Great Is Your Faith

This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost on August 16, 2026.

Grace, mercy and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

A lot of people hear Jesus' words to the Canaanite woman in our gospel reading today and think that Jesus is being a weapons-grade jerk. And honestly, at first glance, I get where they're coming from. I don't think that Jesus is being rude or insensitive to this woman—I think that there's something else going on here—but you can understand where people get that, if you just look at this on the surface level.

The Surface Reading

After all, this woman comes with a very real concern. She comes up to Jesus and says, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." She comes not for her own good, but for the good of her little girl, whom she loves. And she comes in a very respectful way.

And Jesus' reaction to her is silence.

Then the disciples make it worse. They're tired of listening to this woman—she keeps persistently coming to Jesus—and so they say, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting at us."

And Jesus' reaction seems cold: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Not even deterred by that, the woman comes and kneels at his feet. Looking up at him, she begs, "Lord, help me."

And his reaction then seems to get even worse: "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

Dogs, Then and Now

Now, in our culture, mostly we like dogs. Dogs are useful. They're helpful companions. They help us to hunt. They take care of things on the farm. They guard our homes. And they give us companionship. We like dogs. Most people like dogs. If you don't like dogs, that's okay. You're wrong. But we're okay with you.

In the ancient Near East, they also did keep some dogs as pets. Sometimes we imagine that things are like the Middle East today, where in Islam dogs are forbidden and everybody hates dogs—but it wasn't always the case. Still, it generally wasn't a compliment to be called a dog. Dogs were seen as dirty animals that belonged outside, mostly. And being called a dog is not a compliment.

So some people want to make a big deal of this story and want to say that somehow Jesus is sinning against this woman by his rude treatment—that somehow he's being unkind or unfeeling. People will even use the term racist. Is that a reasonable conclusion? In short, no. Not even close.

But in order to understand that, we have to look a little closer at the story.

A Closer Look

First of all, remember its context. The purpose of the Gospel of Matthew, in which this story is found, is specifically and intentionally to show you that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and the Son of God. So the whole purpose, from the very beginning, is that people would believe that the sinless Son of God has gone to the cross, died, and risen from the dead for you, for the forgiveness of your sins.

So if this story were included, and the first-blush conclusion were correct—that Jesus had somehow wronged this woman—it wouldn't align with that idea. There would be no reason for St. Matthew to include this in his Gospel.

Further, we know that Jesus has already welcomed and healed some Gentiles by this point in the story. This isn't his first brush or contact with non-Jews, and he's been willing to welcome them. So there must be something else going on here.

Second of all, consider this. Up to this point, the disciples have just figured out, for the first time, that Jesus is the Son of God. Note that last week, in our readings, when Jesus walked on the water and called Peter out, after they got back in the boat, all the disciples said, "Truly, you are the Son of God." They know who Jesus is. But now, in this story, knowing that, they want to keep him from being who he is for others.

So here comes this Canaanite woman—and immediately she seems to understand, without any miracle that we're told about, that Jesus is this divine figure, this messianic figure. She uses divine messianic terms. She calls him Lord, a term that's used for God. She calls him Son of David. She seems to understand that this guy is special—much more than just some ordinary mortal man, some ordinary sinner, some rabbi who comes around and teaches the people. This guy has got power, and she gets that from the very beginning. The very first thing out of her mouth: "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David."

And the disciples are gatekeeping access to Jesus. The Canaanite woman understands that Jesus is also for her.

Tyre and Sidon

And third of all, I think we can understand the story better if we understand the place where Jesus is visiting. He has gone to the cities of Tyre and Sidon—the hometowns of the oft-hated Canaanites.

And in Isaiah's prophecy, in our first reading today, we have this idea that God's house will become a house of prayer for all nations. The reason he said that was so that they would be prepared for the idea that even the hated Gentiles—the enemies surrounding the people of Israel on all sides—would eventually be welcomed into the peace of God.

But there's nobody that they had a nastier relationship with, for hundreds and hundreds of years, than the Canaanites. The Canaanites were, by descent, cousins of theirs. They were also Semites, like the Jews. And like close families, sometimes they got along, but oftentimes they fought mercilessly.

And so now we see a hated outsider standing in front of Jesus, being called a nasty slur. She's called a dog.

Now, it's worth noting at this point that the word here in Greek doesn't convey the same idea as stray dog or farm dog. This is more like little dog, house dog, lap dog. This is a companion animal—a dog that lives in your house. But it's still not a nice thing to say. It's still a rejection.

"Yes, Lord"

But I believe that this story is actually intended to exalt Jesus Christ. Of course it is. And the reaction that this woman comes to Jesus with is the whole point of the story.

Because she doesn't get angry. She doesn't stand on her rights. She doesn't stand up, dust herself off, and say, "How dare you call me a dog, Jesus? Don't you understand that all people are created equal and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Instead, she simply says to Jesus, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table."

She means: "Yes, Lord, you're right. I won't fight it. I am a dog. I'm an outsider. I know where I stand with regard to the people of Israel—God's chosen people, his beloved people whom he has chosen. I realize that I'm an outsider and I deserve nothing from you. Nothing that you have. Your goodness—can I say that it just belongs to me by right? I have no rights here, Jesus. But that doesn't change who I know you are. You are the Lord. You are the Son of David."

Now, I don't know how she knows that, but she does. Maybe it's reputation. She comes to him immediately and says, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me; my daughter is being tormented by a demon." That she is not one of his chosen people doesn't change who he is.

And her clever retort, I think, makes it all the more clear: even the house dogs, the little lap dogs that run around under the table—they eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table.

She's not getting one over on him. She's not correcting him. She's agreeing with him. She knows she doesn't deserve his kindness, but she is still asking, because there's nowhere else that she can go to get help.

The Nature of Prayer

This really shows us the nature of prayer.

I've often said that God can answer prayer in one of three ways: no, yes, and wait. The problem is that wait sounds like no, and it's hard to tell the difference.

A lot of prayer—and now I'm talking about long-term prayer, prayer that has to be persistent because it takes a long time, prayer that keeps us returning to a problem we've been stuck on, not for hours or even a few days, but problems that have been hounding us for months or even years—a lot of that prayer amounts to us saying to God, again and again, "God, remember who you are."

I knew a woman when I was attending church in college who had been praying faithfully for ten-plus years for her son to return to the Christian faith. She prayed and prayed for her son, because he was raised in the church. He was raised believing in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, but in his adulthood he had fallen away. I don't know what the circumstances of that were. I didn't know him, but I knew her. I knew her faithfulness. I knew her persistence.

And one day she walked to church on a Sunday morning, and you could see the joy on her face, because God had, in his mercy, given her an answer to her prayer. She got to report her joy that her son had returned to Jesus Christ.

It's not her persistence, though, that made God grant her request. It's not that she did all the right things for long enough—that she pushed the right buttons on the cosmic ATM machine and out spat the reward she was looking for. But amidst her trouble and worry about her beloved son, she trusted that God was able to grant repentance and faith even to him.

"But Dad, You Promised"

The Canaanite woman's love for someone else—she's not praying for her own healing; she's praying for her daughter—made her willing to take a risk and confront this Jewish rabbi with this crazy, bold claim: "Lord, you are the Son of God. You are the Son of David. Do what I know you can do."

Every dad has had the experience of coming home from work, tired from a long day, and having a young child come to them wanting to do something fun. And when you say you can't or you won't, you know what the reply is. They say, "But Dad, you promised."

That's the greatness of this woman's faith. She knows who and what she is, but she also remembers who God is. So she faithfully says to Jesus, "Jesus, be who I know you are. You promised."

And that's what Jesus loves about this woman: her great faith. He praises her. One can imagine him cracking a smile—it's kind of sweet, what she does. "Sure, I'm a dog. But even the dogs, the little lap dogs, the house dogs—these dogs eat the crumbs under the master's table."

And he cracks a smile and says, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish."

God Wants to Show You Mercy

People of God, God wants to show you mercy. God is not withholding his love for you until you have done enough of the right kind of things. God wants to show you his grace. As St. Paul says in our reading from Romans today, "God has imprisoned all in disobedience, so that he may be merciful to" — not some, but — "all." He wants all people to know his grace and love.

If it comes for you to face the accusations of the evil one—if you've been troubled by a difficult conscience that finds it hard to bear up under the load of your sin, if you've ever experienced what some call the dark night of the soul, where you wonder if God could ever love someone like you, someone who's done what you've done, someone who's gone to places where you've gone—we have in this story a reminder of what it looks like to boldly trust God: to say, "Yes, Lord, I know I am a great and terrible sinner, but you promised. And I trust you to be faithful to who you are. And so, Lord, please have mercy even on me."

Faith sometimes looks like returning again and again and again to the promises which you know and trust that God has made—because he promised, and he who promised is faithful. He has promised you in his holy word. He has promised you on the day that you were baptized. He promises you again and again at his holy table, welcoming you and giving you the gifts and calling of God, which St. Paul reminds us are irrevocable.

God welcomes you, loves you, and saves you in Jesus. May you trust that promise and cling to it faithfully.

And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus our Lord, to life everlasting. Amen.