“CHRIST UNTO THEE”
Saint Matthew 15: 21-28
Reminiscere: 17 March Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
Another miraculous healing? Yes. Another “sign” as to Who and What this Galilean Rabbi really was?
Yes. But this text, this present reality, is actually about praying. It is how you should pray. Increased prayer is an expected Lenten discipline. How are you doing? 3rd Use of the Law at the beginning of the sermon, or is it 2nd Use? Yes. Pray more. Pray daily. Pray at established and fixed times as well as spontaneously. Pray for more than your own. Pray for your fellow parishioners, your pastor, your enemies. And don’t expect programmatic “how to” courses and guides to help you. The reason you don’t pray more, pray the way you ought to, is because you simply don’t want to.
The Syro-Phoenician woman knew how to pray. Be like her.
She too is your mother in the faith. As the Blessed Virgin is your “Mother,” the most beautiful “type” of The Church. So too, this nameless woman from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon is your Gentile mother in the faith. Saint Mary in a seemingly dismissive comment from her Son at Cana nonetheless held firmly to Whom she knew Him to be… “and she said to the servant, ‘whatever He says do it,’” so too this woman in a clearly dismissive, and insulting, comment from The Son of Man nonetheless held firmly to Whom she knew Him to be: Good and Merciful! How do you respond when you prayers are not immediately granted the indulgence that your selfish-self demands they deserve? Do you curse, do you abandon The Lord and cease asking, or do you grab the hem of His robe and demand what He’s given you in your Baptism? This is no rainbow in the sky hearkening to God’s promise not to destroy the earth with a flood. His baptism of you, His absolving your sins in confession, and His soon to be delivered Sacrament, are not just an earnest, not just a pledge, but a Promise to be delivered, and a promise NOW: Delivered. Demand Mercy from The Lord Who delights in giving Mercy.
“But He answered her not a word.” He was The Word. And she knew it! He IS The Word. Believe it!
Why was Jesus there in the first place? His ministry for the most part was effectively over in Nazareth. He had had great success in parts of eastern Galilee. He healed many and preached The Kingdom in the environs of Bethsaida and Capernaum. His final mission to Judea and Jerusalem had already started and would soon culminate. But hitherto it had been Jews, Jews, and Jews.
His own “12” Disciples, as well as His 70 deacons were sent out “two by two” to the Jews, and only to the Jews. So again, ask yourself, why is He in non-Jewish Tyre and Sidon vicinity?
A possible first answer, which I submit is both facile and false, would be that Christ only went north to visit some Jewish settlement or synagogue in that region. The other answer, the real one, is that He went specifically FOR that woman “a woman of Canaan” and for her daughter.
“And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: and them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold, and one Shepherd.” [Jn. 10.16]
Christ is the author and content of both the Hebrew Old Testament and His New Testament. In this morning’s text He personally begins to fulfill the prophecies of the great ingathering of the Gentiles. He continued it with your own Holy + Washings where the diabolic was driven from you.
Ethnicity and racial origin do not matter. Color of skin or sex does not matter. Abraham does not matter! He should have said to those “12” who “besought Him…’send her away,’” and to you, “bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” [Lk. 3.8] Saint Paul reiterates why he went to the Gentiles, why Jesus went to the Canaanite woman: “for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel; neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children; but, in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” [Ro. 9.7] Isaac like his father Abraham and his son Jacob/Israel believed not because of sight, but rather, had faith, held on to the Mercy and Forgiveness of the coming Messias, by The Word. Deliverance would be by grace and not works. The healthy and strong would be overturn and set low (Mary too sang) but the lost, and weak, and sick would be found by their Good Shepherd. The lost lamb would be sought out. Thus, the woman believed. No bargaining, no self-justification, just raw in-your-face trust: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David.” Yes, she does go on to tell The Lord what the tragedy is—a demon possessed child.
God’s own daughter, your first mother, Eve, was the first to be “vexed with a devil.” God had mercy then, God had mercy this day of Jesus’ visit to the north, and God has mercy 17 March 2019! Eve ran from God and hid. The Syro-Phoenician woman ran to God and refused to leave! It leaves one almost speechless.
Next to the swine, no animal is more maligned in Holy Scripture, or even Apostolic and early Patristic Christianity, as the dog.
To freely admit to being a “dog” was the Word-worked contrition, and repentance, and perfect prayer of one filled with faith. IN YOUR FACE MESSIAH…I TRUST IN THEE! You can almost imagine Jesus first moving to the right, and then weaving to the left, and then trying to go straight, and EVERY TIME, that small wiry, spunky, weeping, Holy-Ghost filled woman blocking Him each time IN YOUR FACE MESSIAH…I TRUST IN THEE!
Oh Augsburgers… “O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt…made whole from [this] very hour.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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