The Second Sunday in Lent (February 28, 2021)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

“For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness.”

Introduction

I love that we have been doing a Bible study on the Gospel according to St. Matthew on Fridays this past year because it makes my job preaching a lot easier as we just discussed our Gospel reading a few weeks ago.

Today, our readings and collect work together to express an important truth, especially for Lent: we cannot do anything good by ourselves — we are totally dependent on God. But we don’t learn this truth in isolation: we are also taught that, as Christians, we are to participate with God as we are made to be more and more like him.

In other words: we don’t do good things in hopes to “earn” God’s love and our salvation. We can’t help ourselves, the Collect for the Day says. But when we are incorporated into Christ through Baptism, we are made members of God’s family, the Church.

It is by virtue of our belonging, then, that we learn and become who we ought to be.

In our Gospel lessons, we see that the Church is open to all people through the sacrifice of Christ while our Epistle lesson shows us what is expected of us as a result of being in the Church. The readings first make us feel as if we belong, and then they reveal to us what is expected.

St. Matthew 15:21-28

At first, our Gospel lesson may seem to contract this. In fact, read a certain way, Christ seems downright mean to this non-Jewish, Canaanite woman. While he’s not, it definitely can be read that way.

Summary

Just prior to the passage we read, Jesus was arguing with the Pharisees about the Sabbath. After withdrawing, goes to a largely non-Jewish area of Tyre and Sidon.

There, he encounters a Canaanite woman who cries out, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon” (15:22).

Christ seems to give her a cold shoulder at first. She keeps crying out to the point that the disciples ask Jesus to send her away.

Christ’s response to her seems abrupt: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Probably not the answer most of us were expecting.

She persists, continuing to seek Jesus’ help. To which he replies, “it is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” He’s saying the Jews are like the children in a household and for him to heal a non-Jew would be to take from the children’s plates to feed the dogs. That’s bad parenting.

To her credit, she comes back with a very witty response, associating herself with a beloved family pet, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Jesus, impressed by her remark, proclaims, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire” and her daughter was healed instantly.

Interpretation

This is an admittedly difficult passage (for some reason, the Western Christian tradition has settled on some very difficult Gospel texts for us to wrestle with in Lent). Some interpreters have gone so far as to say that Jesus learns from the Canaanite woman not to be racist and overcomes his prejudice. I don’t find this a compelling reading at all.

While these interpreters are reminding us of Jesus’ full humanity, they seem to have forgotten that he’s fully God too.

What is actually going on here is that the Disciples act as Intercessors. Their request is that Christ would heal the woman’s daughter so she could go on her way (they knew Christ could do it).

Jesus then tests the woman. At this point in his ministry, he was primarily bringing his Gospel to the Jews. But this is an example of a non-Jew who has faith in the Son of God, a theme for Matthew in his Gospel.

The encounter Jesus has with the Canaanite woman is one of witty banter more than prejudiced opposition.

It functions to show the inclusivity of the Gospel and ultimately God’s universal love for all people. This echoes the same principle in Solomon’s prayer at the Temple dedication. The difference is that instead of encountering God through a building in a particular geographic location, she has an actual encounter with God in the flesh.

Her persistence proves her faith, something Jesus commends, and as a result, her daughter is healed.

This is a picture of the fact that all people, regardless of their race, sex, class, or any other part of their identity can come into relationship with God through Christ.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

Because the barrier between God and man has been removed, those of us who have been baptized into Christ are called to live out the new birth we received at our baptisms.

There are vertical and horizontal components to this: our new life is vertical insofar as we live our new life to God but it’s horizontal insofar as our baptism places us in union not only with Christ but with the whole company of faithful people, that is, his Body, the Church.

So our Epistle lesson speaks to this reality, calling those who have been brought into Christ to a life characterized by Holiness and brotherly love. Paul emphasizes the will of God for those who are in the Church, that they would be sanctified. He exhorts them, “brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more and more.” Paul is calling the Thessalonians to be who they are in Christ.

The occasion for Paul’s exhortation is the topic of chastity. He makes the argument that sanctification is in learning the proper role for sex, abstaining from unchastity, and not using sex in a way that wrongs a brother or sister in Christ.

But through that occasion, he points to a more universal principle: “For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness.”

Application/Conclusion

Sin does violence to our souls.

In our collect today, we confessed that we don’t have power within ourselves to help ourselves. This is something Paul wrestles with in Romans 7: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

But praise be to God that he moves toward us even while Sin was holding us back from moving towards him. God has overcome the barrier between us and him by stepping into time and space in the Incarnation to help us.

So, if you really want to know how to progress further in sanctification, how to be transformed into who you are to be in Christ, it starts and ends at the cross.

It is when we are fully dependent on God’s work for us that we make progress because only he can “keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul.”

This is a major theme for lent. In our fasting, penance, and self-reflection, we should come to realize the absurdity of self-reliance. By actually looking at our sinful selves, we realize we must be absolutely reliant on him.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.