Bringing the Future Into the Present

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last week we looked at the nature of faith and saw that when we speak of faith we are not talking about some kind of mindless or blind belief. Faith always seeks understanding so that it can develop and be nurtured. Today I want to look briefly at a case study of faith to see what we might learn from it. I am indebted to +Tom Wright for the idea behind today’s sermon.

How many of you were shocked at what Jesus told the Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel lesson? In a day and age when we believe in the equality of all human beings it is quite startling to us to hear Jesus indirectly call someone who was not of his race a “dog,” a term regularly used by Jews to mean they saw Gentiles as being inferior. Here we see a woman come to our Lord begging him to heal her daughter and at first he refuses to do so. This is tantamount to a traveling physician refusing to heal someone who comes to him for help. We wouldn’t think much of that physician and we have to ask ourselves, “What’s going on here?”

But we miss the bigger picture if we focus on Jesus’ initial response to the Canaanite woman. What we are seeing here is Jesus the human being struggling to be faithful to his call to be Israel’s Messiah. And we can relate to that because we struggle regularly to be faithful to our respective call. Earlier in Matthew’s narrative Jesus had sent out the 12 to preach the good news to only the people of Israel. They were expressly prohibited from preaching to the Gentiles (Matthew 10.5-6). Now it looked like he was going to ignore this Gentile woman’s request to heal her daughter. But Why? Isn’t God’s love offered freely to all?

Jesus reacted this way because he apparently believed that he was sent to remind God’s people, Israel, what they had forgotten, what God called them to be through Abraham, and to be for them as God’s Messiah what they could not be for themselves. In other words, Jesus understood part of his task to be that of reminding Israel that God had called them and blessed them so that they could be a blessing for others.

But as we have seen before, Israel forgot their calling, in part because they were as deeply flawed as the Gentile people God had called them to bless. After all, you cannot bring healing to someone else if you are not healthy yourself. All this would have raised the question: Did God make a mistake in calling Israel to be the primary agent through which God’s rescue plan was to unfold? So Jesus had work to do by calling Israel to follow him so that they could be the people God called them to be.

When we understand this, we can better understand Jesus’ initial reaction to this Gentile woman. True, there would be a day when God’s love and mercy would be extended to the Gentiles, but apparently in Jesus’ mind that day had not yet arrived because his people, Israel, weren’t yet in the position where they could fulfill God’s original call to them. And so Jesus had to work with his people first. He had to remind them of God’s promises to them and to teach them that those promises were being fulfilled in his presence, in part by living in ways that would allow God to use them to bring his healing to the world.

And here is where the story gets really interesting because the Gentile woman’s powerful faith in Jesus’ ability to heal her demon-possessed daughter apparently challenged Jesus’ expectations about his mission to Israel. It is almost as if the conversation went like this. Canaanite woman to Jesus, “Son of David, please help me.” Jesus replies, “Don’t bother me, lady. I have work to do with my own people. You see, I am God’s point man and I am going to make it possible for God’s rescue plan for humans to be fulfilled through God’s people as promised. God called and blessed Israel to be a blessing for you and your folks but Israel didn’t get the memo and I have to help get them back on track by doing what they could not do themselves. That’s why I can only deal with them at this point. Your day’s coming but it isn’t here yet. If I reach out to you Gentiles before it’s time to do so, before I get Israel back on track by completing my mission as their true representative and dying on a cross, I essentially make God out to be a liar because that means God really didn’t intend to use Israel to rescue humans from the mess they’ve gotten themselves into with their sin and rebellion. So no can do. Sorry.”

To which the Canaanite woman replied, “I get that and I accept that, Jesus. I even believe that God will rescue folks like me through his people, Israel, and specifically through you. That’s why I called you by your Messianic title, “Son of David.” But I don’t care about that at the moment. Right now I only care about my daughter and I know you have the power to heal. So why can’t you let a little of that power fall on her right now while you are busy working with your people? Are you telling me there is not enough of your wonderful love and healing power to go around? Are you telling me you are a Messiah who is not big enough for God’s world?”

And it is this remarkable faith that confronted Jesus and seems to have caught him by surprise. Don’t let this fact bother you because at that point Jesus was fully human like the rest of us and didn’t have the entire big picture in the way he has now as risen and ascended Lord. So we can learn from him about how to deal with the ambiguities that confront us. In effect, the woman’s faith, cleverness, and perseverance allowed the future, God’s future of mercy and healing, to break in on the present so that God’s remarkable love and healing power in Christ could come to bear on both her and her little girl, and we need to pay attention to this lesson.

Why? Because if God uses fervent faith to allow his future to break in on our broken present to bring healing and change, as opposed to us sitting around and being content to wait for things to happen in the future, then it seems to me that we must bring that faith to bear in prayer, especially if we want to make a difference for Christ in the world. As Christians we look around at the things and people in this world that desperately need God’s healing love and power, and by faith we pray for God’s kingdom to come, and quickly. As we do, we remember Jesus’ parable of the widow and the unjust judge in which the widow keeps badgering the judge for justice (Luke 18.1-8). The story of Jesus and the faith of the Canaanite woman remind us to do just that. We don’t pray as if we are whistling through the graveyard. We pray with the faith and a sense of urgency that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven and we have faith that our prayers can help it along. In other words we pray with the faith and expectation that God is a God who is big enough to answer our prayers and respond in positive ways to our faith.

But we must do more than pray. We must also be willing to let God use us to help him answer our own prayers. This is what John Wesley and the Methodists did in 18th century England regarding their ministry to the poor. Many of that day were content to let society evolve as it naturally would. But the Methodists weren’t and so they prayed to God to use them to bring his love in Christ to bear by helping the poor and needy improve their lives. Then they rolled up their sleeves and worked tirelessly to accomplish that for which they were praying.  They didn’t wipe out poverty but their work arguably helped 18th century England avoid a social revolution.

What is it that you see needs changing? What (or who) in your life do you see that desperately needs the love of Christ brought to bear on it (or them)? God uses our faith to allow the promises of his future to break in on our present hurts, just the way he allowed the Canaanite woman’s faith to bring his love to bear ahead of its time. This is hard work, folks, and it requires great faith, patience, and perseverance. But what an opportunity for us when we allow God to use us and our faith to bring his love to bear where it is desperately needed! When we see this happening in our lives and the lives around us, we are indeed reminded that we have Good News, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.