not ourself. We’re relying upon what God has fed us, not what we have accomplished. We’re relying upon what God is doing in us, his promise of working in us, and not our system of discipline or anything else.
Your loving Lord thrusts you back in there, having been fed to work the work of faith. And it’s hidden, isn’t it? He does give us little moments. In Bible class, we talked about him. He does give us these little transfiguration moments. In other words, we can kind of see God’s work in our lives, which is what I meant earlier. Yes, you can look back and see God’s work and God’s hand. Absolutely. But most of the time, you can’t. And in fact, when you can’t see it, that’s probably when you can see it by faith the brightest.
There he hung in perfect faith for you. Amen. And there it looks like God has abandoned him and damned him, and he did. And yet he trusts him to be loving and gracious in spite of what he is experiencing and feeling because he walks in faith, the ultimate work of faith. For your and my feeble works.
And isn’t it interesting, too, that at the very end of the day, at the end of judgment, it’s the sheep who go, “I don’t remember doing anything for you, Lord.” And the goats are all about what they did because faith’s work is hidden in such a manner.
Now, I don’t know what is going on in your life that God is stretching you and pulling you. I wish I did, but I don’t. Only you do. And whether you’ve been living with this, being stretched and pulled for a few days or weeks or years, you know it and you live it every day. And God is keeping you active in your faith and you’re living it out whether you realize it or see it. Because it’s hidden all the time. And if you want to see it, it looks like that right there, which doesn’t look like much. And it takes the eyes of faith to believe it, doesn’t it? That’s what it looks like.
And you may think, “Yes, that is what it looks like in my life.” But God has made it very clear to you. He is working in you and through you these works or acts of faith. And he says to you, “Be strong, take heart. God will come and save you.” I don’t know when, I don’t know how, and neither do you. But by faith we both know he will.
The Syrophoenician woman had to spend many a long night fretting over her baby. The deaf mute had to fret many a night over wondering whether that would ever be a possibility. He said, “So you have fretted and wondered too. God is still at work within you, and his faith that he has given you is working its work.”
In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
