From Banished to Bride: Faith in the Mercy of God
Matthew 15:21-28
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
August 14, 2011
* The power of a truly excellent insult – and a wise retort!
I. Great Distress: The Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve
A. This Woman is all of us - "O Woman..." and Genesis 2:23
B. Her Daughter is all of us
* Banished and exiled, yet Aslan is marching to Tyre and Sidon
* She moves south from Lebanon and he moves north from Galilee
- This is the divine collision of grace
- Her cry ascends to heaven because her need is rooted in hell.
II. Great Faith in Great Mercy: Confessing our Sin and the Savior
* Faith and hearing - Mark 7:25: She had heard of him!
A. Screaming for Mercy
* The Savior's Silence
* The Disciples Plea: Lord, make her go away. "Great" faith: large (Centurion, Matthew 8); Intense (the Woman, Matthew 15)
B. Agreeing with the Verdict
* The first offense of the Gospel is the humiliating assessment of our true condition.
* Only by confessing that we are 'dogs' can we become the objects of mercy
- "The torrents of grace do not flow upward to the heights of pride. He who is himself the fount of life...made himself small. Therefore prepare your riverbeds, level out the mounds of your haughty thoughts, for the Fount of Grace does not ascend into the heart of earthly man, but rather flows downward into a humble, low-lying heart." - Bernard of Clairvaux
C. Great" faith: large (Centurion, Matthew 8); Intense (the Woman, Matthew 15)
III. Great Commission: Walking into Gentile Territory
A. The Purpose of Blessing: Psalm 67 (Acts 1:5, 8)
* The Mission begins IN the Church but it does not end there. Rather it proceeds via the Church into the world and FOR the world to the glory of God.
* From Matthew 10 to Matthew 28 ("Don't go...Go!")
B. Where is our Tyre and Sidon? Where are our Gentiles?
- Romans 11; 15:8-9
* Arrogance is our constant temptation; but since we are the objects of mercy let us becomes the 'vessels of mercy' in the village center.
* The distant distressed woman became the worshipper. This Gospel story is repeated over and over again. Let it be told here too.
4 comments:
This one is interesting. Some believe it shows a very human Jesus, maybe a bit to human, but I like that a bold woman turned his thinking around.
Her faith was 'intense', and it is this faith - a gift - that seized his attention, just as yours does as well.
Moses, too, when he warned the Lord that if he, the Lord, didn't accompany Israel toward the land, and thus deliver them fully from the Egyptians, that "They will say he couldn't do it." Pretty bold, but also entirely true!
And, Jesus, arguing with his mother at Cana about "my time has not yet come," when she wanted him to do something about the wine running out. But, since the text later indicates that this occasion was the first of his "signs" to his disciples, it was true that the time for signs had come. His mother must have perceived that, including all the associated symbolism that goes along with it, before she pressured him!
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