Second Sunday in Lent - Reminiscere
March 1 A + D 2026
Our Redeemer and Our Savior's Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South dakota
The Catechumen - Matthew 15:21-28

Audio of the sermon is available HERE.   

    Who catechized this Canaanite woman? We must find out. 

     The catechist catechizes the catechumens according to the content of the Catechism.    

   In my time here in South Dakota, I’ve catechized far more adults than youth, and I don’t usually inflict my worst puns and word play jokes on the adults.  So I haven’t been able to enjoy this wonderful sentence very often: The catechist catechizes the catachumens according to the content of the Catechism. 

     A catechist is one who teaches the Catechism, which is a summary introduction to the basics of the Christian faith, the faith that is recorded for Christ’s Church in the Holy Bible.  Christian catechesis is to teach souls, sometimes called catechumens, what Christ has given us, the truth about God, and man, and Himself, our Savior.  Catechesis carries a sense of echo, of teaching orally and learning by repitition, which can be heard in the Greek root: katacheo, literally, ‘according to the echo,’ the back and forth speaking of God’s truth.  Luke uses the verb ‘to catechize’ in the opening of his Gospel, referring to the teaching of the Word that Theophilus had received. 

     Catechesis is the heart of evangelism, for it is to apply the Gospel, the Good News of Christ’s salvation, to a soul, through the ears, into the heart and mind, so that the Holy Spirit can create, maintain and strengthen true faith.  Taking advantage of an opportunity to start a Gospel conversation with an unbeliever and invite them to enter into the worship and teaching of the Church is wonderful, and is a necessary first step in evangelization.  But, while the Holy Spirit can do His conversion work as fast as He wants, for faith to take root and grow usually takes some time, and a lot of teaching and re-teaching.  Typically it takes a lot of catechesis to turn a person into a strong and wise believer.  Consider this: the disciples traveled and lived with Jesus and heard His catechesis for three years, and still they only came to faith when they saw the resurrected Christ. 

     Catechesis is the heart of evangelism.  And, because the Devil, the world and our own sinful flesh all fight against faith throughout our earthly lives, catechesis, evangelization, is still needed after conversion.  We sinner-saints need Jesus to continue teaching us throughout our lives, until He finally drags us across the finish line of life in saving faith.       

     And so, I’d love to know who catechized the Canaanite mother in our Gospel this morning.  What methods were used to bring her to such great faith?  It would be very good for us as Church to know, because her level of understanding, wisdom and confidence about the Word of God and the teaching of the Christ is wonderful.  We would do well to copy the methods used with her.  Consider her testimony. 

     Lord, help me!  This is how this woman prays, even though Jesus had already ignored and rejected her previous requests.  She demonstrates the attitude that Luther encourages us to have in his explanation of the Introduction of the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven: What does this mean?  With these words, God, tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father, and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear Father.   

     Only firm confidence in the goodness of the heavenly Father could persist against all the opposition this woman encountered.  Remember, she is a foreigner, a dirty Canaanite, a woman who should not even approach a faithful Jew.  She is a member of an enemy nation of Israel.  Still, she knows that God the Father, Jesus’ Father, is also her Father.  So she persists in prayer.

     Her trust, her love and her obedience to the commandments move her to persist.  She understands the summary of the Law of Moses, confessed by Jesus himself: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and the first commandment.  ³⁹ And the second is similar to this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40)       

     This woman loves God, and neighbor, and so will not perceive the silence and exclusion, nor the seeming insult of Jesus, as if they were words with any power against her.  She persists because she knows, she trusts with a miraculous faith that the Father has sent Jesus to be her Savior, that Jesus is proof that God loves her.  By this love, the Canaanite woman then loves her neighbors, especially her first and dearest neighbor, her own daughter.  For the love of her tormented daughter, this woman will not stop seeking Jesus' help.

     Considering the Commandments, it is enough today to review only the Second:  You shall not misuse the Name of the Lord your God.  What does this mean?  We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie or deceive by His Name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks. 

     Taught by the Holy Spirit, the Canaanite understands, better than the twelve disciples, that Jesus is the Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3).   Since she believes that the man Jesus is the Lord, God in human flesh, she does not hesitate to cry out to Jesus, to invoke his Holy Name: Lord, Son of David, help my daughter.  Not only back at home, in the privacy of her room, but out in public, before a group of thirteen Jewish men, and who knows how big a crowd, she loudly prays to Jesus.  Not just once, but three times.  She does not allow Jesus' apparent rejections to discourage her.   Oh, that the Name of the Lord would be sanctified among us in the same way!

     It is unlikely that this woman could have heard the singing of Simeon, 30 years ealier, as he held the infant Jesus in the Jerusalem Temple.  She lives far to the north, in the region of Tyre and Sidon.  And even if she had been in Jerusalem, Canaanites could not enter the Temple.  She had to have learned about Jesus some other way.  But she believed what Simeon proclaimed, a promise that Jesus’ own disciples don’t seem to be familiar with.  Simeon prophesied that this Jesus was going to be not only the glory of God’s people Israel, but also that He was the salvation of the Lord, which he has prepared in the sight of every people, the light of revelation for the Gentiles.  Jesus is the Savior of Israel, and He is also the Savior of the Gentiles, of all the other nations.  (Luke 2:30-32) 

   But the disciples don’t want her around, they want to keep Jesus for themselves.  And, based on His harsh responses to her requests, it also seems that Jesus does not care about the salvation of the Gentiles.  His answers seem to indicate that Jesus shares the typical Jewish prejudice against foreigners.

    First, He doesn't say a word to her.  The second time she cries out, Jesus says: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  Then the woman comes right up to the Lord and kneels down before Him, begging: “Lord, help me.”  And to this desperate mother the Lord says: “It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” 

   To ignore, exclude and call the Gentiles "dogs," all of these reactions to this mother’s prayers fit perfectly with the typical attitude of a proud first century Jew, negative toward all foreigners.  Even still, the woman is not discouraged.  She knows that the promises to Abraham were not only for his descendants by blood.  As St. Paul would write 10 or 20 years later, she knows it is not the children of the flesh, but rather those who share Abraham's faith, who are the true children of God. (Galatians 3 and Romans 9)

   And so the Canaanite mother does not hear Jesus' insult as a ‘no.’  Rather, she believes it guarantees that she will receive a "yes."  She already trusts another promise that would be written by Paul in his 2^nd letter to the Corinthians: For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, … was not Yes and No, but in Him it is always Yes.  (2 Corinthians 1:19-20)     

   The Lord had promised, so she persists until she reaches her Yes.  And she knows that she has reached her Yes, she knows that she has captured her Jesus, when the words that seem so cruel to us left His mouth.  Listen again: Kneeling before Him, she prays: Lord, help me!  And He answered, “It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”  

   You and I hear this as an insult and may doubt the Lord’s goodness.  The Canaanite mother hears the truth, and rejoices.  Because, anticipating the first letter of St. John, she knows that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But, if we confess our sins, (God) is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1: 8-9)   She confesses that she is a dog, but she is a dog of faith.  She believes Jesus, God-made-man, will cleanse her daughter from the demon that had possessed her.       

   It is as if she had consulted with Luther, and understood his explanation to the Fifth Petition of the Lord's Prayer: And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.   What does this mean?  We pray in this petition that our Father in heaven would not look at our sins, or deny our prayer because of them.  We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them, but we ask that He would give them all to us by grace, for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment. 

   Full of joy, the woman confesses that yes, she is a dog, a sinner who deserves nothing from Jesus, which means she is just like every other person in the world.  But her sin does not cut her off from the Son of David, as long as she confesses it.  She knows that she has Jesus trapped in His own Word of promise, so, she quietly replies: ²⁷ “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” 

   Oh, what delight, what pleasure Jesus now expresses, as His faithful daughter reaches this great confession: O woman, great is your faith; Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly.  What joy in the house, when the daughter was set free.  What a surprise for the disciples, as Jesus praises the Canaanite and grants her petition. 

   This surprise would serve them well in a few years, when, after some resistance and confusion, the Apostles begin the mission to the Gentiles, their outreach to all the children of Abraham, to all those from every nation who will truly become children of Israel, by faith in Jesus Christ.   

   And what about us? What does this Canaanite woman of great faith teach us?  I hope we do not imagine that we are better than the disciples, or the Jews, that we could never be so tribal, so xenophobic, so prejudiced against outsiders.  Human nature has not changed.  We are still able to lock ourselves inside our approved group, and try never to deal with people who are different from us.

   The Church, and especially her catechists, must always maintain the truth of all God’s Word, including His Law which establishes traditional Biblical values.  At the same time we must remember that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek or barbarian, there are no foreigners and natives.  Rather, by faith in Jesus we are all made one Body, one People.  Especially today, when the Church is rejected publicly more and more, we must remember that Christ came to save the whole world, and that we are the worst sinners, just like everyone else.  We can stand before God only because of the work of Christ.  And the work of Christ is for everyone. 

   May we also learn to pray without ceasing; and give thanks in everything, even when it seems that God ignores or rejects us.  This is God's will for us, that we exercise our faith like the Canaanite mother.  For all His baptized believers, God's answer is always ‘Yes’, even when we don't understand it. 

     Also, we do not always get to know how or when God will help us.  As St. Peter teaches, beloved, do not overlook this one fact, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2^nd Peter 3: 8-10)        

     Finally, I pray we come to better understand how great, how broad, how high and deep is Jesus' blessing for us. We do not need to have everything in this life, because we know this life is a shabby preview of the glorious eternal life that Jesus has earned for us. The bad things of this life do not count, when compared with the good things of the Kingdom of Heaven.  And the truly good things of this life do not need to have a luxurious or impressive appearance.  Sufficient are the crumbs of the Lord.  And the crumbs we receive are even better than those the Canaanite woman received that day, so long ago.  For she could only look forward to the table that we are blessed to approach this morning, the altar of the New Testament, our preview and foretaste of the coming heavenly banquet, where today we receive the finished fruit of the Cross and the Resurrection.

   As Luther asks: What is the benefit of this eating and drinking?  His answer?  These words “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” show us that in the Sacrament forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation are given to us through these words.  For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.

   All of this, and Christ himself, present to bless us, in His Word, and under the bread and wine. Truly, just a few crumbs from the table of our Master will be enough, in the Name of the Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.