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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:
“It is not right
to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”
Last week, we came up against the hard wall of politics in
church, that they must be talked about lest we begin to hate our brother
because of them. And because of our sin, we must face this impossible task 7
times 70 times and make respect and forgiveness a way of life.
Today we join the Canaanite woman in this same struggle. The
struggle of doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting a different
result. The very definition of insanity and the very same insult and accusation
we hurl at our brothers on the other side of the political aisle.
The simplest way to understand this, though not the only way
by far, is to try and understand the addict and his struggle. “This time I’ll
beat it”, he says and doesn’t. Or “this time I am strong enough to encounter my
substance again”. Each and every time the devil calls him back, promising a
different result. And each and every time, our poor man is defeated. Insanity.
Another way to look at this struggle would be war or murder.
We think that if we just go to war to rid ourselves of our enemy, then we can
rest. And what starts you on this path is that you feel you have been wronged
somehow and so you are “getting them back” for what they did to you. But your
actions produce the same effect in someone else. A never ending cycle of hate,
murder and revenge. Insanity.
However, do not make the mistake of thinking that it is only
in these large, public sins that insanity takes hold of you, thus if you just
avoid those, you’ll be safe. Sin has such a hold on you that it is your
addiction, whatever form it takes. It is what you return to over and over
again, as a dog returning to its vomit (2 Pet 2:22) expecting something
different.
And I would say, that the public sins are easier to handle
than the sins you keep to yourself. Public sins demand accountability, whereas
secret sins can be kept close, to return to often, with no one the wiser.
Insanity.
It appears as if God does not help today either, from our
Gospel. The Canaanite woman must return to Jesus over and over, beg multiple
times, and debase herself, humiliate herself. Along with all of us, she smashes
her head against that wall again and again, crying out for something, begging
for a difference this time.
Similarly, hear the parable of the persistent widow from St.
Luke 8:
“In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared
God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city
who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I
neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow
keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down
by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what
the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice
to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.” (Lk 8:2-8)
Repent. In our sin, we hear God telling us to continue to beat
our head against a wall concerning God as well and maybe He’ll answer. We
strive against the evil of this world and the evil we find welling up inside of
us and are crushed by their weight. We hear God saying, “Don’t give up” and we
conclude that He is never going to answer.
What we miss, is that God has not put up a wall that only a
few, special, spiritual elite get through. What the persistent widow, the
Canaanite woman, and what we beat on is not a wall, but a door. Not just any
door, but the door that isn’t a door. The door of which it is said:
So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you,
I am the door…If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out
and find pasture” (St. John 10:7-9).
This is the power of the gift of faith and this is the care
and concern we sang about in our Hymn of the Day. That is that we hear the Word
of God and believe it. Believe that when He promises action and mercy on His
part that He is not slow to act, as some consider slowness (2 Pet 3:9). And
thank God, because the wall between the sinner and God is not even tangible,
but invisible, which makes it even worse for us who are in the body.
In Christ, God is beaten upon. Jesus is the door upon which
we knock to beg for justice and mercy. And Jesus is beaten; stricken, smitten
and afflicted. In Christ, we are allowed, invited, to beat upon our God and
Lord to such an extent that in the end, His Body and Blood cover us and we find
mercy in those wounds, through Faith.
Jesus suffering and dying is the result of our sinful
persistence, at God’s command, as Isaiah 53:10 says, “It pleased Him to
crush Him.” This is the hysterics and insanity of our sin: that God present
Himself to us, ready to show mercy, and we crucify Him.
But do not lose heart, dear Christians! For while it is good
to agonize over our sinfulness and realize the horror of them, better it is to
be raised by Christ Crucified. And herein is the real lesson of the Canaanite
woman, who appears to be oppressed by God. That her sinful persistence is
changed into Faithful Persistence. And that faith bows her down in the dust of
her addiction to sin, but Jesus says to her in that state, “It is not right
to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”
And Faith hears it this way: “I cannot give the children’s
bread to those who think and act like dogs”, meaning Jesus wants us to believe
that though we were dogs in our sin, we are children at His say-so. Jesus
cannot give children-bread to dogs, but He can and does recreate us as children
that we might eat the children-bread.
And the woman believes! She responds that even dogs eat
children-bread. That is that even sinners will be welcomed by God to the
children’s table. That Christ has not come to deny Himself to anyone, but He
has come to open Himself to the sin of the world, take that beating upon the
cross, all in order to turn dogs into children; sinners into saints.
This day, you find yourself beating upon the flesh and blood
of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, not because you are insane, but because
you know God promises mercy and that He gives it fully and completely in
Christ, both in this life and the next.
There is no insanity in repeatedly beating upon the true
Door, for it is unlocked and open by virtue of the Crucified Christ. It is not
a wall, forever closed, but a door meant to be opened and meant to be passed
through. The Canaanite woman, by faith, knows that no matter how insane life
becomes, the Door will open for her.
The world does not promise blessing. The Door, Who is
Christ, does. So we continue to “bother” Jesus, day after day, Divine Service
after Divine Service, as the persistent widow expecting from Him the same thing
over and over again. And He offers the same thing over and over again, that is
the forgiveness of sins in Word and Sacrament.
Is this insanity? Far from it. Expecting to be able to
magically make our sinful life fall away from us is insanity, because there is
no promise that will happen. In Christ we do the same thing over and over again
and expect the same result and it is very Good. No despair, no self-sacrifice,
no futility, for God promises it in Christ.
For even though Christ does not change in His love towards
us, we are the ones changing. In our Christ-given Persistence of faith, we now
beg God in hope. Hope that He will continue to change our lowly bodies into His
glorious body. Hope that He will return for us and show mercy. Hope that this
world of insanity will end and that an eternal life of innocence and
blessedness, for us, by Christ’s side will not end.
For You have promised, Lord, to heed Your children’s cries
in time of need through Him Whose Name alone is Great, our Savior and our
Advocate.
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