THE FAITH OF
THE GENTILE WOMAN
Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of
Jesus had been in
While there He received the news of
the death of John the Baptist, which grieved Him, so that, When Jesus heard of it, He departed thence by ship into a desert place
apart....Mt.14:13. The Gospels teach
us that Jesus sought solitude when He needed to re-charge His batteries, which
He seems to have done mostly by praying to God the Father. We can be sure, and we really must take note,
that this prayer was anything but casual.
It was a real uniting of our Lord’s spirit with the Spirit of God.
William Temple, in a lecture to a
group at
But solitude was not something Jesus
was ever allowed for very long, and when the people heard where He had gone, they followed Him on foot out of the
cities. And Jesus went forth, and saw a
great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed their
sick. Mt.14:13-14.
There is no doubt that Jesus was
tired and distressed, first by His rejection by His own people and secondly by
the death of John the Baptist. He was
fully human and we all know what constant pressure does to us. Yet He does not turn away those who find Him
and clamour for His help. What wonderful
depths of compassion abound in our Lord, so deep do they run that He always
shows mercy towards those in need.
In fact, what follows is the
miraculous feeding of that same multitude, with five loaves and two
fishes. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and
children. Mt.14:21.
First, He sent His disciples away
upon the
Included in this crowd were scribes
and Pharisees, upset because the disciples of Jesus did not follow precisely
enough the Pharisaic rules of hand washing.
Jesus answers them, and once again sets off for a different place, this
time going into the non-Jewish coasts of
But it was not to be. And
behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto Him. Rejected by his own people in and around
And as we learn from these few
verses, Matthew 15:21-28, the Gospel can reach all people, even those who might
be thought of as its enemies. Jesus is
the essence of the Gospel – no, more than that, Jesus is the Gospel.
His disciples implore Him to send
the woman away, for she crieth after us. Wrong thing to do, asking the Lord to send
someone away from Him. We cannot treat a
person who asks about the Gospel as a nuisance and we do not, ever, have the
right to deny someone access to the Gospel.
If we cannot preach it to them, we can at least offer them some small
part of it and pray that what we offer, in word or in deed, will act as the
leaven in the lump. Then we can trust in
the Holy Spirit to lead that soul into the full riches of the Gospel, into the way
of righteousness. We are never alone
when we are spreading the Gospel.
This Canaanite woman comes to Jesus
in the sincere belief that He can help her daughter, so He does not, of course,
send her away. He greets her with
silence, but that does not stop her and it is her persistence which leads the
disciples to ask their Master to put a stop to it. They are not aware that what Jesus is doing
is to kindle in the heart of the Gentile woman true faith. They were not ready to understand that the
Gospel is for Jew and Gentile alike, that the
Our Lord’s earthly ministry is,
however, painfully short. So He knows
that His priorities lie with the Jews, God’s chosen people, who are in all
kinds of trouble. I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel, He
says. The mercy of God was to be shown
first to His chosen people through the promised Messiah, and it was among them
that the Gospel message was first to be delivered.
Then came she and knelt before Him, saying, Lord, help me. Now this
Gentile woman is in an attitude of supplication and worship. She has indeed progressed in her faith. Gone is the title, Son of David, which Dr. Barclay describes as a political title. Now she
acknowledges Him simply as Lord! In that one word there is complete truth, and
if we are to worship God, we must worship Him in truth. In that lecture I mentioned earlier, William
Temple says, Our worship is to be in truth. For this it is not only necessary that we
should be free from hypocrisy and say what we mean; we must mean what is true.
So we worship God, we pray to God
from that foundation of truth, that we worship and pray to our Lord. How can our
worship have any point; how can our prayers possibly be answered if we do not
offer them to the Almighty Lord, whose power is without limit.
In this Lenten season, then, when
our state of wretched sinfulness should give rise to the oft repeated cry, Have mercy on me, we have the example
of the Canaanite woman to give real meaning to that cry. We must pray to God to root that cry deeply
in the truth.
And the truth is that the God to
whom we cry is the God of all mercy; the God who sent forth His only begotten
Son to die upon the Cross for us. What a
timeless, perfect, all sufficient demonstration of the truth of God’s mercy
that is. The Cross says to us that we
will never be denied that mercy if we seek it in truth. Listen very carefully to the words which
Bishop Carl will pronounce in a little while in the Absolution.
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of his great mercy hath promised
forgiveness of sins to all them that with hearty repentance and true faith turn
unto Him.
Reflect, I beg you, on the truths embedded in those words. The Almighty power of God our Father; the
great mercy He alone can show; the wonderful promise of forgiveness which He
alone can make. And the unavoidable
necessity for us to do our part, turning to Him with broken and contrite hearts
and the sincere, unshakeable faith of the Canaanite woman. God is Spirit. Let us seek Him in Spirit this Lent, and pray
that He will take hold of our lives and will change them for the better.
Peter Jardine+
Second
Sunday in Lent,