+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
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. (Amen.)
You may know that I am a fan of Charles Schulz’s comic‑strip Peanuts. A daily Peanuts calendar that I have at home recently reproduced a series of six strips that originally ran almost exactly fifty years ago, involving Snoopy writing a book about theology. For example, in the August 14th strip, Lucy tells Snoopy that he would never be a good theologian, because he’s too “dog-matic”. In the August 12th strip, Linus asks Snoopy if it bothers him that the Bible does not speak very highly of dogs, and Snoopy admits that, sure, it bothers him, but, Snoopy says, he just turns the other muzzle (confer Matthew 5:39). Today’s Gospel Reading is one of the places where the Bible speaks of dogs, though the Canaanite woman crying to Jesus for mercy seems to be the one not spoken very highly of. The Greek word that the Divinely‑inspired St. Matthew records Jesus using is sometimes said to refer to the little dogs tolerated in houses, as opposed to the big dogs of the street or farm (Michel, TDNT 3:1104; compare BAGD, 457). In that regard, I am not sure how accurate artist Edward Riojas’s image on our bulletin covers is. Even if that “little-dogs” (NKJV) or “puppies” (AAT) interpretation is correct, it really does very little to lessen the potential offense of Jesus’s statement (Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 15:26, p.783 with n.3). Regardless, the Canaanite woman crying to Jesus for mercy did not seem to take offense but trusted that Jesus’s crumbs, as it were, would be sufficient for her. With the help of the Holy Spirit, this morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading, directing our thoughts to the theme, “Dog-like faith in a great God”.
Importantly, today’s Gospel Reading is in broader contexts of the discussion of Jews and Gentiles. From last Sunday’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 14:22-33), our Three‑Year series of readings skipped forward in St. Matthew’s Gospel account for today’s Gospel Reading, skipping over Jesus’s coming by boat to Gennesaret and healing those who were sick (Matthew 14:34-36), Jesus’s apparently there answering Jewish leaders from Jerusalem’s question about His disciples breaking their traditions by asking the Jewish leaders why their traditions broke the Commandment of God (Matthew 15:1-9), and Jesus’s teaching the people that not what goes into but what comes out of the mouth defiles a person (Matthew 15:10-20). Then, as we heard, Jesus went away from that Jewish territory and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon, a typically Gentile territory. There, Jesus spoke of His primary mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, the Jews, but nevertheless Jesus ultimately showed mercy to the Canaanite woman, a Gentile, who came to Him. Indeed, today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 56:1, 6-8), today’s appointed Psalm (Psalm 67:1-7; antiphon: v.5), and even today’s Epistle Reading with its more‑or‑less continuous reading of Romans (Romans 11:1-2a, 13-15, 28-32) to some extent all speak of how God shows mercy to Jews and Gentiles, that is, to all people who cry to Him in faith (confer Fickenscher, Looking Forward, 202), including to us who cry to Him in faith.
From the perspective of the Jews of Jesus’s day, you and I also are Gentile “dogs”, but, unlike the Canaanite woman, we may take offense at being in some sense second behind God’s chosen people. Unlike the Canaanite woman, we may feel like God is deaf to our cries for mercy, that He is not answering in the time and way that we want Him to answer—when there is war in the world, a lack of unity in the congregation, and a loved one or we ourselves are sick or dying. Instead of persisting in prayer until God answers in the time and way that He knows to be best, we might give up praying and maybe even give up believing. By nature, we all are lost sheep, whether of the house of Israel or of another fold (confer John 10:16). We have gone astray, and so we are lost and ultimately are destroyed, apart from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man’s, seeking us and saving us who are lost (Luke 19:10). As we heard in the Epistle Reading, God has consigned all to disobedience, so that he may have mercy on all.
We can get so focused on the “dog” aspect of today’s Gospel Reading that we almost forget that Jesus ultimately healed the Canaanite woman’s daughter severely oppressed by a demon after the woman cried out to Him as the Lord, the Son of David, essentially as the Son of God in human flesh. The Messiah’s miracle certainly affirmed her faith! Through whatever word about Jesus that the Canaanite woman had heard previously, the Holy Spirit created faith in her that Jesus could help her daughter and so help her. Likewise, the Holy Spirit leads us both to be sorry for our sins and to trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake. More than God’s showing mercy in healing the Canaanite woman’s daughter, God showed mercy in Jesus’s taking on Himself the sins of the whole world and on the cross dying for all people, dying the death that we deserve, dying in our place. Jesus’s resurrection in part proved that God the Father accepted His Son’s sacrifice on our behalf. Now, God saves us by grace for Jesus’s sake through faith, and God’s love for us in Christ leads to our having peace with and joy in Him.
In today’s Gospel Reading, we heard Jesus say that it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs, and, earlier in his Gospel account, St. Matthew records Jesus as similarly saying not to give dogs what is holy, not to throw your pearls before pigs (Matthew 7:6). Today’s Gospel Reading comes between two miraculous feedings of the multitudes—one in Jewish territory and one in Gentile territory—in both of which women and children were not counted as part of the multitude but nevertheless were fed. God makes us His children, who are then worthy of His holy gifts. Neither ethnicity nor age matters: God makes all repentant believers holy by washing them with water and the Word in Holy Baptism, whether or not those baptisms include the casting out of an unclean spirit. Those who are baptized who know and feel their sins in their hearts privately confess to their pastor the sins that particularly trouble them for the sake of individual absolution. Then, those people are admitted to the Lord’s Table, where bread is the Body of Christ given for you, and wine is the Blood of Christ shed for you, and so which give you the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. We try not to have crumbs to fall from this table; we recognize that any‑sized piece contains the whole Body of Christ, and so, as possible, we consume any consecrated crumbs.
In last Sunday’s Gospel Reading, Jesus addressed Peter as one of little faith, and, in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus referred to the Canaanite woman’s great faith (confer Gundry, ad loc Matthew 15:28, p.316). We might say that Peter believed in a little god who could not handle the wind on the sea, but the Canaanite woman believed in a great God Whose gifts are so abundant that even the crumbs that fall from His table are sufficient for her (confer Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 15:21-28, p.788). May the Holy Spirit give us Gentile “dogs” faith in such a great God! With the goal of refining and strengthening our faith, God permits us to face afflictions and to suffer. We focus not on what we might think is our negative experience of God, but we focus on what we know to be true of God from His Word (confer Luther, Sermon on Matthew 15:21-28, AE 76:379). We cry to God for mercy, and we can be sure that He hears us and answers in the time and way that He knows to be best. God answers not because we have “enough” people praying or because of who we are that pray, but God answers because of Who He is as our loving, merciful, and gracious God.
The August 11th Peanuts strip in the comic series that I mentioned has Charlie Brown bring Snoopy his supper with a quotation from Isaiah, a few verses after today’s Old Testament Reading, where it says that “the dogs have a mighty appetite; they never have enough” (Isaiah 56:11), to which Snoopy rolls his eyes and asks, “What does a waiter know about theology?” Well, some waiters are theologically trained! As a theologically‑trained former‑waiter, let me assure you that God gives us Gentile “dogs” faith in Him as a great God. The division between Jew and Gentile does not matter, but the division between those who do not repent and believe and those who do repent and believe does matter. God forgives us who repent and believe, and so we are saved eternally. Until we fully experience that salvation, as we did in today’s Psalm, we sing that God our God shall bless us!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
