[Machine transcription]
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Dear Saints, dear friends of God, we arrive in Matthew chapter 15 with Jesus and the disciples on the border region of Tyre and Sidon. It’s about as far north and as far west as Jesus would ever travel.
As he has retreated into that region, he’s found by this dear sister of ours, the Syrophoenician woman, the woman from that area who has a daughter severely troubled with a demon. This woman comes to Jesus expecting, asking for help, and so we have our gospel text. Now, the funny thing about this text, at least it seems to me, is that when you read how it goes with this woman and Jesus, we want to be surprised or even troubled or offended at how Jesus acts towards this woman.
And after all, she comes to Jesus and she prays, “Lord, come and help my daughter.” In fact, she calls Jesus the son of David. “Lord, have mercy on me, you son of David. My daughter is oppressed by a demon,” and Jesus ignores her. He doesn’t even acknowledge that she said anything or addressed him at all. He answered her not a word.
But she doesn’t stop. She continues to pray the Kyrie, “Lord have mercy,” so much that the disciples have to come and beg Jesus to send her away. But then Jesus answered. And it’s interesting when you read the Greek in verse 24; it doesn’t tell us who Jesus is answering. If he was answering the disciples or the woman, it’s left purposely vague.
But listen to what Jesus says: “I wasn’t sent to anyone except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman doesn’t stop. This seeming rebuff, or turning her aside, or at least preaching, talking to the disciples in such a way that this woman would get the message that he’s not gonna help her, doesn’t stop her, but she in fact comes into the house and falls down on her knees and worships him saying, “Lord, help me.”
And then Jesus says, and if it wasn’t bad enough already, right, to ignore her, pretend like she’s not even there, to tell the disciples, “I just came for Israel, not for anybody else,” Jesus finally at last acknowledges that she’s even there in the room, that she’s even talking to him, but then he says, “It’s not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
This is the third battle, Luther calls it. The first battle that the woman has to face is the troubled life that she has with not being part of the people of God, having a daughter that has so much trouble with the demons. That’s the first battle. And then there’s the second battle, and that’s the that Jesus ignores her and says that he’s not for her.
And this is the third battle that Jesus says: “It wouldn’t be good to take the bread from the children and feed it to the dogs.” I mean, not only are you a pagan, but you’re no better than a dog, Jesus says.
Now, the surprising thing, this is back to this point, is that when we look at the text and we see how Jesus acts, we see what Jesus does, and we see what Jesus says to this woman that we think that we ought to be surprised by what Jesus does and offended by what Jesus does. But I think the real surprise in the text for us Christians, for us who have called on the name of the Lord, for us who have spent our lives, our days and our nights praying to the Lord for help and looking to the Lord for help, the surprise is how familiar this text is.
How familiar this Jesus is. How familiar this experience is. And that’s why this text is here for us. We know that Jesus loves to make us wait for answers to our prayers. Now, sometimes Jesus answers immediately, like last week when Peter was sinking in the waves and he prayed, “Lord save me,” and instantly Jesus took ahold of his hand and lifted him up out of the waves and brought him into the boat. Sometimes the Lord answers our prayers like that, but most of the time he answers our prayers like this: silence, seeming like the windows and the doors of heaven are locked shut and our prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, or even a no.
“I’m not gonna hear your prayer, I’m not going to answer it.” But dear saints, make no mistake, Jesus has this conversation with this woman for this very reason, that you would know that a yes to your prayers is on its way. Jesus has the disciples watch this conversation so that you would know that a yes is on the way.
Jesus had his apostle, Saint Matthew, write this story down so that you would know that a yes is on the way. And the Holy Spirit has this text right here in front of me to preach and right here in your ears for you to listen to so that you would know that a yes is on the way. So that we would know that prayer is wrestling with God and so that we would not give up, so that we would know that the Lord wants us to take a hold of him by his words, by faith, and with his boldness and almost impertinence and obstinance that we would simply cling to his promises and keep insisting that he keep them with us and most especially with our neighbors and our family and our children so that we would not grow weary in prayer.
Jesus wants to press this home for us. That always, every prayer, and when you think about it, it has to be this way, that every prayer begins unanswered. Everything we ask the Lord for, we ask for because we don’t have it and because we needed, every prayer begins unanswered and the Lord, it seems, for our benefit, for the benefit of our neighbor, for the benefit of the world, holds back the answer, perhaps to the very last moment; at least he holds back the answer for as long as he is able before the yes comes.
But he doesn’t want us to stop asking. He doesn’t want us to become weary in prayer. He doesn’t want us to give up. When Jesus says “ask, seek, and knock,” we should probably translate it “keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking.”
Jesus tells another parable. Remember this one. He says, “What man of you, if you have a friend come to visit, will not go to his neighbor and knock on your neighbor’s door and say, ‘I have a friend who came to visit, and I need some bread to set before him?'” The friend answers back and says, “It’s midnight, I’m already in bed, everyone’s asleep, go back home, I’ll come and help you tomorrow.” And he says, “But he keeps knocking.” The neighbor keeps knocking; he won’t stop until his friend gets up and gets him some bread to help his own friend who came to visit.
Jesus says, “This is how I want you to pray, to not give up, that I’ll come and answer you, not even because I’m a friend, but because you just keep on knocking.” So keep knocking. You, each one of you, I know this because, well, I mean, some of you I haven’t talked to, but if I’ve talked to you and I’m your pastor, we’ve had this conversation.
“Pastor, I’ve been praying for this and it seems like the Lord will never answer my prayers. I’ve been praying for my parents, that they would come to the true faith. I’ve been praying for my children, that they would come back to church. I’ve been praying for my brother, for my sister and their family, or for my boss and my co-worker, that the Holy Spirit would come to them and open their hearts to believe in the gospel and the kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I’ve been praying for my enemy that we would be reconciled with one another, that we would be back in church. I’ve been praying for that person who hurt me and it seems like the Lord doesn’t even hear my prayers.”
Listen to the text. Jesus answered her, “It’s not appropriate to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she said, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.” And then Jesus said to her, “O woman, great is your faith. Be it done to you even as you desire.”
The compassion of Jesus, the love of Jesus, the desire of Jesus to rescue this woman’s daughter, the delight that Jesus has in this woman and in her daughter and in her family comes spilling out. The compassion of the Lord arrives. The salvation of the Lord is manifest. The power of the Lord is seen; deliverance is accomplished, salvation comes to this house, and that is exactly what Jesus wanted the whole time.
When he said nothing, when he preached about how he didn’t come for her, in the sermon about her being a dog, this is exactly what Jesus wanted to do. It is what Jesus desires to be our friend and our Savior, and so he puts before us the example of this woman.
I want to read you a couple of paragraphs of Martin Luther on this text. I think that this is one of his favorite Gospels to meditate on. He says this just here when the woman responds to the words of Jesus that it’s not right to give the bread to the dogs. Just here we notice the beauty and excellence of this example, for we learn from it the mighty strength of faith.
Faith takes hold of Christ’s words even when they sound harsh and changes them into soothing expressions of comfort and consolation. The woman replies to this harsh saying, “You are calling me a dog. I won’t deny it. Take me as a dog and treat me as one, if it pleases you. Give the bread to the children, seat them at the table. I ask no such favor, only permit me to pick up under the table the crumbs which the children have dropped, which they do not miss, and I’ll be content.”
She, says Luther, thus overcomes Christ with his own words, and by accepting the position of a dog, she obtains the children; she obtains the privileges of a child. What can he now say, the merciful, compassionate Jesus? Forced by his own words, he yields. Oh, that we would force him in a similar way because he is always willing that it should be done.
This most glorious and peculiar struggle of faith is narrated to us, that it might be a shining example for us. Never should we turn from the Lord, even if he calls us dogs and heathens. Dogs must have lords and foods, and heathens must have a God. So the Lord is overcome by this untiring supplication and unwavering faith because in her faith this woman clung to the hope that He, Jesus, is the Savior and the Helper in whom she firmly trusts.
So far, Luther, and so this encouragement for you. Jesus loves you. He has proven his love for you in his death on the cross. Jesus delights in you; he’s proven that by baptizing you and calling you to be his own children, and Jesus loves those that you are praying for more than you can imagine, more than you love them; he loves them as well and he delights to hear your prayers for them.
His compassion is on the way. His salvation is on the way. His deliverance is on the way. May we continue to pray in that hope. Amen. The peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
