Faith United Presbyterian Church

As we open our hearts and minds to hear God's Word this morning - I would like you to look around. Not with furtive looks or glances like those we offer in the Passing of the Peace - or when someone is sitting in our pew - but with heartfelt looks - as if you have noticed - and care - there is someone worshipping with you in this place.

Look around at those who are here. Do you know their names? Do you know them? Do you know the challenges they face or the joys they celebrate? Do you know the doubts that keep them awake at night? Do you know the shame buried deep within their heart? Do you know their deepest fears? Do you know their greatest hopes?

Look around at those who are here - those who share in your offering of worship. Do you know them? Do you share their lives and their love - their laughter and their tears? Do you even know their name? Do you care? My friends, I pray that you do for theirs - with yours - is the face of faith.

John M. Buchanan, Pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago tells a wonderful story about Elaine Pagels. Pagels is a distinguished professor at Princeton University. She is not a seminary professor. She is a humanities scholar who studies the human phenomenon of religion. Her specialty is early Christianity, and she is widely respected for her scholarly research and books. She is not particularly a church person. In fact - like many thoughtful people - she had pretty much given up on the church as an institution worthy of her time and attention.

But she begins her book, Beyond Belief, with an unusual anecdote and a very powerful witness. On a bright, cold Sunday morning in New York, she interrupted her daily run by stopping in the vestibule of a church to get warm. Two days earlier, her two-and-a-half-year-old son had been diagnosed with an invariably fatal lung disease. Two-and-a-half years' old. Barely born and already dying. Imagine the pain in her heart, if you can. But here is how she describes that scene in the church that day.

"Since I had not been in church for a long time, I was startled by my response to the worship in progress - the soaring harmonies of the choir singing with the congregation; and the priest, a woman in bright gold and white vestments, proclaiming the prayers in a clear resonant voice. As I stood watching, a thought came to me: Here is a family that knows how to face death.

"The day after we heard Mark's diagnosis - and that he had a few months to live, maybe a few years - a team of doctors urged us to authorize a lung biopsy, a painful and invasive procedure. How could this help? It couldn't, they explained; but the procedure would let them see how far the disease had progressed. Mark was already exhausted by the previous day's ordeal. Holding him, I felt that if more masked strangers poked needles into him in an operating room, he might lose heart - literally - and die. We refused the biopsy, gathered Mark's blanket, clothes, and Peter Rabbit, and carried him home.

"Standing in the back of that church, I recognized, uncomfortably, that I needed to be there. Here was a place to weep without imposing tears upon a child; and here was a heterogeneous community that had gathered to sing, to celebrate, to acknowledge common needs, and to deal with what we cannot control or imagine."

Can there be a worse hell than to know that your own small child is dying? Where does a person turn in such times? We turn to God. We turn to God's people. We turn to God's church. We look for the face of faith.
MATTHEW
Jesus and his disciples had been travelling through the region of Galilee - teaching and preaching; healing and doing assorted miracles; fighting with the Pharisees and attracting more and more followers. As a result, Jesus had become too popular! Everywhere he went, there were crowds and commotion. Our story begins with Jesus leaving the country to find a moment of peace.

As they entered into the district of Tyre and Sidon - the region of the Gentiles - a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon."

Can you believe it? As if his own people weren't enough. Now a Gentile woman begs Jesus for mercy! She speaks to Jesus as Lord. She calls him the Son of David. This Gentile woman speaks to Jesus - as a Jew - because her daughter's life is at stake and she believes Jesus can help!

Here is the face of faith. This woman's love for her daughter and her faith in Jesus Christ broke through a lifetime of gender, cultural and religious barriers. She was no longer an unclean Gentile. She was a woman of faith - crying out for her Savior!

What happens next is - almost- unbelievable. Jesus ignores this woman's cry. When he does respond, Jesus tells her to get lost! Matthew says,

Jesus did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." Jesus turns to her, saying, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

My friends, Jesus' response raises many questions. Why did Jesus respond this way? Was it a test? Or, did he really intend to ignore her? Was he waiting to see how his disciples would respond? Did she catch him off guard? What about his response to her? "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Would he really turn his back on this woman simply because she wasn't a Jew?

Jesus' response raises many questions - in part - because this Jesus doesn't sound like any Jesus we ever knew! Our Jesus embraces everyone - the clean and the unclean, the tax collector and sinner, the Jew and Gentile. Our Jesus is the one who loves all the children of the world. Our Jesus is the one who loves me - and you!

This is not our Jesus! Our Jesus sees the face of faith in people we could never dream to love. But this is our Jesus and he rebukes this woman. Nevertheless, his rejection didn't stop her. Her love and her faith remained strong!
She came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

Dogs? This woman has cried out to Jesus. She has prayed for him to heal her daughter. "Lord, help me." And all Jesus can say is, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

"Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." To this Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

Why? Why did Jesus respond to her now? Had she passed his test? Did her love and faith change Jesus' heart and mind? Did he come to a new understanding about the scope of his ministry? Had he seen the face of faith - anew?

It is hard to say. Matthew may well have heightened the cultural conflict between Jesus and this woman to make a point. This woman's faith stood in remarkable contrast to the faith of the Pharisees - and even the disciples - good Jews who just didn't get it. Or, Jesus may have been testing her. Was her faith a saving faith or was she only interested in what Jesus could do for her?
It's hard to say. Though it's not necessarily a bad thing that Jesus' behavior leaves us scratching our head at times. For - sometimes - I think we are a little quick to say: This is who Jesus was. Or this is what Jesus thinks. Or this is what Jesus would do. Sometimes, it's not a bad thing for God to keep us guessing.

Nevertheless - though Jesus' motives remain uncertain - the word of God is clear. Whether hers was a faith that changed even the heart of Jesus - or whether he knew it was there all the time - is not important. What is truly important is there were a lot of good religious folk - including Jesus' disciples - who had much to learn - from a woman such as this.

In the perseverance and hope of this Canaanite woman - in her submission to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord - we see the face of faith. Her faith in God - her love for her daughter - were so great - she was willing to endure ridicule and shame - rejection and scorn - even from Jesus Christ himself - in order that her daughter might be saved. Truly, hers was the face of faith.

CONCLUSION
My friends, is this what people see when they look at us? There many people - sharing our lives, sharing our worship - who are as desperate as this woman to see the face of Christ. They are in our stores and on our streets. They are in our schools and around our bridge tables. They are in our homes and they are in our pews. What will they see, when they look at us - when they cry out to us? Will they see the face of faith?

People of faith - in our lives and in our life together - may we become a people whose faith - whose love of God and love for one another - is so great - that - when people look to us - they will know we are a family who knows how to die and how to live -when people look at us - they will know they have seen the face of faith.