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Pentecost 14 Have You Ever Been . . . ?
August 17, 2008
Christ the King
Kenner, LA
Text: Matthew 15:21-28
I’m looking forward to the start-up of our pre-school in just a couple of weeks. This congregation can be very proud of this educational ministry which we provide to the community. Christ the King Preschool has an excellent reputation, and every year the parents and grandparents tell me how pleased they are with the program we offer.
The kids are really the heart of it and they’re a lot of fun to be around. Once a week we have chapel in here. And I guess because I’m usually already in here when they enter, and because the teachers have told them they’re going into God’s house, a bunch of them think I’m Jesus. So I always have to set them straight on that.
But the great thing is the wonderfully reverent way they enter, single file, the two year olds holding onto their place on a rope. They look like a string of fish. And with the other hand they hold their finger up to their mouth, reminding themselves to be quiet.
Can you believe it? Two, three and four year olds, nearly 100 of them, totally silent, in the church? Well, that’s the kind of etiquette our teachers and helpers try to instill in them.
So one of my first tasks, once they’re in their pews, is to liven them up a bit. But I get the impression that it’s more than reverence. I think it’s because they know they’re coming into God’s house, and they don’t want to wake him up. So, shush, let’s try not to disturb him! That’s why I first lead them in a loud song. And, of course, they just get progressively louder as chapel progresses.
Have you ever been loud during worship? Hmmm?
I suspect that being around Jesus like those first disciples must have been very noisy. Don’t you think that a picnic for 5000 men (not even counting the women and children) must have been pretty loud? Maybe that’s one of the reasons Jesus would try to get away from the crowds to be alone with the Heavenly Father quietly in prayer.
Because there were all those folks crying out to him. Like blind Bartimaeus, who shouted out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” But when folks told him to be quiet, we’re told, “he cried out even more loudly” (Mark 10:47-48).
Have you ever felt like you had to shout to get Jesus’ attention? When he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the Pharisees told Jesus to order his followers to stop yelling out their praises. And Jesus said, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out” (Luke 19:40).
A woman shouted and kept on shouting in today’s Gospel. A Canaanite woman (i.e. not a Jew, but a Palestinian), “started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon” (Matthew 15:22). Have you ever been that worried, that frightened, as this mother was for her child’s health?
And Jesus’ response? Matthew writes, “But he did not answer her at all.” Have you ever experienced the silence of God; felt that he was ignoring you?
The disciples told Jesus to send her away. That’s always their solution. “Send them away.” The swarming children, the blind beggars, the hungry crowds, and now this woman. “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” But she wouldn’t stop.
Have you ever been that desperate? It seems that Jesus almost did dismiss her when he said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Almost as though he didn’t have time for anyone else.
But at that she went and knelt before him. And she pleaded, “Lord, help me.” Have you ever groveled like that?
Well, she may have wished she had been sent away when she heard what Jesus told her next. He said, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Oh, my. I don’t know how to explain that. It is what it is. Have you ever felt that humiliated? Or that needy that you’d put up with it?
I recall three years ago, during those days of waiting to return after the storm, how angry I was when someone first offered me money, but then how thankful I was for a gift card.
The woman said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Have you ever been that hopeful? That tenacious, that determined? It’s almost like Jacob wrestling with the angel in the Old Testament, wrestling all night and saying, “I will not let you go until you bless me” (Genesis 32:26). Have you ever been that persistent?
And yet it’s none of those qualities which makes this woman so remarkable. Her persistence, her desperation, her tenacity, her hopefulness, even her bit of Jewish “chutzpah,” when she says, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” None of those things alone, but all of them and more.
Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith!” He praises her as an example of faith for us.
Last week we had the opposite example. Peter started sinking into the water, and he too cried out, “Lord, save me” (Matthew 14:30). Jesus did. But as he reached out his hand and caught Peter, he said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” But please notice, he saved him anyway.
There are times we’re desperate, times we cry out because we’re naturally frightened, times when we feel like he’s ignoring us because we’re hearing nothing but silence. But despite all that, he tells us to have faith. Faith which is placed squarely in him, whoever we are. In other words, not in our worthiness, but in his mercy. Trust that he cares enough about us to hear us and answer us. The kind of faith which is shameless, which would lead us to make a spectacle of ourselves, shouting out to him, and force us to our knees he comes to us.
Have you ever had that kind of faith? Neither have I. Neither did Peter and the other disciples. So we pray for it. Because it’s our single greatest need, isn’t it. Stronger faith. Bold, persistent faith like this woman’s.
It’s a faith worth begging for. As we did in the Prayer of the Day which we spoke earlier, and which we pray again now.
Almighty and ever-living God, you have given great and precious promises to those who believe. Grant us the perfect faith which overcomes all doubts, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.