Second Sunday in Lent
Bishop Ray Sutton

A minister I heard about is named, Stephey Bilynskyj. He starts each confirmation class with a jar full of beans. He asks his students to guess how many beans are in the jar, and on a big pad of paper writes down their estimates. Then, next to those estimates, he helps them make another list: Their favorite songs. When the lists are complete, he reveals the actual number of beans in the jar. The whole class looks over their guesses, to see which estimate was closest to being right. Bilynskyj then turns to the list of favorite songs. "And which one of these is closest to being right?" he asks. The students protest that there is no "right answer"; a person's favorite song is purely a matter of taste. Bilynskyj, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Notre Dame asks, "When you decide what to believe in terms of your faith, is that more like guessing the number of beans, or more like choosing your favorite song?" Always, Bilynskyj says, from old as well as young, he gets the same answer: Choosing one's faith is more like choosing a favorite song. Bilynskyj concludes that for this reason confirmation classes nowadays are an uphill battle. He usually has to try to bring a group of students from a view of faith that it is merely in the eye of the beholder, to realizing that faith is certainty in a reliable object. To put it another way, true faith is not subjective but objective. For this reason it only takes a little bit of faith in the right object. Whittier once wrote, “The steps of faith fall on the seeming void and find the rock beneath.” This is the lesson of our Gospel for the day found in Matthew 15:21-28. 

Jesus traveled outside of the Land of Israel. A Canaanite woman, in other words a Gentile, approached him. She cried out, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed” (v. 22). Jesus doesn’t answer her at first. Then Jesus turns to the lady. He surprises everyone with His comment. He tells her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” His answer seems to reject her. But did He? Was there something else in His answer for her? After all, Israel was to be a light to lighten the Gentiles. In a sense, they were to shepherd the Gentiles to the Lord.

The woman persisted even more. She drew closer to Jesus. She bowed down to Him. She spoke, “Lord, help me.” She knew what Jesus was saying. She was not to be deterred. Perhaps she thought as St. Augustine once wrote, “Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” So the woman wanted the Lord to know that even though she was not Jewish she believed He could help her. He could give even to a Gentile.

Again Christ speaks to her. This time He reiterates that He was not going to accede to her request. His words are, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (v. 26). Jesus’ comment seems compassionless. Not only does He not give the woman satisfaction; He refers to her as a dog.

Yet, the woman took Christ’s comments in the best possible light. She knew Him to be the Christ. She believed that He would not reject her. Instead she chose to trust that He was giving her a message. As a matter of fact, her response indicated a very sophisticated understanding of the Scriptures. She then utters those immortal words, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their master’s table” (v. 27).

Her words meant everything to Jesus. Suddenly He reversed His tact with her. He announced to her in front of the disciples and the ages to come, “O woman, your faith is great, be it done for you” (v. 28). The text then states, “And her daughter was healed at once.”

What was it about the woman’s faith that so impressed Jesus? First, her humble faith, acknowledging that what she asked was not deserved. She was a Gentile and she knew what this meant in terms of redemptive history. As a non member of the chosen race she was undeserving. The Old Testament speaks of Gentiles with the metaphor of “dogs.” Dogs in the ancient world were not domesticated. They were unclean. She knew the Gentiles were viewed the same way. They were outside the land and unclean. At the same time, the Old Testament taught the Jews that they were to be a light to lighten the Gentiles. They were to seek to convert those outside the land even though they were unclean. The woman’s response indicates that she understood who she was. She had no original claim on God. She wasn’t entitled to anything.

Second, the woman realized she only needed a little bit of the right object. A few crumbs from the true Bread of Life was sufficient for any need. So potent was the Lord, a little bit of Him goes a long way. Her faith was not like choosing a favorite song. It was trusting in a fixed reality, like the number of beans in a jar. If the object of our faith is solid, even though our faith is weak, we’ll still be held up. It’s like during the terrible days of the Blitz in England. A father, holding his small son by the hand, ran from a building that had been struck by a bomb. In the front yard was a shell hole. Seeking shelter as quickly as possible, the father jumped into the hole and held up his arms for his son to follow. Terrified, yet hearing his father's voice telling him to jump, the boy replied, "I can't see you!"

The father, looking up against the sky tinted red by the burning buildings, called to the silhouette of his son, "But I can see you. Jump!" The boy jumped, because he trusted his father. The Christian faith enables us to face life or meet death, not because we can see, but with the certainty that we are seen; not that we know all the answers, but that we are known.

The lesson of the crumbs is captured in a beautiful prayer of Humble Access in Holy Communion. The Priest prays, “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.” At the same time, when we commune, we are give a crumb, a host, a small portion of Christ. That’s all we need because He is so potent. Thus, all we need to do is believe in Him who is so strong. A little bit of Him goes a long way! In the words of St. John of the Cross, “Live in faith and hope, though it be in darkness, for in this darkness God protects the soul. Cast your care upon God for you are His and He will not forget you. Do not think that He is leaving you alone, for that would be to wrong Him.” Indeed, let us believe. Amen.