The English version
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Mousetrap of His Cross
I got this from Rev. Gregory Alms' blog, Incarnatus Est:
Augustine, Sermon 130:
Along came the redeemer and conquered the deceiver. And what did our redeemer do to our captor? To pay our price, he set the mousetrap of his cross; as bait he placed there his own blood. While the devil, though, was able to shed that blood, he did not earn the right to drink it. And because he shed the blood of one who was not his debtor, he was ordered to release those who were his debtors" (PL 38:726-27).
Edmund Hill, The Works of Augustine: Sermons III/4, Brooklyn: New City Press, 1992, 311
Augustine, Sermon 130:
Along came the redeemer and conquered the deceiver. And what did our redeemer do to our captor? To pay our price, he set the mousetrap of his cross; as bait he placed there his own blood. While the devil, though, was able to shed that blood, he did not earn the right to drink it. And because he shed the blood of one who was not his debtor, he was ordered to release those who were his debtors" (PL 38:726-27).
Edmund Hill, The Works of Augustine: Sermons III/4, Brooklyn: New City Press, 1992, 311
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Not The Woman's Faith
The Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Isaiah 35:4-7
James 2:1-10,14-18
Mark 7:24-30
Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (Romans 1:7)
Sometimes, when we read incidents like this in the life of our Lord, it becomes so easy for our focus to shift from our Lord to somewhere, someone else. Well, this happens a lot with many passages, and surely with our Gospel reading this morning.
And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. But immediately a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." But she answered him, "Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." And he said to her, "For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter." And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
The woman in our Gospel passage this morning doesn’t have anything, zero, zilch, nada, going for her. In Jewish society, women weren’t given much attention or importance, much less what they said. In Jewish society, women ranked below men in authority, in credibility. Women in Jewish society could not just come up to any man and casually strike up a conversation with him.
Secondly, St, Mark tells us that “the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth.” Being a Gentile, she could not intermingle with Jews, for she was considered unclean. This meant that she could not have any fellowship with God’s people. What is more painful, the Jews called Gentiles dogs. To the Jews, the Gentiles were no better than dogs. In Jewish worship, dogs can never be kosher. Dogs were unclean because they rooted around in garbage. In Jesus’ time, you, a Gentile, a dog, can never be a part of God’s chosen people, could never participate in the worship of God’s people, could never receive the promises and blessing of God, could never enter or be a part of God’s kingdom. Because you were a Gentile, you were a dog. You had no rights no matter who you were, no matter how good you were, no matter how sincere you were, no matter how good you were. Because you were a Gentile, you were an outsider. This was the problem of the Syrophoenician woman. She was a woman, she was a Gentile. She had no rights or anything that she could present to God or to God’s people that would make her acceptable.
Which makes me wonder about the title that most bibles put in this account. The TEV entitles this passage “A Woman’s Faith.” The NIV has “The Faith of a Syrophoenician Woman.” The ESV has “The Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith.” Well, you might ask, “So what? What of it? It is true: the woman had great faith.” True enough. But my complaint with this is that I don’t think faith is the issue in this passage. Because if the woman’s faith is the issue in this passage, what then are we to do with the Lord? Do we relegate him to the margins of our bibles, or worse, make him into a footnote, firm in our belief that he could not possibly deny grace to this woman who has demonstrated such great faith? I should hope not.
Well, St. Mark tells us: And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." Fair enough. For do we not do the same thing? Do we cook a fine meal and then feed it to the household pets first? That would be the height of absurdity. The Lord is right: feed the children first, and then the dogs can have whatever is left. It is what is meet and right.
The woman replies: "Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." And she is right. You don’t need faith to say this. Only common sense. She was only following the Lord’s logic to its logical conclusion. Where is faith in that?
This woman truly had nothing going for her. She was a woman, a Gentile. And yet, a miracle happens: And he said to her, "For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter." And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone. Why? Because of her faith? She was a woman. She was a Gentile. She had no hope. But St. Mark is telling us that now, in Jesus Christ, because of the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, even foreigners, Gentiles, can find joy and acceptance in God’s house, in God’s temple.
MALADY
No one among us here thinks of himself or herself as an animal, right? Much less a dog. In fact, I guess we would be offended if someone told us that we smelled like a goat, or had the manners of a dog. For sure, we would never eat anyone’s leftovers, would we? And we surely would not act like dogs who have no shame or consciousness of what they looked like or what they did. We do not pee or poo like dogs whenever the urge caught up with us. And we would never just go up to any man or woman on the street and mount him or her simply because the urge came upon us. No, God forbid, we are not like that. We know right from wrong, unlike dogs. In our eyes, and, we would like to think, in other people’s eyes, we have more self respect than mere dogs. And that is also usually the thing we get wrong when we interpret this passage: we always tend to interpret this passage only from a horizontal point of view, that is, only from a human perspective. As a result, we lose our focus upon our Lord. We often forget the vertical perspective – God’s perspective.
And here’s the rub: from God’s perspective, we are truly no better than dogs. We are dogs in the sight of God. We are no different from the Syrophoenician woman: we are Gentiles. We are unclean. We have no right to stand before God, and there is nothing we can bring before God to make us acceptable to him. And we have no right to expect anything from God. BECAUSE WE, LIKE THE SYROPHOENICIAN WOMAN, ARE SINFUL. In this, we are like dogs. A dog is a dog not because of the things it does. A dog does the things it does because that is its nature, because it is a dog. The same is true for us. We aren’t sinful because we commit sins. It’s the other way around: we commit sin because we are sinful. That is our nature. Because we are by nature sinful and unclean, it is impossible for us not to sin. And no matter how sincere we are, no matter if we have faith as huge as Disneyland, God still would not accept us. Because our sincerity, our faith, will always be stained with sin. Because we, like the Syrophoenician woman, are sinful.
GOSPEL
But look at what the Lord does when the Syrophoenician woman approaches him and strikes up a conversation with him: HE TALKS WITH THE WOMAN! The Lord didn’t have to do that! No one would scold him if ever he chose to ignore the woman. And yet, THE LORD TALKS TO THE WOMAN! And so, the whole point of our passage, the Good News, is not the woman’s faith, no matter how great it may be. It is the Lord’s mercy! The Good News, for the woman, for us, is this: because of the Lord’s mercy, even Gentiles, even those excluded from God’s kingdom, can now find joy in his presence. Because of the Lord’s mercy, even dogs find acceptance in God’s house, in his kingdom. Because of the mercy of the Lord!
And Jesus, in his mercy, doesn’t give us leftover food. Indeed, he does not even give us food fit for humans. HE GIVES US SOMETHING MORE: HE GIVES US HIS TRUE BODY AND TRUE BLOOD. HE GIVES US HIS WORD, THE TRUE BREAD THAT COMES FROM HEAVEN WHICH GIVES US TRUE LIFE: ETERNAL LIFE! Eternal life, won for us by the Lord on Calvary, where his body was broken for us, where his blood was shed for us, as he hung on the cross! Eternal life, which he now gives us through his Word, through his Sacranents. It is these which strengthen and preserve our faith. Faith is not strengthened by difficulty. A strong faith stands up to virtually any confrontation. BUT IT IS GOD – through the Gospel – who makes it strong in the first place. It is not in asking for mercy, over and over, but in receiving mercy, that faith is strengthened.
In the final analysis, the Syrophoenician woman’s faith was strengthened not when she asked for mercy, but when she received mercy from the Lord.
And isn’t it the same with us? Our faith is strengthened, grows, only when we recieve mercy from our Lord, through his Word, through his Sacraments, through his atoning death on the cross – FOR US. This is most certainly true. This is most certainly for you.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. (Philippians 4:7)
Isaiah 35:4-7
James 2:1-10,14-18
Mark 7:24-30
Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (Romans 1:7)
Sometimes, when we read incidents like this in the life of our Lord, it becomes so easy for our focus to shift from our Lord to somewhere, someone else. Well, this happens a lot with many passages, and surely with our Gospel reading this morning.
And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. But immediately a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." But she answered him, "Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." And he said to her, "For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter." And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
The woman in our Gospel passage this morning doesn’t have anything, zero, zilch, nada, going for her. In Jewish society, women weren’t given much attention or importance, much less what they said. In Jewish society, women ranked below men in authority, in credibility. Women in Jewish society could not just come up to any man and casually strike up a conversation with him.
Secondly, St, Mark tells us that “the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth.” Being a Gentile, she could not intermingle with Jews, for she was considered unclean. This meant that she could not have any fellowship with God’s people. What is more painful, the Jews called Gentiles dogs. To the Jews, the Gentiles were no better than dogs. In Jewish worship, dogs can never be kosher. Dogs were unclean because they rooted around in garbage. In Jesus’ time, you, a Gentile, a dog, can never be a part of God’s chosen people, could never participate in the worship of God’s people, could never receive the promises and blessing of God, could never enter or be a part of God’s kingdom. Because you were a Gentile, you were a dog. You had no rights no matter who you were, no matter how good you were, no matter how sincere you were, no matter how good you were. Because you were a Gentile, you were an outsider. This was the problem of the Syrophoenician woman. She was a woman, she was a Gentile. She had no rights or anything that she could present to God or to God’s people that would make her acceptable.
Which makes me wonder about the title that most bibles put in this account. The TEV entitles this passage “A Woman’s Faith.” The NIV has “The Faith of a Syrophoenician Woman.” The ESV has “The Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith.” Well, you might ask, “So what? What of it? It is true: the woman had great faith.” True enough. But my complaint with this is that I don’t think faith is the issue in this passage. Because if the woman’s faith is the issue in this passage, what then are we to do with the Lord? Do we relegate him to the margins of our bibles, or worse, make him into a footnote, firm in our belief that he could not possibly deny grace to this woman who has demonstrated such great faith? I should hope not.
Well, St. Mark tells us: And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." Fair enough. For do we not do the same thing? Do we cook a fine meal and then feed it to the household pets first? That would be the height of absurdity. The Lord is right: feed the children first, and then the dogs can have whatever is left. It is what is meet and right.
The woman replies: "Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." And she is right. You don’t need faith to say this. Only common sense. She was only following the Lord’s logic to its logical conclusion. Where is faith in that?
This woman truly had nothing going for her. She was a woman, a Gentile. And yet, a miracle happens: And he said to her, "For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter." And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone. Why? Because of her faith? She was a woman. She was a Gentile. She had no hope. But St. Mark is telling us that now, in Jesus Christ, because of the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, even foreigners, Gentiles, can find joy and acceptance in God’s house, in God’s temple.
MALADY
No one among us here thinks of himself or herself as an animal, right? Much less a dog. In fact, I guess we would be offended if someone told us that we smelled like a goat, or had the manners of a dog. For sure, we would never eat anyone’s leftovers, would we? And we surely would not act like dogs who have no shame or consciousness of what they looked like or what they did. We do not pee or poo like dogs whenever the urge caught up with us. And we would never just go up to any man or woman on the street and mount him or her simply because the urge came upon us. No, God forbid, we are not like that. We know right from wrong, unlike dogs. In our eyes, and, we would like to think, in other people’s eyes, we have more self respect than mere dogs. And that is also usually the thing we get wrong when we interpret this passage: we always tend to interpret this passage only from a horizontal point of view, that is, only from a human perspective. As a result, we lose our focus upon our Lord. We often forget the vertical perspective – God’s perspective.
And here’s the rub: from God’s perspective, we are truly no better than dogs. We are dogs in the sight of God. We are no different from the Syrophoenician woman: we are Gentiles. We are unclean. We have no right to stand before God, and there is nothing we can bring before God to make us acceptable to him. And we have no right to expect anything from God. BECAUSE WE, LIKE THE SYROPHOENICIAN WOMAN, ARE SINFUL. In this, we are like dogs. A dog is a dog not because of the things it does. A dog does the things it does because that is its nature, because it is a dog. The same is true for us. We aren’t sinful because we commit sins. It’s the other way around: we commit sin because we are sinful. That is our nature. Because we are by nature sinful and unclean, it is impossible for us not to sin. And no matter how sincere we are, no matter if we have faith as huge as Disneyland, God still would not accept us. Because our sincerity, our faith, will always be stained with sin. Because we, like the Syrophoenician woman, are sinful.
GOSPEL
But look at what the Lord does when the Syrophoenician woman approaches him and strikes up a conversation with him: HE TALKS WITH THE WOMAN! The Lord didn’t have to do that! No one would scold him if ever he chose to ignore the woman. And yet, THE LORD TALKS TO THE WOMAN! And so, the whole point of our passage, the Good News, is not the woman’s faith, no matter how great it may be. It is the Lord’s mercy! The Good News, for the woman, for us, is this: because of the Lord’s mercy, even Gentiles, even those excluded from God’s kingdom, can now find joy in his presence. Because of the Lord’s mercy, even dogs find acceptance in God’s house, in his kingdom. Because of the mercy of the Lord!
And Jesus, in his mercy, doesn’t give us leftover food. Indeed, he does not even give us food fit for humans. HE GIVES US SOMETHING MORE: HE GIVES US HIS TRUE BODY AND TRUE BLOOD. HE GIVES US HIS WORD, THE TRUE BREAD THAT COMES FROM HEAVEN WHICH GIVES US TRUE LIFE: ETERNAL LIFE! Eternal life, won for us by the Lord on Calvary, where his body was broken for us, where his blood was shed for us, as he hung on the cross! Eternal life, which he now gives us through his Word, through his Sacranents. It is these which strengthen and preserve our faith. Faith is not strengthened by difficulty. A strong faith stands up to virtually any confrontation. BUT IT IS GOD – through the Gospel – who makes it strong in the first place. It is not in asking for mercy, over and over, but in receiving mercy, that faith is strengthened.
In the final analysis, the Syrophoenician woman’s faith was strengthened not when she asked for mercy, but when she received mercy from the Lord.
And isn’t it the same with us? Our faith is strengthened, grows, only when we recieve mercy from our Lord, through his Word, through his Sacraments, through his atoning death on the cross – FOR US. This is most certainly true. This is most certainly for you.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. (Philippians 4:7)
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