“Little Doggies”
Saint Matthew 15. 21-28
Reminiscere-The Second Sunday in Lent: 8 March Anno Domini 2009
Fr Watson SSP
"Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together," and hear again a wonderful happening in the life of the Christ. This same dynamite is happening right now for you too!
This is the favorite New Testament occurrence for many of you. This report of your Lord ranks right up there with His walking on the roaring white-caps of the Sea of Tiberius and the great Christological confession of Saint Peter. There is no more telling, moving, and central to the life of the average Christian, than the story of the nameless Syro-Phoenician woman.
The Lord was not in Jerusalem or even Judea-the homeland of "real" Israelites-genuine Jews. He was not in the province of Galilee, His own home area and that of "the 12." He wasn't even in Samaria! He was walking the earth of pagan Phoenicia, the coastal region of non-believing Gentiles; Tyre and Sidon. He had gone there even as He came years ago to you…in Minnesota, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and other equally pagan places. He comes to find the lost sheep.
Most of the Jews back then, and now, rejected the Lord-did not believe in Him. But today, a staggering number of non-Jews as well: German Americans, English Americans, Kansans and others, turn their stiff necks to the Christ as well. Why even you…Lutherans…Scripture affirming, Catechism confessing, faithful disciples, daily struggle with the temptations to doubt and second-guess your Good Shepherd. You may not deny Him explicitly, but you can ignore Him, marginalize Him, compartmentalize Him, and cover Him up in the back of your mind until paying Him "lip service" for 60 minutes on a Sunday.
The Reformer and good Doctor is correct: "your real God is that which demands your attention and receives your focus" during the remaining 112 waking hours every week. The devil wants that god to be him: the "prince of the air." The world wants that god to be it: diversions, mammon, entertainment, clutter and choice (television, movies, video games, politics, computers, sports etc.). Your "old Adam" wants that god to be you: your comfort and your will! Satan wants you grasping (if not always consciously thinking about it) his unholy trinity of "me, myself, and I." The devil wants you avoiding pain and hurt at all costs and being constantly busy. He knows that if you're too busy to be quiet and to listen, you may miss the "still small Word." If he can convince your "reason" to always search with the "eyes" for earthly results-appearances-measurable, hard, verifiable, results, you may miss the sublime mysteries of the Sacraments. If you end up desiring glory, carnal victory and success in your religion, and in what you think you're doing for God, you will end up missing the Crucified One and His Grace!
The sinful natures of each of you, just like the pagans of Phoenicia "have no knowledge; our sinful selves, (also) carry the wood of their carved image, and pray to a god that cannot save." You would be doomed to a short, nasty, brutish life of grief and despair were it not for Christ the Word! Your God comes this day, this hour, this moment, to Shawnee to save, feed, and shepherd! From the Son and the Spirit to Matthews hand and parchment to the English Divine's translations, to my lips and to your ears; the Same Healer is here now as was with the Syro-Phoenician woman.
Have you lost a loved one in death? Are you suffering from a medical condition that is not, or may not ever, respond? Are you despondent over chronic pain, old age, rebellious children or troubled marriages? The line forms here, loved ones. Join the company of believers and let the Lord's message soothe your aches of spirit and flesh. You are not experiencing anything that is unknown to the company of heaven, or unknown by the God/Man Himself. Listen:
"Behold a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto Him, saying, 'have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.'"
Vexed with a devil!! Demon possession…my Lord, that is even worse, far worse, than the most virulent cancer, is it not?
And what did the woman do when her eyes, her emotions, her ears (temporarily) told her horrible things; showed her no glory, no healing, no mercy, no nothing but the backside of God's hand, the rude, heartless rebuffs of the Disciples "send her away."
What do you do when your heart is cracking with loneliness and loss, when your senses seem to shout that God isn't listening? What do you do when your eyes inform you that things aren't getting any better and that in fact they're getting worse? And what do you do when your ears seem to deceive you, as they seemed to do for her "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
Hosanna in the highest-you DO nothing! You…by yourself…do nothing! But your faith (worked by and given by the Holy Ghost) and your redeemed new man/woman does what the Syro-Phoenician woman did…it clings to the promise with a "death grip" which in reality is a Life grip for it clutches the LIFE enfleshed. And the Gospel is-that even as you think you are holding on tightly to Jesus (which you are), in reality it is He Who is holding onto you with a the grip not of gorilla glue but of God's Grace!
You are doing NOW, and every Sunday, and every day of the week…what she did then: "Then came she and worshipped Him saying, Lord help me." Her request was actually a demand based on/in the Word! It did not matter what her senses and emotions told her because the Word (and her faith in It) believed the Gospel and believed Christ Jesus. Her trust was anchored in the Promise; a promise since the ancient times of Isaiah and before, that "There is no other God besides Me, a just God and a Savior…look to Me and be saved."
She knew…and you know…you believe…that even when Jesus is testing you, He is actually making your spiritual lungs grow and get stronger (though they burn) so that more Holy Spirit will fill them with vibrant, active, living and over-flowing faith (Christ in You). You know that even when your prayers seem not to be answered (when the casket is lowered into the earth) that Jesus loves you…and rescues you (the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come!).
Like the woman, your Christ gives you to know that you are not the "big dog," and that you are no longer the foaming at the mouth mad dog, caked in filth with fur matted in sinful refuse. You have been made the little dog, the pup, the much loved family member and faithful companion of your dear Shepherd Master. Like the woman, you may still appear at times to be a nameless, suffering, miserable man or woman-but you're not. You are a little doggie that knows where your food dish is, where your nourishment and care come from, where your home, and life, and Master's Table are!
Jesus loved her, her daughter, and all of you "daughters of Jerusalem" so much that He not only heals and exorcizes devils and impious spirits, but that He goes to Calvary and bleeds Holy Blood and lets Holy Flesh be despised so that the head devil himself would be bested. Jesus hung on the cross for the woman, her daughter, and you. When the Master had His side pierced open with the Roman spear, out gushed His Blood and Water. From His body came forth the springs of your cleansing and your drinking. Your water-bowl + is forever filled with the Shepherd Himself, so that all of His little pups might forever drink their fill.
Jesus answered you then. Jesus answers you now, today: "O woman (O man), great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt."
You daughter are made whole from this very hour.
In the Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost