Lent 2 March 17, 2019 The Sunday of the Canaanite Woman
Lent 2 The Sunday of the Canaanite Woman
March 17, 2019
Matthew 15:21-28
“Faithstrong”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I bind
unto myself today
The strong name of the Trinity
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
(LSB #604:1)
Today is St. Patrick’s Day. March 17th. The day he died. And that’s a hymn from St. Patrick. Look at the name of the tune, ST. PATRICK’S BREASTPLATE. It’s a bold, manly, military hymn. And it gives you a great picture of St. Patrick, boldly going into Ireland as a missionary to pagans bringing them the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
You may have heard the legend about St. Patrick taking a three-leaf clover, a shamrock, and teaching the Irish people about the Trinity—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons in one God. That may be just legend, but what’s not legend is St. Patrick’s bold teaching of the true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Just look at the hymn—and think of waking up each morning binding unto yourself the STRONG name of the Trinity by invocation of the same. Just like our catechism says to do each morning by saying, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
So there may be a lot of legend around St. Patrick that’s not really true. And St. Patrick’s day in America may have virtually nothing to do with the Triune God at all. But St. Patrick himself, as we know very well from his autobiography, was a thoroughly Christian man, strong in faith. After pirates had captured him from Britain and taken him captive for six years in Ireland as a slave, and after he had escaped and returned home for a while, he received the call of God to go back to the land of his captors and bring the Gospel of Jesus to high and low. As I’m going to talk about in just a minute, he was certainly faithstrong.
And so is the lady of our Gospel reading today, the Canaanite woman who begs Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter. In fact, her strength and fortitude are so tremendous that I thought we needed a new word to especially describe it. I kept thinking in my mind the word headstrong. She certainly seems headstrong. Because she asks Jesus for help and he ignores her. Then when she persists in bugging Him, then He says that He didn’t come for people like her. Not for Canaanites. He only came for Israelites. But she keeps after Him.
Then at the big climax of it all, she begs one more time for help and mercy. And Jesus calls her a dog saying it’s not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. But she is so headstrong she still won’t relent. But the problem with the word headstrong is it sounds negative. Like she’s stubborn or bullheaded in some bad way. But she’s strong in a good way. So she needs her own word—faithstrong. That what’s this woman is, same as St. Patrick, she is faithstrong.
And Jesus knows it. And that’s why He pushes her. To hold her up to you and me as a pure example of the strength of faith. Faith pushes on despite how we feel, despite how the situation looks, and despite the fact that it seems God is against us. We know He isn’t. We have the promises of His Word. We know, by faith, that God is true and His Word is true. So this Canaanite woman, a most unlikely hero, shows us what it means to be faithstrong and to hold God to His Word. Just like St. Patrick.
And also—just like Jesus. It always bothers a bit when I read about this woman and how Jesus responds to her—first ignoring her, then insulting her. But this year I finally remembered something. That’s exactly what Jesus goes through as well. He’s simply teaching her what it means to follow Him. You must be faithstrong. You must trust God despite any circumstances around you. Jesus was faithstrong.
How much opposition did Jesus face on His way to the cross? His own disciples, like Peter, kept telling him not to go to Jerusalem. And to quit talking about dying on a cross. His own flesh prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Take this cup from me.” The devil tempted Him over and over again to give up and live for His own pleasure. Pontius Pilate tried over and over to get Him to defend Himself. The crowds mocked and ridiculed Him telling Him to come down from the cross if He was really the Son of God.
But Jesus was faithstrong. He marched forward to the cross because He trusted the Word of His Father in heaven. He knew the Father loved Him. He knew He was the Son of God. So He took the suffering, the ridicule, the shame and He went to the cross to win our salvation.
So you know what St. Patrick’s hymn says about that? He says in verse 2, “I bind this day to me forever, By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation, His Baptism in the Jordan River, His cross of death for my salvation, His bursting from the spiced tomb, His riding up the heavenly way, His coming at the day of doom, I bind unto myself today.” I bind to me today—all of Jesus! All of His strength.
We are weak, but He is strong. And in Him we’re faithstrong. For instance, with Christ we are faithstrong in prayer. Prayer takes strength. As you see with the Canaanite woman, she had to be persistent. It seemed Jesus was ignoring her. Prayer often seems that way. As if God’s ignoring us. But faith knows better. Faith knows that God never slumbers nor sleeps as our choir sang today in Psalm 121. Faith knows that God promises to hear our prayers and to answer them.
So we pray. Faithstrong. Many times we don’t even feel like we have the words to pray. So just like the Canaanite woman we say simply, “Have mercy.” Lord, have mercy. Lord, help me. We pray the Lord’s Prayer. We cry out to God and He comes to our aid.
You might have also heard that there’s a prayer attributed to St. Patrick. He may or may not have written it. But here’s the end of the prayer:
Christ shield me
today
Against wounding
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through the mighty strength
Of the Lord of creation.
Christians are faithstrong in prayer.
And we’re facestrong against enemies. Most notably against the devil. But against anyone who would take Christ away. As we’ve been discussing in our book study groups these last two weeks, most of the world expects us to leave Jesus here in Church and leave Him at our homes in our private lives. That’s the way this world has come to think. That Jesus isn’t for your public life. He’s only for your private life in church and home. But Christians must be faithstrong. It’s absolutely impossible for Jesus to only be in our home and churches. Because we have bound Him to ourselves. As St. Patrick says, he’s with us, before us, behind us, in us, and so forth. We can’t think or work or play except for the glory of God.
No one anywhere in the world leaves their beliefs at home when they go out in public. And neither do we. So be faithstrong, Christians. You know the God who made the world. You know the Son of God who redeemed the world. You know the Holy Spirit who makes sinners holy. So bind Him unto yourself today and take Him with you into your daily lives. Live in Him. Do your daily work in Him. Be faithstrong as a parent, a grandparent, a neighbor, a teacher, a State Farm worker, a businessperson, a counselor. In whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.
And be faithstrong in temptation. When the devil and the world test and try you—when you’re tempted by the false pleasures of the world, tempted to waste hours in front of TV and phone screens, tempted to sexual sins, tempted to love money more than God—be faithstrong. Tell the devil that you bind unto yourself today the strong name of the Trinity. That you are not so soon enticed.
Finally, be faithstrong in loving others. It’s risky to truly love others. It puts us out of our comfort zones. We worry that people will get the wrong idea about us if we’re seen loving so-and-so. We think that we shouldn’t help others too much less they get dependent on us and cramp our style. Well, people definitely got the wrong idea about Jesus. People definitely become dependent on Jesus. But it doesn’t stop Him from loving you. Be faithstrong in bring His love to others. St. Patrick, the Canaanite woman, and you and me—all of us binding unto ourselves the strong name of Jesus Christ! Strong in faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen.