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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 32:22-32
1 Thessalonians 4:1-7
St. Matthew 15:21-28
Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard,
saying:
“O woman, great is
your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.”
Last week we heard Jesus speak of contrition for our sins,
but if repentance, confession, and absolution do not follow contrition, then we
are not sorry for our sins. For just feeling sorry is not enough, we must fear,
love, and trust God to realize contrition leads to the forgiveness of sins in
Christ, not eternal punishment.
The point of controversy from today’s Gospel how to make
satisfaction for our sins or if there is satisfaction to make in the first
place, which, spoiler alert, there isn’t with Christ. With satisfaction should follow
penance and good works. Our Canaanite lady in the Gospel reading, appears to
have some secret sin, or her daughter does, and it is afflicting them in the
form of a demon, since she is still suffering.
Though she had faith, as Jesus attests, she still is
burdened and is seeking Jesus to help her. Maybe to help her overcome the
situation? Her secret sin has apparently torn her away from faith’s protection
and so she must “endure all things willingly, be contrite of heart, confess
with the lips, and practice complete humility and fruitful satisfaction” (RCC
II, V, 21).
Between what she has to suffer with her daughter and how
Jesus apparently treats her, its a wonder that even believes anymore. However, some
preach and teach that her penance appears to be rewarded, or is it? She suffers
under Jesus’s intense scrutiny and comes out on top. She has persevered through
penance and has been reconciled?
Even our Epistle would side with her, giving us a nice list
of how to walk with and please God, or in other words, how to make satisfaction
for the sins we have committed since our Baptism. God has called us to holiness
after all. And if we want to keep the demons away and keep God happy with us,
then we must work hard to make ourselves walk worthy.
Repent. Penance, your working yourself into a miserable
sorry state for your sins in front of God to prove yourself, is not a
sacrament. However, penance is included in the Sacrament of Baptism. What you
feel is left undone by the Lord’s Baptism, is simply your guilty conscience
fighting against the perfect grace and mercy Jesus has already shown, and
continues to show to you, in Word and Sacrament.
Looking at our Epistle reading again, we see that the “will
of God” is your sanctification. That is that He purifies and cleanses you from
all unrighteousness, for Christ’s sake alone. There is no, “up to the point you
sin again”. God’s sanctification is an eternal sanctification, purchased by the
Body and Blood of Christ. The works St. Paul lists following will be the fruit
that follows you being saved.
Likewise, in the Gospel. There is no secret sin, only
Original Sin, of which we are all guilty. Neither is there any penance for some
imagined “falling out” between God and this family. Rather the faith that saves
is grabbing a hold of Jesus and not letting go until He leaves a blessing. If
she was fallen from grace, she would care not at all for Jesus. Since she has
faith, she knows that this is the only place to go for aid.
Yes, there is quite the bit of humility, contrition, and
endurance on the part of the Canaanite woman, but those are the results of God-given-sanctification.
They are the good works that Jesus has given all of us, while we bear our
crosses and follow Him. Works supply the proof that faith is living, they do
not supply faith itself.
Dear Christians, the fact that Jesus can present Himself in
front of you and you recognize and acknowledge Him as God and Lord in His Word
and Sacraments, is proof of the salvation Baptism has already given to you.
That you continue to seek Him out where and when He has promised, is also proof
of the faith Baptism continues to supply you.
That you constantly recognize your sinfulness and
unworthiness to stand in God’s presence and expect only mercy and forgiveness
from Him, instead of punishment, to you then is also said, “Great is your
faith, be it done for you as you will!”
Because, again, the greatness of your faith does not rely on
your greatness, but the greatness of the One Who gave it to you. Just as we
would say the terribleness of sin is such because of the terribleness of the
One sinned against. Yet, we still believe the Gospel is greater, for where sin
abounds, grace abounds much more (Rom 5:20).
If we believe something greater than Jonah, Solomon, and the
Temple has come among us, then why, when He accomplishes His greatest work,
could it be made to be nothing in the face of our filthy sin, secret or
otherwise?
It doesn’t. Jesus does not face the Canaanite woman in a
courtroom manner, demanding penance and paperwork to prove her true loyalty. He
faces her as a sinner waiting for the redeemer of Israel (Lk 2:38). He listens
to her. He speaks with her. He engages with her. He understands her, better
than we understand, as all we do is judge God when we hear this
interchange.
And most importantly of all, He does not leave her in her
sin to find her own way out. He goes after her while she is still a sinner, and
brings her out himself, plus her daughter! He does not wait until she works
herself into enough of a penitential frenzy before He says “good enough”.
“Baptism now saves you” and that’s that. While we
were enemies of God, Jesus finished, completed our salvation. Are we going to
move closer and farther away from faith as we live our life? Yes. Does all that
unrighteousness we commit nullify the grace of God? By no means!
In fact, all it does is amplify. Where sin abounds, grace
abounds much more. Jesus comes to seek, save, and heal those who are sin-sick,
not those who can heal themselves. Our penance and change-of-heart are fruits
of the love of Christ, not the root. We want to make amends toward God and our
neighbor, because faith moves us to, having already been saved ourselves.
Any reconciliation we do, or think we do, is only effective between
us and our human neighbors, in faith.
For Faith is going to bring forth good fruits on its own.
Any good fruits we see in our life are a result of Christ living in us and for
us (Gal 2:20). It is necessary to do good works commanded by God, because of
God’s will, as St. James says, “Faith without works is dead”.
But nowhere is it commanded to rely on those works to merit
justification before God. For remission of sins and justification is
apprehended by faith, apart from works. Jesus even says: “when you have done
all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants;” (St Luke 17:10).
The same is also taught by the Fathers. For Ambrose says: It is ordained of God
that he who believes in Christ is saved, freely receiving remission of sins,
without works, by faith alone.
So it is that just as St. Jacob and the woman with the flow
of blood reach out to Christ, clinging to Him incessantly until He bless, we do
the same. Rather than looking inside ourselves for perfect obedience, we have
our ears opened to hear His Gospel, the work God has done on our behalf, when
we could not and would not in our sin.
Rather than attempting to reconcile ourselves to God after a
bout of temptation and sin, we remember our Baptism which unites us to the one
and only sacrifice of Christ, Who has made satisfaction for all sin, for all
time.
Rather than attempting to dig deep in our pockets to look
for some sort of payment that the God-Who-cannot-be-repaid, will accept, we
simply lift up His Body and Blood, receiving it at His invitation, as He
desires! “What shall I render to the Lord”, says Psalm 116, “for all
his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of
the Lord” (v 12–13).
Yes. This is why we elevate the Host and the Cup in church:
for the Lord to see and for us to see the satisfaction that has been made, once
for all, in the given and shed Body and Blood of the Only-begotten Son of
God. We elevate Jesus, not us. Our focus is His Satisfaction, made for us,
on His cross.
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