Catching up! :-) Sermon - 9/7/14 - Pentecost 13 – Rev. Peter Sulzle You Have Great Faith! 1. One faith that pleads for mercy. 2. One faith that collects crumbs of mercy. Text: Matthew 15:21-28 21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour. It was the middle of the night when ghost stories come to mind more vividly. The waves were swelling higher and higher all around him. Wind gusts made him question his footing. The steady mist penetrated his face making him squint to see who it was. Distraction and doubt overcame his heart. He began to plummet into the depths. He cried out desperately, “Lord, save me!” Do you remember what Jesus told Peter in the gospel from last week after he saved him from certain death? “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” That was definitely a moment of weakness with which we can all sympathize. Now, in stark contrast to that little faith of a disciple, Jesus showcases a great faith of a Canaanite gentile woman. She also was helpless and desperate, in a situation with which we can all sympathize. She cried out “Lord, have mercy!” And Jesus said, “You have great faith.” Two very similar situations. It begs the questions, “What is great faith?” We might think someone has great faith if they are strong-willed, service-oriented, ministry-minded, adversity-tested, and spiritually gifted. But this woman was helpless and desperate, not looking to give to Jesus, but to get from Jesus. We might think great faith is left to patriarchs like Abraham and Moses or apostles like Paul and Peter. But Peter had little faith and this woman had great faith. What is great faith? Who can have great faith? “You have great faith!” Faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is always great. That’s the point Jesus was trying to make. Anyone and everyone can have this great faith, including you. You have great faith. This family of believers has great faith. One faith that pleads for mercy. One faith that collects crumbs of mercy. We find Jesus traveling by the Mediterranean Sea to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Most people in this Canaanite region were dubbed heathen foreigners. But Jesus traveled there because everyone needs his mercy. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” This desperate parent hurt when her child hurt. Her child is demon-possessed. She was in pain and violent. The situation was out of control. She cried out to Jesus, “Lord, Son of David.” She knew he was the God of faithful love and mercy. She confessed him as the promised Messiah, the Son of David, who could work a miracle. She pleaded for his undeserved power and kindness. Now this may come as a shock. But Jesus did not answer a word. He was testing her faith and at the same time, after Peter’s episode of floundering faith, showing the disciples the real definition of a great faith. After much pleading, his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” They seemed a bit annoyed. Jesus responded, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” His ministry largely focused on God’s chosen Jewish nation. But the woman knew he was the Savior of all people. She knew that his family of faith was not just for a certain race or gender. So even when Jesus kept silent and even when the disciples wanted her to go away and even when Jesus said his ministry had a different focus, she kept pleading, “Lord, help me!” Talk about persistence! Would you have given up when you found yourself on your knees with the world crashing down around you and all you heard from God was silence? You plead once and hear silence, so you just let it be. Maybe you go again, but then wonder if God even cared when the illness lingered or temptation continued or series of unfortunate events stretched on. We misinterpret his silence for a lack of care and compassion. The pleading for mercy stops. Would you have given up when the disciples said “Send her away?” After all, there’s only so much God can take after we shove sin upon sin in his face. The devil whispers, “Everyone else is more important than you. He doesn’t care about your petty problems. He just wants you to go away.” So even though we’re desperate and destitute, hurt in sin and hell-bound, the pleading for mercy stops. Would you have given up when Jesus said, “I was sent to the lost sheep of Israel.” There’s a whole lot more people out there that deserve his mercy more than me. There’s people who are worse off that God needs to deal with. In self-pity, the pleading for mercy stops. When we stop pleading for God’s mercy, we are rejecting our only hope for care and comfort – our only hope for salvation. We’re throwing away the spiritual life-preserver as we jump into life’s raging waters completely helpless. We need God’s mercy because the alternative is hell. We confess that we daily sin much and deserve nothing but earthly and eternal punishment. We’re like the prodigal son who went off and squandered his inheritance in wild living. He came back to his father as a beggar. We are beggars. But that’s good! Our pleading for mercy shows our trust in him that he has the divine answers to our deepest spiritual problems. We know he is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. We know he has promised to forgive us through Jesus. So we plead for what we don’t deserve. That is one sign of great faith. It is not full of itself, but full of Jesus and his promises. Then great faith collects crumbs of God’s mercy. After this woman fell down and begged him for help, Jesus said, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” At first glance, that looks demeaning. Jesus was calling her a dog. But the Greek word doesn’t mean a scavenging street dog - word many Jews used for people like her. The word he used was a house pet that was dearly loved. This dog was fed scraps from the hand of the owner. The woman caught on to what Jesus was trying to teach. She replied, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” In humble faith, she was happy to be the beggar at the table of the Lord. For all she desired…all anyone can desire, are crumbs of God’s mercy trusting he has enough for all. Jesus acknowledged, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted!” Jesus healed her daughter instantly. A foreign Canaanite woman received crumbs of God’s mercy showing that he has enough for all people. This woman had great faith. Her heart zeroed in on his promises. We tend to measure great faith on outward appearance or works. But great faith is not in how much you have served the Lord or how long you have been a believer or in membership in a certain church or by doing what Jesus would do or by keeping the golden rule so everyone can see. Every single one of us has fallen for these false definitions of great faith which really cause us to trust in our faith and good works rather than our Savior. Great faith results in good works. But the source of great faith is Jesus and what he has done. It is not self-centered, but God-centered. It does not see this church and this book primarily as a body building tool, but as a hospital for heal and help. Great faith collects crumbs of God’s mercy. Great faith is simply a spiritual loading dock that receives what God has prepared – salvation through the perfect life and innocent death and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ. A great faith receives forgiveness, receives peace and joy, receives the ability to live for God, receives spiritual gifts, receives spiritual armor to fight off evil, and receives the gift of heaven. You have received these blessings. That means you have great faith. Your faith may feel strong or weak. You may feel like a sinking Peter or pleading foreigner. But you are never out of reach of God’s table. You can always receive crumbs of his mercy. Even when we feel like an insignificant speck on God’s mercy map, we just watch the crumbs of mercy fall. They fall to us in his powerful Word and precious sacraments, in his great promises to us. That’s what makes faith great. In this respect, everyone is a perfect candidate for our family of faith, because everyone is a sinner, everyone needs forgiveness, everyone needs Jesus in their heart, everyone needs their lives changed by his love, and everyone needs to go to heaven. In that respect, we are all the same. So many different lives, different families, different jobs, different weekly tasks, different life situations, but one family of faith for everyone because we offer exactly what every single soul needs. Ask yourself why you are here? There may be a number of different reasons. “I’m here to teach Sunday School.” “I’m here to talk to friends.” “I’m here to learn how to live better.” “I’m here…” Insert your own reason. Often our reasons are to do something. If Jesus asked the Canaanite woman why she was there, what do you think she would have said? “Because I need you. I believe in you.” That’s why we’re here. That’s why we gather around our mission to grow in God’s Word and to share it with everyone. One great Savior. One great family. One great faith. Belief in God can become cliché at times. You just gotta believe. But for this woman, believing was not cliché. She believed with all her heart and Jesus commended her saying, “You have great faith.” Jesus says the same to you, “You have great faith.” It’s a faith that pleads for mercy and a faith that receives precious crumbs of mercy to sustain and satisfy every day. When you look to Jesus and his promises, that kind of faith is ours. It’s what unites us as a family of faith moving forward. Go back to God’s promises and you’ll hear God say to you, not as an individual this time, but as a family, “You have great faith!” Amen.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 18:01:54 +0000
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