Lent II 2024

He is no unkind physician who opens the swelling, who cuts,
who cauterizes the corrupted part. He gives pain, it is true, but
he only gives pain, that he might bring the patient on to health. He
gives pain, but if he did not, he would do no good.
(St. Augustine: Sermon xxvii)
        
Last week, we studied Satan’s temptations of Jesus Christ, and Christ’s response to them. You will remember that we were interested in answering our Lenten question, Who is Jesus Christ. In rejecting the evil and cleaving to the good, Christ revealed to us who He must be in order to redeem and save us. We learned that if Christ was to save us, He must be the Son of God made Man. This, in turn, means that He must embrace our human condition and fight sin from within its nature. This week we shall come to see the nature of sin and our powerlessness over it. The way of man’s life involves manifold temptations. The same way is complicated by the seriousness of our fallen condition. Only the humility of the Son of God made Man can deliver us from the Devil’s hold over us.

This morning, we read in the Gospel that Our Lord Jesus Christ comes to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, (St. Matthew 15. 21) to the borders of the pagan Gentile world. Jesus never went into non-Jewish territory. He would leave that for His Apostles once He had returned to the Father. Jesus’ motives should intrigue us. Jesus intends that all men should be saved. He must offer salvation to God’s chosen people first. Yet isn’t it interesting that He even finds Himself drawn to the borders of heathen nations? Today, He had just preached to His own people about how sin originates in man’s heart and soul. He said, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. (St. Matthew xv. 8) Jesus’ Jewish brethren maintained the Old Testament Law through meticulous religious observance. Outwardly and visibly, they were pious. But inwardly and spiritually, their hearts were far from Him.         

So, the Spirit leads Jesus to the borders of Canaan. A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, among his own kin, and in his own house. (St. Mark vi. 4) A Syrophoenician woman, a Greek inhabitant of Canaan, will approach Jesus. From outside of Israel, she had learned that the Jews had brought those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatics to Jesus for healing. (St. Matthew 4. 24) She had heard that Jesus’ cures were instantaneously efficacious, and she was determined to have it also. Jesus was led by the Spirit, and she wasted no time. We read that she cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. (St. Matthew 15. 22) She comes from afar not for herself but for her daughter. She bears the burden of her daughter’s illness in her spirit. Her daughter’s misery is her misery. She will supplicate Jesus to condescend to heal her daughter. She cries out for His mercy, but we read that He answered her not a word. (Ibid, 23) Jesus is silent. St. John Chrysostom writes: The Word has no word; the fountain is sealed; the physician withholds His remedies. (Homily LII: Vol X, NPNF:I) Jesus, however, is keen to elicit from this woman a confession of faith.

The Apostles clearly cannot see what Jesus is doing. While they have been with Him for some time and have witnessed what He can do, they prefer to hoard Him selfishly, so that seeing, they see, and do not perceive. (St. Mark 4. 12) Like the pious in every age, they are consumed with what Jesus does rather than with His intention and meaning. So, they exclaimed, Send her away, for she crieth after us. (St. Matthew 15, 23) The woman has interrupted the Apostles’ experience of Jesus. They want only to be rid of this pest. Theirs is that heartless granting of a request, whereof most of us are conscious; when it is granted out of no love to the suppliant, but to leave undisturbed his selfish ease from whom at length it is exhorted. (Trench: Gospel) They will admit no impediment to their selfish ease. Jesus, however, will engage the woman, though at first, He tries and tests her with His silence. Christ is silent that the woman must be more earnest in her prayer.

Jesus finally responds. He says, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (St. Matthew 15. 24) In St. Mark’s Gospel, He says, Let the children first be filled. (St. Mark 7. 27) In both, He means that His mission is first to the Jews because they should be the Children of Promise. Yet Jesus, the Great Physician, nevertheless begins to open this heathen woman’s spiritual swelling. The Apostles are silent. She is neither daunted, disheartened, nor disturbed. It appears that she needs Jesus with a more determined fervor and faith than the Apostles do. As audacious and brazen as she appeared to the Jewish Apostles, her faith moves closer to Jesus. The more acute the disease, the more urgent is the need for the physician’s immediate attention. Then came she and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me. (St. Matthew 15.25) She will insist that Jesus is her Lord and will submit to His rule. As Calvin writes, We see then that the design of Christ’s silence was not to extinguish the woman’s faith, but rather to whet her zeal and inflame her ardor. (Calvin’s Comm’s. xvii) She will not be thwarted in her entreaty.

Jesus is first silent and then discouraging. He rubs salt into her wound. Jesus says: It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. (St. Matthew 15. 26) He calls her a dog. He hurls at her the ancient Jews’ prejudice of the Gentiles. Yet, if we look more closely, Jesus is trying to tease out of this woman not only faith but humility and meekness. Is he mocking this woman or the Jews? He knows that this woman, no matter what her race or cultural origin, possesses a faith that will put His faithful Jewish followers to shame. 
         
This Gentile is going up to Jerusalem with us, this Lent. She needs Jesus completely. She hangs upon His every word and refuses to let Him out of her grip. She will follow Him come what may. She believes that Jesus the Man comes from God. Jesus calls her a dog, and she responds. Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. (St. Matthew 15. 27) Humility comes to her with ease. She will endure Jesus’ severe mercy and hard love. She may be a dog and not a lost sheep. But she knows herself to be dog who needs the Master’s medicine. Jesus can become her Master. I am a stray dog who, when found, will sit at my master’s feet. A dog belongs to its master. I sit at his feet but will not be cast out -under but not forsaken. I belong to thee, O Lord. She insists, Very well, let me be a dog. If you are the master, I shall eat of the crumbs that fall from the table, whose feast is meant for your chosen people. The crumbs shall be more than sufficient for my daughter’s healing. As St. Augustine says, It is but a moderate and a small blessing I desire; I do not press to the table, I only seek for the crumbs. (Serm. xxvii, vol. vi. NPNF) Her daughter is sick. If she must needs be a dog, so be it. She believes that Jesus hast the words of eternal life.’ (St. John 6. 68) Lord, evermore give [me] this bread. (St. John 6. 34) 
         
With her words, this woman storms the gates of Heaven in Jesus’ heart. Jesus says, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. (St. Matthew 15. 28) Jesus cauterizes her wound, and her faith ensures that her daughter is healed. In the end, it is her faith that secures the healing she seeks. Faith in Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God, and the Power of God, always obtains Jesus’ healing. This woman’s faith answers our Lenten question. Who is Jesus Christ? This woman believes in the Son of God made Man. In faith, she believed that Jesus need speak the word only and [her daughter] would be healed. (St. Matthew viii. 8) St. Mark writes that when the woman was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed. (St. Mark 7. 30) 
         
With our opening, St. Augustine reminds us that [Christ] the Good Physician gives pain, it is true, but He only gives pain, that He might bring the patient on to health. He
gives pain, but if He did not, He would do no good. (Idem) So, we must be willing to confess the truth about ourselves if the Son of God made Man is to humble Himself, come down to us, and redeem and save us. Christ comes down from Heaven to diagnose our condition and provide the cure. He intends for us to know and confess who we are –Yes, Lord, I am a dog. Matthew Henry warns us that there is nothing got by contradicting any word of Christ, though it bear ever so hard upon us. But this poor woman, since she cannot object against it, resolves to make the best of it. ‘Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs…. (Comm. Matt. xv.) 

With the example of the Syrophoenician’s faith and humility, let us confess that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves. (Collect, Lent II) Let us beg deliverance from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul. (Idem) With her, let us abandon the lust of concupiscence in Gentiles who know not God. (1 Thes. i. 3) Jesus longs to find a faith that will open to His humility, His coming down to us, from Heaven to earth, from God to us as Man. Let us all admit that we are dogs. He calls us out as dogs because God calls us not to uncleanness, but unto holiness. (Idem) Jesus is always overcome by the faith of dogs who feed on His crumbs to conquer the Devil and break His hold over us. Jesus may resist us at times, but only to tease out that faith that will have Him, and Him alone as the Son of God made Man, whose humility rewards that of today’s Syrophoenician woman.  
Amen.
©wjsmartin