A Great and Humble Faith in an Abundant Lord

Shepherd of the Mountains Lutheran Church, Pinetop, Arizona

Rev. Michael “Mick” Mathews

The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost – August 16, 2026

Sermon: “A Great and Humble Faith in an Abundant Lord”     Matthew 15:21–28

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

In last week’s Gospel reading, we heard Jesus say to Peter, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31). In this week’s Gospel, we hear Jesus say to a Canaanite woman, “O woman, great is your faith!” (Matthew 14:28). That’s quite a contrast, isn’t it? Especially when you consider who the two people were that Jesus spoke to and what you would normally expect from them.

Peter was one of Jesus’ closest disciples. Peter and the other disciples were in a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, caught in a windstorm at night, when they saw Jesus walking toward them on the water. Peter asked Jesus to prove it was Him by commanding him to come to Him on the water. Jesus said, “Come,” so Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. Everything was going fine, until Peter started looking at the wind and the waves. Then he began to sink. But Peter cried out to Jesus, “Lord, save me.” Jesus grabbed Peter and got them both into the boat and the wind ceased. (Matthew 14:22–33) You might expect that Peter would do better at trusting Jesus. He started out fine in trusting Jesus to come out onto the water with Him, but Peter began to doubt when he stopped focusing on Jesus and focused on the wind and the waves instead. That’s why Jesus said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” And the truth of the matter is that we too often do the same thing. In spite of the many times that God has taken care of us in the past, we still wonder if He’s going to take care of us when trouble comes around again.

Now as for the woman that Jesus meets in this week’s Gospel – she doesn’t seem a likely candidate to be a person of any faith. Jesus and the disciples withdrew from the area around Galilee because Jesus needed to let things cool off a bit after a run-in with the Pharisees. So He and the disciples went to the cities of Tyre and Sidon, along the Mediterranean coast. That was not a Jewish area. Even in Old Testament times, Tyre and Sidon had belonged to the Gentiles, who were often hostile to the Jewish people. Sure enough, the woman who meets them there is a Gentile, but not just any Gentile. She’s a Canaanite, a member of the ancient people that God commanded the Israelites to drive out of the promised land because of their wickedness and unbelief. You really wouldn’t expect her to be a person of “great faith.”

But the Canaanite woman had a problem. Her daughter was “severely oppressed by a demon” (Matthew 15:22). She found no help among her fellow Gentiles, but the news had spread throughout all the region that Jesus of Nazareth was healing the sick as well as those oppressed by demons (Matthew 4:24). So imagine her excitement when she heard that Jesus was nearby. She came to Jesus and cried out, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon” (Matthew 15:22). That’s a pretty remarkable statement for anyone to make, when you break it down. For one thing, she calls Jesus “Lord.” That’s the way that followers of Jesus address Him. Peter had said to Jesus out on the water, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” (Matthew 14:28). This woman is indicating that she has faith in Jesus by calling Him “Lord.” But even more than that she calls Him “Son of David.” There this Gentile woman is referring to Jesus with the title that belongs to the Jewish Messiah, the one who was to be born into the family of King David and restore the fortunes of Israel. Better than many of the people of Israel who met Jesus, this Gentile woman acknowledges Jesus for who He truly is.

So Jesus’ response to the woman shocks us and surprises us. At first, Jesus said nothing to her. He ignored her and just kept walking. But the woman didn’t give up. She kept crying out for help. Who else was able to help her except Jesus? So she kept on trying. It started to annoy the disciples, who could take much more of her cries. So they asked Jesus to send her away. Either help her or don’t, but just make it stop.

Jesus then seems to use the woman’s own words against her. She has identified Him as the Jewish Messiah by calling Him “Son of David,” so Jesus said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 14:24). The words seem harsh but there is truth there. Why would the Jewish Messiah be sent to people other than the Jews.

But in spite of what Jesus said, the woman persisted. She made herself impossible to ignore by kneeling right in front of Jesus. She called Him “Lord” once again, saying simply, “Lord, help me” (Matthew 15:25) – very similar to what Peter said when he went into the water: “Lord, save me” (Matthew 14:31). But where Jesus had immediately grabbed Peter, Jesus spoke to the woman in a way that sounds even more harsh to our ears: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (Matthew 15:16). Yes, Jesus is calling her a dog, a term the Jews would often use for those outside the people of Israel. It sounds harsh in our ears, and it is. But He’s right that you don’t take away the bread from children in order to feed the dogs. Jesus is saying that He shouldn’t take away from the children of Israel who have been promised His help and give that help instead to someone it was not promised to.

But just as Jesus used the woman’s words against her, she then did the same to Him. She didn’t argue with what Jesus said. Calling Him “Lord” for a third recorded time, she said, “Yes, Lord” to agree with what He said. But then she expanded the picture that Jesus used: “for[1] even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” (Matthew 15:27). Anyone who has ever fed a toddler knows that not all the food ends up in the toddler’s mouth. The rest ends up on the floor, and if there’s a dog around, that food will be snatched right up. You don’t have to take anything from the child to give it to the dogs. The dogs will pick up what naturally falls. So the woman in essence is saying to Jesus, “Yes, I’m a dog. I’m outside the promises given to Israel. And isn’t there enough that some will spill over to me and my daughter?”

And of course, with Jesus there is always abundance. There is always more than enough. He had fed five thousand men with fives loaves of bread and two fish – and there were twelve baskets full of leftovers when everyone had eaten their fill. Jesus has enough to help the woman and her daughter. So He praised the woman for her faith: “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire” (Matthew 15:28). And Jesus healed her daughter instantly.

The Bible doesn’t give us an answer as to why Jesus ignored the woman at first and then gave her the brush off. We can guess that it was because He wanted to test her faith, to see what she really believed. But don’t we often experience the same thing when we cry out to God for help? Doesn’t it sometimes seem like God is ignoring us when He give us no answer? Doesn’t it feel like He has brushed us off when He doesn’t give us the answer we hoped for? I think Jesus’ interaction with the Canaanite woman helps us to put that into perspective. If God gave us everything we asked for as soon as we asked for it, would we really have faith in Him, or would we just treat Him like a vending machine and take Him for granted? When He tells us “no” or when He asks us to wait, He gives an opportunity to grow in our faith – to learn to trust that He will give us what He knows is best for us, but only at the proper time.

And there are certain things that we can be certain that He will always give us, such as His love and His forgiveness. Jesus was sent by His Father to be Israel’s Messiah, to bring salvation to His people. But even though Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, God generously sent Him for the whole world. God had hinted at that long ago through the prophet Isaiah. God said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7). And God said that when He gathered the outcasts of Israel, He would “gather yet others to Him” as well (Isaiah 56:8).

So be assured that the salvation that God provided through Jesus is abundant enough to be given to you too. And don’t think of God treating you as a dog who only gets some crumbs from His table. In Baptism, God has proclaimed Himself to be your Father and has named you His child. So you are welcome as His child to His table, where He gives us the body and blood of our Savior, along with the bread and the wine, to feed us in abundance with His love and forgiveness.

And the peace of God which passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Isaiah 56:1 Thus says the LORD:

      “Keep justice, and do righteousness,

      for soon my salvation will come,

              and my righteousness be revealed. …

Isaiah 56:6 “And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,

              to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD,

              and to be his servants,

      everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,

              and holds fast my covenant—

7   these I will bring to my holy mountain,

              and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

      their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

              will be accepted on my altar;

      for my house shall be called a house of prayer

              for all peoples.”

8   The Lord GOD,

              who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,

      “I will gather yet others to him

              besides those already gathered.”

Romans 11:1 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. …

Romans 11:13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. 15 For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? …

Romans 11:28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

Matthew 15:21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

[1] Translation changed from “yet” to “for” according to Jeffrey A. Gibbs, Concordia Commentary: Matthew 11:2–20:34, p. 784.

[2] Translation changed from “yet” to “for” according to Jeffrey A. Gibbs, Concordia Commentary: Matthew 11:2–20:34, p. 784.

[3] Translation changed from “yet” to “for” according to Jeffrey A. Gibbs, Concordia Commentary: Matthew 11:2–20:34, p. 784.