A
God Who Tests My Faith
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.
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.
Matthew
15:21-28
There
are a lot of metals that on the surface look similar to gold. Centuries ago,
people discovered that unscrupulous operators would take advantage of this to
trick people into paying for worthless metal. In order to determine whether
gold was genuine or not, scientists devised an “acid test.” The item that is
supposed to be gold is rubbed on a black stone, leaving a mark behind. Gold is
what is called a noble metal, meaning that it is resistant to the corrosive
effects of acid. If the mark is washed away by the acid, then the metal is not
real gold. If it remains unchanged, the genuine nature of the gold is proven.
The
woman in this passage is the only one about whom Jesus has said that she is
having great faith. But before Jesus
comes to this conclusion we see that the faith is being tested. Is this the
first time that a faith of a person is tested? No. This was something God had
been doing since ages. He's done this before.
He
said to Abraham, "You're going to have a son," then made him wait
years until that son came. Romans 4 tells us why: Abraham grew strong in faith.
He was strengthened by testing. Then there was the time that the Lord was going
to feed the multitude, and He knew He was going to feed the multitude, and
Philip says, "Lord, what are we going to do? What are we going to
do?" And Jesus plants the problem in Philip's mind, but the whole time, He
knows He's going to feed the whole crowd. The Bible says, "This He did to
test Him," or work on his faith. When Lazarus died, He didn't come; He
stayed away until Lazarus was beyond sick, but dead. And not only dead, but
dead four days. Then He shows up. Why did He wait? In John 11, He says,
"For your sake, that you may believe." He tested their faith.
That's
what He's doing with this woman: drawing out her faith, letting it demonstrate
its reality. He's delaying to test her; putting up the fences and making her
plow through them. Mark calls her a Syro-Phoenician. She was a pagan outside
the covenant, outside the law, outside the promises, outside the Word of God,
outside the Scriptures, and she had been in area where the Lord Jesus had not
been doing His mighty deeds. But what was so great about her faith?
She
put her faith in the right person. She was disillusioned with the idols, the
no-gods, the dumb deities. She came, turning her back on the idols, and
believed in the Lord, the Son of David. Her object of faith was correct. She
left her religious heritage, her friends, her system, her false belief, her
prejudice, and came to the only one who could help her. She put her faith in
the right object. Great faith always has the right object.
She
came up in faith but found that to be accepted her faith has to be persistent.
Jesus puts up a series of barriers for this woman. She comes with all of this
on her heart, and pours it out saying, "'Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of
David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.' But He answered her not a
word." He didn't say a word to her.
When
this was the response that she got from a god whom she thought would accept her
she could have responded “forget it, I'll find myself a god who cares."
But she'd already been through that problem, and there weren't any. She had so
much faith that when He said, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of
the house of Israel," it didn't deter her at all.
This
lent season
a. Are we like the woman who found the
right source or like the disciples who are of little faith?
b. Are we ready to persevere and be
persistent in our faith even during the odd and bad phases of our life?
*This
homily by me has been published in Darshan (magazine of the Delhi Diocese)
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