Homily For The Second Sunday in Lent

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be alway pleasing and acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen. 

Lent is especially a time where we meet Christ in prayer for his mercy upon our sins and our afflictions. It is during this season that we - through reflection, fasting, and humiliation - come before the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and ask him for the supreme gift of his grace through prayer. Indeed, we come to the Lord in humility, knowing that he is the God that “resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” James 4:6). But, we can be sure of this: that all the ways of our God are mercy and truth, and to those who come to him in sincerity of heart will never be cast out but welcomed with great rejoicing! This lesson is put forward for us in our Gospel Lesson today. 

We read in St. Matthew’s Gospel that our Lord departed unto the land of Tyre and Sidon, withdrawing himself from the thanklessness of his own people, who preferred the traditions of their fathers to the covenants and promises of their God, and so Christ traversed over those ancient borders which were established long ago by God to divide the nation of his people from the nations of the unclean. And, in doing so, the Lord began to bring his healing power beyond the borders of the children of Israel to all the sons of Adam, to the nations of the Gentiles. And, there, St. Matthew tells us, “a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David.” Now, St. Matthew gives us unique information here. In the parallel account in St. Mark’s Gospel, we are told that this woman was a syrophoenician, a native of the land of Phoenicia when it was a part of the Roman province of Syria. But, in St. Matthew’s Gospel, this woman is known by her most ancient name. She is a woman of Canaan, a Canaanite. A Gentile of gentiles. It is as if St. Matthew wanted to impress upon us the severity of the situation and the extremity of the Lord’s grace to sinners. 

This was the same Lord, as St. Jude tells us, who delivered his people out of the land of Egypt, walked with them through the wilderness, and led their conquest against the unrighteous land of Canaan to give that land as an inheritance to the people of Israel. Now the unrighteousness of the Canaanites paralleled that of their ancient fathers in Sodom and Gomorrah. They were murderers of their children, worshippers of false gods, engaged in the worst sorts of fornications, and corrupters of the poor. They stood opposed to the covenants of God and his people, and so God commanded that the people of Israel destroy them, saying, “thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them” (Deut. 7:2). It

is only by some mystery of the hand of Providence that Israel did not obey the voice of God and remove this nation from the face of the earth. And so in the course of Providence, in order that our God also could have mercy even upon the Canaanites, this descendent of theirs survived into the days of Jesus Christ. And while the sons of Israel were opposing the mercy of God in sending his Son, the sons of Canaan were rejoicing that the advent of the gospel had arrived! 

She had come to the Lord to cry out for his blessing, that her daughter who was vexed by a devil might be delivered from the power of Satan and healed of all her ailments, and so much so did this woman make her daughter’s troubles her own, that she cries out “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David.” But, the Lord did not respond to her, testing her mind you, and not from malice of heart or apathy toward her daughter’s condition, but when she began pestering his disciples, they asked the Lord to send her away. The Lord, therefore, finally responded to her cries, saying, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And then, “It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.” Indeed, the gospel is sent out the the Jew first and only then to the Greek, but this Canaanite woman did not relent, but earnestly worshipped the Lord and prayed “Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.” Now note her great humility. She does not cry out against the Lord, neither does she protest being compared to a dog, but instead she accepts her role in the history of redemption, as a Canaanite, as one who is far alienated from the people of God, a daughter of those conquered by Israel, the remnant of a wicked and corrupt nation, she accepts her role in this and yet protests not what she is, but protests who the Lord is. Her immediate response is not to say, “I deserve more, Lord, I have been righteous, and I have had constant faith!” Rather, it is to say, “Lord, I may be a lowly dog, but you are a gentle and caring master, and if you are willing to give such nourishing sustenance to your children, surely you must be willing to give the unwanted scraps to your dogs!” And surely, if freedom from devils are the scraps of the Lord’s grace, surely we cannot fathom how much more we shall receive before his presence in heaven.

So we see that this woman was humble in her devotion to the Lord. In fact, this ancient name of her ancestors means “humble” or “subdued.” Certainly, we can never attribute too much to the Lord’s hand, nor can we attribute too little to our own, so even though Christ called her dog, she called him Lord, praising the name of him who humbled her, and so Christ who saw her lowliness, no longer called her dog but woman. For indeed, this woman was no dog. This woman was no Canaanite. Rather, in the simple sincerity of faith and humility of prayer, this woman had shown that she was no Gentile but a daughter of Abraham, because she had the faith of Abraham. And if Christ departed Judea because he did not find Abraham’s faith among its elders, then surely he left Canaan satisfied that even its lowliest women had the humblest measure of faith.

Now nothing could have demonstrated more genuine humility here than her manner and attitude did here. Though a Canaanite, this woman addressed our Lord with the most profound form of respect, and she even bowed before him and made herself low in worship with great reverence. And when our Lord compared her to a dog, not as an insult but as a matter of covenantal history, she did not take offense or consider it an insult, but rather turned that name into a plea for mercy, appealing not to her own deservings, but to the Lord her God’s deepest pity for the suffering. It is as if she said, “It is true Lord that I am a dog, but even poor master’s care for the health of their dogs after their children, how much more would you - who is a good master - care for me?” 

Brothers and sisters, if we are are also by nature children of wrath and gentile sinners - grafted as wild branches into the olive tree of Israel by God’s mercy - how much then should we follow the example of this our Canaanite sister by coming before the presence of God in perseverance and humility. We know that we are now in the season that the Church has allocated for Christian fasting. But, friends, I encourage you, as we continue through the season of Lent, the Church has indeed invited us to join her in a season of fasting, but we should not mistake this fasting as a mere abstinence from food. This is sometimes the mistake we make when we only think of Lent as the time we give something up. It is not a diet. God has not called us to abstain from mere meat, but from prayerlessness. He has not demanded that we forgo sugar, but that we forgo the pride that leads us away from his presence and into the hand of the enemy. We’ve not merely stored away our alcohol, but rather been committed by God to thirst and hunger after the righteousness that comes from humility. To quote the first great prayerbook commentator John Boys, “Let us remember and learn by this good woman, how to be devout all Lent, [indeed] all the year, praying discreetly, fervently, humbly, constantly, never leaving Christ until he bless us, until some crumbs of mercy fall from his table.” 

Friends, we seek from Christ more than earthly healing, we seek more than being made whole, rather we seek for Jesus Christ himself. We are preparing now to enter Holy Communion, where we will pray the Prayer of Humble access, which echoes with the words of this godly Canaanite woman. “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. 

We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy.” We come not to receive mere nourishment for our bodies by the bread and the wine, but the spiritual nourishment that comes from spiritually, that is, feeding upon Jesus Christ himself in our hearts with thanksgiving. There is nothing which our Lord Jesus Christ so much delights in than to be pressed by us with perseverance and humility. And, this is what is meant when our Lord said, “that men ought always to pray, and not to faint” for Christ surely hears our prayers and will give us that thing that we treasure most in this world: himself.

So let us not give way to discouragement or what seems to be the delay of the Lord.But let us with earnestness, perseverance, and humility emulate the widow who pleadedwith the unjust judge to avenge her, knowing that the judge of all the earth - our dearFather - will deal justly with us and give us all that we ask for and more if we come withfaith. Indeed, he has given us even our own faith and willingness, which we cannotrefuse, that we should receive from him every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.And, surely at the last day we will hear from him the same wordsgiven to this faithful Canaanite, “Child, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.