Our daily prayers are generally consumed with things that will not be remembered in eternity. We pray for money because secretly we do believe that money is all that matters. We pray for recognition because we all secretly lament that people do not really know how wonderful we are or what wonderful things we do – and they should. We pray for healing because we secretly believe that really this is the only real life and the only life that really matters. We pray for success because we secretly believe that failure can teach us nothing and is unworthy of us. We pray for happiness because we secretly believe that happiness is the only way you know God loves your or the only reason God is worth having. We pray for strength because secretly we wish we had the courage to really say what is on our minds or do the desires that live in our hearts. We pray for God to explain Himself because secretly we think God owes us a reason for the bad that befalls us or why the good does not come.
What you will seldom find in our prayers is a prayer for faith – for the faith to endure to the end and finally be saved. What you will seldom find in our prayers is a prayer for us to be holy as God is holy. What you will seldom find in our prayers is a prayer for God to do what is right even when it is not what we want. We are not alone. It has been this way among God’s people for a very long time. In fact, you will not find an abundance of people who are singled out for their faith in the Scriptures. Our Lord Jesus does not dish out many compliments for the faith of those around Him and the few to whom He has said something are not the folks we expect. Jesus does not single out the disciples for their faith. Instead He says of the apostles “O you of little faith.” So when we come to someone whose faith is called out by Jesus, we ought to pay attention.
There are two that stand out. One is the centurion who comes to Jesus for the healing of his servant. He is a soldier who lives by words that you can trust and by authority. He comes to Jesus as the man of authority and as a man whose word will accomplish the purpose for which he says it. His response to Jesus has become the familiar and ancient prayer of the faithful as they kneel before the altar. “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter but only say the word and my soul shall be made whole.” This prayer Jesus lauds and insists He has not found such faith in Israel. This man is a man of faith, not an Israelite from whom such faith could be expected but the surprising faith of a Gentile whom Jesus commends.
The other one whose faith is lauded is the Canaanite woman in the Gospel for today. Jesus says of her, “Great is your faith!” And she is the same woman whom He had called a dog only moments before.
We are conditioned by politeness to think this woman should have been offended by how Jesus treated her and what He said to her. But this is not about her abuse at the hands of the disciples or of Jesus. Our Lord is not rejecting her but urging on the faith He knows lives within her. After all she comes not for herself but for her daughter who is oppressed by a demon. In the back and forth of the words of this conversation, she displays a remarkable faith that Jesus uses to instruct the disciples then and you and me now.
The woman calls Jesus “Lord.” She does not address Him as Rabbi or teacher as so many did. Perhaps the reason why the disciples want to get rid of her is because it is obvious that this is a woman of faith, faith that has yet to be displayed in them. In any case, this unlikely character shows us those disciples and shows us what it means to believe. She is not a theologian or even a student of the Word but she is a woman with faith. That faith will not give up nor will it be sent packing by offensive words that call her a dog. That faith persists when it appears God is not on your side and that faith trusts what is neither obvious nor clear.
Jesus says “I did not come for you.” She swallows the rejection and comes back with the simplest and yet most profound of prayers, “Lord, help me.” It is no longer about proving her case but simply about who Jesus is and for what purpose Jesus has come. Jesus says she is not worthy of a seat at the children’s table nor of the bread that is for the children of God. But she comes back by insisting that she does not want to take someone else’s place nor is she trying to take the bread that belongs to others. She is content to be a dog in the Lord’s House and she is confident that the crumbs of mercy which fall from the Lord’s table are sufficient for all her needs. When had the disciples ever prayed like this?
When have you ever prayed like that? When have I? Why do we not pray like this? This praiseworthy faith acknowledges things that we find hard to admit or believe. This person shows us that there is only one thing that is important and that is salvation. Everything else comes and goes. The occasion for her prayer was not an improvement in her daughter’s well being but freedom from the demon that would steal her daughter away eternally.
The stakes of her cause were not a better life or a happier one or a richer one but the only life that matters – salvation. For that she does not care about the seeming offense at being called a dog and she is not trying to compete with others for mercy which should not be hers. She has absolute confidence in the Lord Jesus and she believes that the crumbs of His mercy were sufficient to give her and her daughter the only life that matters – eternal life.
That is the problem. Most of us are not convinced that the only life that matters is eternal life. It shows not only in the prayers we pray for ourselves but the prayers we pray for our children. We are more interested in them getting ahead in this life than in possessing eternal life by faith. We are more interested in them finding happiness than the perfect fulfillment of everlasting life. We are more interested in the quality of this life in them and in us than we are enduring in faith to the end and being saved. The reason why church seems irrelevant or boring or we give up trying to force our kids to go to church is that secretly we are not convinced eternal life is worth the battle or worth giving up anything in this present life that we want to do. The reason why we find vulgarity amusing and violence entertaining is because we secretly do believe that a little bit of evil is not so bad.
The Lord knows this and loves us still. The exemplary faith of the centurion and this Canaanite woman are not lauded because they are the only ones who will be saved but to help us realize what great mercy is ours in Christ. We are not left to be dogs but made children by baptism. We are not refused by the Lord but welcomed as His own sons and daughters. We are not given mere crumbs of His mercy but a place at the table and the food of everlasting life right here. Let us learn from such great faith to rejoice in what we have been given and to pray ever more earnestly for the only thing that matters – our salvation. That is the prayer that God always answers just as we pray Him to – and such a prayer that defines our lives is the mark of a truly great faith. Pray the Lord to make it so in us today. In the Holy Name of Jesus.
1 comment:
Dear Pastor Peters: Although I have never prayed for any of the things you write, “we pray” for, I found the rest of your sermon edifying and spiritually enlightening. However, there is one thing that feels like a thorn in my flesh every time I hear it.
Here is the section, “His response to Jesus has become the familiar and ancient prayer of the faithful as they kneel before the altar. “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter but only say the word and my soul shall be made whole.” This prayer Jesus lauds and insists He has not found such faith in Israel.”
The centurion prayer for his servant was indeed lauded by our Lord. When some super pious people, who wanted to show God how well they understood Him, and how deeply they regretted their sin, changed “servant” to “soul” they committed blasphemy. They did this, because, in their supreme piety, they would not understand the Gospel. According to our faith, the faith taught in Scripture, our “souls were made whole” in Baptism, when all of our sins were forgiven, when we became children of God, when our bodies became temples of the Holy Spirit. Every time we ask God to “heal our souls” we deny the work of salvation that our Lord has already accomplished.
In the Lutheran Church, many have forgotten the inspired words of Luther, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers.”
It is also what we proclaim when we sing the chorus to that great hymn,
“It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well with my soul”
Peace and Joy!
George A. Marquart
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