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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
As some of you may know, our congregation is in a neighborhood full of dogs! At various times of the day and night, the dogs bark and howl, and dogs from up and down the street often roam free. Just Thursday night, while I was taking Riverside Drive to Crim and on to Dudley Road in the dark after our Capital Improvements Committee meeting, I nearly ran into several dogs. In a different way we run into dogs in today’s Gospel Reading, literal and figurative dogs, dogs that even the dog-lovers among us may have a hard time accepting. For, we realize that not only a Canaanite woman but also we ourselves are essentially likened to “Dogs eating crumbs”. Thus is the theme for this sermon this morning: “Dogs eating crumbs”.
From Jesus’s rebuking Peter for his little faith in last week’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 14:22-33), we have fast-forwarded to Jesus’s praising the Canaanite woman for her great faith in this week’s Gospel Reading. In between, Jewish leaders from Jerusalem and Jesus confronted one another over their tradition, what Jesus called their vain worship. And, Jesus offended the Jewish leaders when teaching the crowds that what defiles a person is what proceeds from the heart and comes out of the mouth (Matthew 15:1-20). So, apparently to avoid the Jewish leaders’ attacking Him too soon, Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. There, He encountered the Canaanite woman, spoke of “Dogs eating crumbs”, and, from the mouth of someone normally regarded as defiled, He heard evidence of true, inner purity.
The Canaanite woman asked for Jesus’s mercy; her daughter was severely oppressed by a demon. First, Jesus did not answer her a word. Second, He rejected His disciples’ request to send her away (whether they wanted him to send her away with or without His first fulfilling her request is unclear and does not really matter in the end); Jesus answered that He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Third, after she pleaded for His help like a psalmist, He answered that it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. When she said that even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table, then Jesus praised her faith and healed her daughter instantly.
St. Matthew writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit does not tell us precisely why Jesus treated the Canaanite woman the way He did. Although, to be sure, Jesus never said “no”, nor did He really call her a dog, at least not directly. We know that the Jews generally regarded such Gentiles as enemies, feared them, and found them repulsive—in short, the Jews essentially regarded them as dogs. Commentators debate whether Jesus referred to little pet puppies on the lap in the house or to larger street or farm dogs, but it does not really matter in the end. Even the biggest dog-lover still is likely to find Jesus’s reference offensive.
Perhaps that is where our sinful human pride kicks in. Of course, in our time, some treat dogs better than they treat people. For example, some regard killing puppies to be more of a crime than killing unborn human babies. Ultimately, we are in no position to judge Jesus’s reference as offensive, for by nature we are no better than the Canaanite woman. In fact, in some ways we may be worse. She appreciated that Jesus’s mission was in some sense primarily to the Jews with, as it were, spillover effects for the Gentiles. One might wonder how much we understand Jesus’s mission at all, whether we even let crumbs fall to those we have contact with whom we might regard as dogs—those who are poorer, or lesser-educated, or lesser-abled than we think we are. One might further wonder how much we even value the crumbs, whether we think the crumbs falling from this table are any better than those falling from any other table.
I do not think that any of us here this morning are of the house of Israel, the Jewish race, but, on our own, we all are sheep who are equally lost. Today’s Epistle Reading makes clear that God has consigned all to disobedience, Jew and Gentile alike, so that He may have mercy on all (Romans 11:1-2a, 13-15, 28-32). The Canaanite woman humbled herself before Jesus asking for mercy and knew precisely Who He was, and then Jesus did for her what she desired. When you and I turn in sorrow from our sins and believe that God will forgive our sins for Jesus’s sake, then God truly does forgive our sins.
In the case of the Canaanite woman, God’s mercy led to the healing of her daughter; in our cases, God’s mercy leads to the forgiving of our sins, a far greater act of salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Father sent that God-man to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but God is neither limited to Israel nor are the Israelites the only ones lost. In some sense, Jesus has been sent only as Israel’s Savior, but His identity as Israel’s Savior affects the rest of the human race and God’s entire creation. Jesus’s death on the cross has the potential to save all people, Jew and Gentile alike, if only all people would believe in Him. From the great faith in the Canaanite woman’s heart flowed out of her mouth the confession of Jesus not only as the Son of David, the Savior of the Jews, but she also three times confessed Jesus as the Lord, Who has universal dominion. She worshipped Him truly by seeking mercy, help, the salvation that only God can provide.
Likewise we worship Him truly by seeking mercy, the forgiveness of sins, salvation through the means He appoints for us to receive them. According to His own mercy God saves us by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5)—water and the Word applied to us at the Baptismal Font; there, we who are defiled and under the devil’s power are cleansed and rescued. As Jesus verbally praised the Canaanite woman’s faith and effected the healing of her daughter that she desired, so, through the words of pastors in individual Absolution, Jesus verbally effects the forgiveness of sins for those privately confessing the sins that they know and feel in their hearts. And, as even Gentile believers from the Lord’s Table received crumbs of blessings, so, too, we Gentile believers from this Lord’s Table receive bread that is Christ’s body and wine that is His blood, and so we receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. When we repent and believe, then Jesus, through His Word and Sacraments, forgives our sins. He forgives our failures to appreciate and execute His mission among us. He forgives our undervaluing of His crumbs. He forgives all our sins, whatever they might be.
Repentant, believing, and forgiven, we strive to live the lives God would have us live, and so through us God gathers other foreigners and outcasts of Israel, as He describes in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 56:1, 6-8). God wants His help and healing to be available to everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, including those who are poorer, or lesser-educated, or lesser‑abled than we think we are, those whom we might regard as “dogs” in the neighborhood into which He has placed our congregation and our individual lives. We all are “Dogs eating crumbs”, for by nature we all are unlikely candidates for great faith or, for that matter, any kind of faith. Here is the real miracle of the Gospel Reading: God, out of His mercy and grace, revealed His Son to the Canaanite woman and granted her desire, even as He reveals His Son to us and forgives our sins. Even though we are undeserving, He gives us many blessings. Despite our continuing to fail to live the lives He would have us live, as we continue to repent and believe, He will continue to grant us mercy and grace, until eternity when as His children we will eat from His table in heaven.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +