Grace, mercy and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The text on which this morning's message is based comes from our Gospel lesson (Matthew 15: 21-28, the Canaanite woman) read earlier.

Jesus doesn't quite sound like Jesus here does he? How would you feel if you came to Jesus, believing He was the Christ sent from God, and said "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly" and Jesus didn't even answer you! How would you feel if you came to Jesus and his disciples asked to send you away? How would you feel if you came to Jesus and He said things like this to you? "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel… It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." "I wasn't sent to you. Why should you receive my blessings?" Jesus doesn't quite sound like Jesus here does he? What is this story all about? How can the Son of God, God himself in human flesh, the loving savior of all mankind, how can He be "dissing" (i.e., disrespecting) this poor woman? You need a little background to fully understand this story. Jesus has just finished another run-in with the Pharisees and teachers of the Law in Jerusalem. He left "that place" Jerusalem and withdrew to a region well to the north of Judea and Galilee, into what we now call Lebanon. He leftthe confines of Jewish culture, and entered into Gentile, pagan, unbelieving territory. When Matthew reports that a "Canaanite woman from there came to him", he's not just reporting a trivia fact like "she was from Missouri." Matthew is emphasizing for his readers that she was, by Jewish standards, unclean, an outcast, part of the clan that had been fighting against the Hebrew people since the time of Moses. Matthew's early readers would have probably assumed that Jesus should have shunned her as she should probably have avoided Him. But she doesn't. Somehow she has become a God-fearing woman. The Holy Spirit has brought the Word of God to her ears and through it, faith into her heart. She has heard the message of the Messiah who is to come, the Son of David, and she believes that Jesus is that one.

And here is where it gets really interesting. We Americans typically have a sense of entitlement much stronger than our sense of humility. Our "rights" must be upheld. Our health-care should be paid for. If something goes wrong in our lives, somebody else must be at fault! And on the horizontal level, among our fellow human beings, those are not bad. It is good to have human rights. We do live in a country where at least some level of good health care can be had by all. But before God, we deserve nothing but rejection. We are sinners with no rights or entitlements, only the expectation of judgment and punishment before a perfect and righteous God.

But the Canaanite woman doesn't come with a sense of entitlement. She is humble beyond our imagination. "Lord, have mercy on me." Have pity on me. I am helpless in helping my beloved daughter. Please help me, I know you can." Have you ever noticed how often we ask for God's mercy in our service? We confess our sins and say "For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us and lead us. Then we chant the Kyrie "Lord have mercy" four times. Today we sang a hymn (#234) instead that ended each verse with "God, be merciful to me." In our prayers we say "Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer." At communion we chant: "Lamb of God you take away the sin of the world; have mercy on us." We repeat the Canaanite woman's heartfelt words over and over again.

Do we mean them or do we sometimes just mindlessly go through the motions?

She meant them. "Lord have mercy on me!" But the Lord tests her, doesn't answer her prayer immediately. "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. He replied "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." It's at this point that too many of us would have either slunked off in despair or came back at Jesus with "How dare you treat me that way. Well, I've never been treated so rudely." I'm not sure which I would have done. It probably would have depended on how strong and aggressive my sinful flesh was feeling at the time. But she doesn't. She knows she is not just talking to a regular human being. She is addressing the Messiah, the special one sent from God. She doesn't respond with entitlement or slink off in despair. She comes back with "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

See if you remember these words. And lead us not into temptation. What does this mean? God indeed tempts no one; but we pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us, so that the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh may not deceive us nor seduce us into misbelief, despair, and other great shame and vice; and though we be assailed by them, that still we may finally overcome and obtain the victory. Hopefully those words from the Small Catechism, Lord's Prayer 6th petition have a ring of familiarity in your ears. This woman was assailed by despair. Her daughter was being assailed by the devil! God indeed tempts no one, but his patient testing may seem like too much of a challenge at times.

Let us make a distinction. Temptation leads one away from God and comes from the devil, the world or our sinful flesh. But testing comes from someone who cares. This week high school coaches around the land will begin testing their young athletes abilities at football, cross-country, volleyball, and tennis. Good coaches will know just how far to push their athletes to extend their skills and prowess. Jesus here isn't "dissing" this woman, but extending her faith so she and the disciples and we can benefit from her extension. The Lord had tested the faith of Abraham and Sarah at the birth of Isaac and the faith of Jairus at the death of his daughter and the faith of Mary and Martha at the death of Lazarus. We still benefit from the extension of their faith. In a sense, the Lord tested the faith of his disciples during his own sufferings in Gethsemenae and tested their faith through his suffering before Pilate and on the cross and to the grave. And temporarily they failed until after his resurrection when their eyes were opened to his bigger plan to show mercy. Jesus didn't plan to show mercy to only the Canaanite woman or to the 12 apostles or to just the people of Israel.

Jesus plan was to show mercy to the whole world, a mercy so deep and wide that it meant the death of God Himself for them, for us, for you. The Canaanite woman truly, truly meant her words "Lord have mercy on me." The Lord Jesus then does the most gracious thing. "Divine love is so infinite and marvelous that it even praises a human being for exercising a gift – in this case faith – with which this very divine love has endowed her" (Hendricksen, 1973, p. 624, a Commentary on Matthew). God's Holy Spirit had given her this faith in Jesus and now Jesus praises her in a way never given to any of the 12 apostles. "Woman, you have great faith!" Imagine how some high school baseball player would feel if Barry Bonds came up to him and said "Young man, you have great talent!" Jesus had this praise for only one other person, the Roman Centurion who asked that his servant be healed (Matthew 8: 10).

I wish we could promise that God would heal every ailment, every grief we have during this life in the time frame we would ask him to. We have no guarantee of that. Even the apostle Paul suffered from some physical ailment that Christ did not choose to cure. Christ told Paul (2 Corinthians 12: 9) "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." In many cases God does cure and he blesses us with the care and skill of modern medicine, doctors and nurses. But we do have a guarantee that he ultimately responds to the call "Lord, have mercy on me." There is a promise to those who continue, throughout their lifetimes to faithfully call out "Lord, have mercy on me." On the Last Day, at the Judgment they will hear words that sound like Jesus, that sound like those to the Canaanite woman: "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!" (Matthew 25: 21).

The grace, peace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always. Amen.