The readings for the 12th Sunday After Pentecost, Yr. A were: Isaiah 56:1, 6-8; Psalm 67, Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15:10-28. This sermon was preached at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church in Palmyra, VA on August 16, 2026.
There is a dog in the story today, so I am going to use that as an excuse to talk about my beloved Boomer. I know a lot of you don’t know Boomer. Some of you might have seen him on social media, but if there is anything you should know about him…that which motivates him more than anything even being around me…its food. It is food. And I think it is partly because he was abused as a puppy. With his other siblings, they were starved. So, I think he is still hungry. You know, it is that memory of that woundedness that keeps him hungry.
And so, if you were to come to our house, you would see him sit there patiently, but he watches you as your fork goes from plate to mouth, plate to mouth. His head bobbing looks as if he is watching the most spectacular tennis match. He doesn’t want to miss a moment…but really, what he doesn’t want to miss is the smallest crumb dropped. If anything hits that floor, it is gobbled up quick as can be. Yet if I am not messy, and there is nothing to be had…if I don’t show him some grace and give him a bite…he is part beagle. So, when he is at his most desperate, guess what? He is vocal, and Boomer lets out the most plaintiff lament that would make a banshee in the Odyssey jealous. Oh, he puts them to shame.
And I bring this up because it is a similar to the utter desperation that this woman is feeling.[i] , a deep hunger longing to be filled. The hunger that she was experiencing resonates throughout today’s passage. It is not what Jesus said, or the arguments over the ritualistic propriety of food consumed with the Pharisees, nor any obnoxious behaviors of the mother (as at least as Jesus’ disciples experienced her), nor even the girl’s suffering (surprisingly) that holds center stage. No, it is the miracle of faith that begs for our attention. We see God’s most ancient plans and promises being fulfilled in this scene. Salvation would come first to the Jews and through them to the entire world. The gift of faith is on the move thanks to the Holy Spirit. It is a story as old as scripture itself.
When the Bible starts in Genesis with Creation and then Adam and Eve, we see Adam and Eve banished from the Garden of Eden for their sin, ultimately a pride that they felt that they could be like God. Yet, our LORD God in his mercy clothed them on their way (Genesis4:21). He didn’t just cast them out. He clothed them. And as the rest of scripture reveals, God had a plan even then to restore what was lost.
And from there, we quickly move from a more cosmic and global level of story toward a focus on one family, the family of Abraham and Sarah and their descendants. Yes, it is true that God made a covenant with Abraham, but that was ultimately because of God’s will and Abraham’s faith in response. Even as Abraham had much more to learn, faith (trust in God) made Abraham righteous in God’s eyes, as it does his descendants, and as it does us (some of us not genetic descendants but spiritual children of Abraham)…called to trust.
In this all too human story, we see lots of sin, but God remains gracious. Ultimately, the former slave, Joseph, betrayed by his brothers, says to them as all the stories in Genesis come to a conclusion in his life’s experiences, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20). God proved faithful, blessing people beyond just Joseph or his family, thus inspiring more faith.
And then, we meet Moses. As a new covenant is built upon the one made with Abraham, as the Israelites get to know God better despite many stumbles and sinful bumbles along their way, God names them repeatedly, Qedesh Olam. And this is one of the most important phrases in the Jewish scriptures. Qedesh signifies “holy” or “set apart.” And olam signifies “everlasting” or “eternity.” The Jewish people are being set apart as God’s Holy People…chosen and set apart, forever. It is not because of what they have done or will do. Ultimately, it is because God wills to love them in this way…It is grace. We are saved by grace through faith…through trust.
Yet maybe we should stop here to ask, “Why?” Were the Israelites freed just to escape Egypt in order to form a tiny nation in the Lavant? No, we learn as the story continues through the same dysfunctional family, particularly as it zeroes in on the line of David and the Kingdom of Israel, that there is much more to it. The prophets attest to it many times. Despite imperfections and lack of faithfulness, God wills to remain faithful to them. God loves them with a steadfast love. They are set apart, but it is for a purpose that reaches far beyond them to bless all the peoples of the Earth.
Yes, others will learn of the Lord through this holy, set apart people. Others will come to love and worship God… people God already loves. That’s what Isaiah (56:8) tells us this morning. All along, the flow of God’s mercy, the stream of our salvation history, is catching up surprising figures in its current. It is sweeping humanity along as in a rolling tide, a flood, hoping to draw all people to God’s self…gathering people in…swept up by the Holy Spirit, so to speak.
Even with the Syrophoenician woman this morning, we see God at work. She has a need, a deep hunger, that she cannot satisfy. She’s heard of this Jesus, and she has come to believe in his power and authority. Matthew’s first audience knows Jesus is the Lord of All, but she calls him Lord three times symbolically indicating divine order and wholeness…God’s self is being revealed through Jesus…as Jesus.
Based on the disciples’ response, she was acting a little bit like Boomer at my table…trying with all her might to catch Jesus’ attention…being a little obnoxious. “Lord! Lord! Lord! Help me!” Even in her body language, she takes the form of someone pleading…someone worshipping God on her knees…in supplication if not worship.
As with Matthew’s first audience, we can sense her desperation and be moved toward empathy and compassion for her situation. In one way or another, we likely have all been there…Or we will be there at some point…a place where we hope against hope that things will work out. Or maybe we struggle to have hope at all. Some of us have been in that space, too.
Through the laments found in Psalms, we address God. We share our complaints. We make our request, and then there is an offer an expression of trust (or faith) that God will care for us. Then finally, there’s a vow of praise or thanksgiving. Her behaviors, if we look closely, model the Psalms. Her actions echoed the form of this kind of holy lament.[ii]
This woman who is a Gentile or commonly called a Greek at the time, who is the descendant of the ancient Jewish enemy, the Canaanites, scandalously approaches Jesus. He’s a Jew. He’s a respected member of the community above her station. He is recognized as a Rabbi, or teacher, and miracle worker even among the Gentiles by this point. And at a time and in a culture when no respectable woman would approach a strange man to speak to him in public, she boldly does. She almost makes a fool of herself. Everything seems wrong with this woman.
In Matthew’s telling, this unnamed woman rises out of the crowds[iii] as if she is the only one there.[iv] Boom! We are to look at her and see her as God sees her…in her humility…clothed in her unique needs if not maybe some shame.[v] And then, she will disappear within the flow of history just as fast…unknown to us but remembered by God. Yet before she goes, we are to notice something that might inspire us and change our own lives forever. She has incredible faith!
Despite everything against her, despite the challenges of her possessed daughter, despite her station, she has faith in Jesus. That, my friends, changes everything. Like others who just wanted to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment (Matthew 9:20-22), or catch a glimpse of him (Luke 19:1-10), or have him just say a word (Matthew 8:8)…she just wants a crumb of mercy…not ultimately for herself, but for the one she loves…her daughter.
We recently saw Peter fail at his attempt to walk on the water, and Jesus retorted at that time, “You of little Faith” (Matthew 14:22-33). The Pharisees came from Jerusalem to challenge him over his behaviors, and he reminds them at his peril that faith really isn’t about what we do or don’t do ritually or otherwise. It is about the heart. Just as love can flow from the heart, so can murder and all sin. He sees their hearts and knows that these particular Pharisees, supposed men of faith, are hypocrites.
No, faith is only of the heart. It is not of our worldly station. It is not imagined through our intellect, or does it come to us by what we do or fail to do. And here, this “other,” this “foreigner,” this “enemy,” this “women,” this “dog,” …incredibly walks right up to Jesus in faith. Like a parable shared by Jesus, this woman knocks and knocks trusting all along that Jesus will open the door (Luke 18:1-8). As a result of this incredible trust, Jesus declares, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish” (Matthew 15:28). Miracles happen because of faith.[vi]
Yet before we think that this is all her doing, making faith a saving work of sorts, reliant upon our own abilities or will, let us always remember that faith, too, is a gift from God…a gift of the Holy Spirit. When Peter soon afterwards finally comes around to declare Jesus the Messiah, Son of the Living God, Jesus explains, “this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood [not by his brain or any other human], but by my Father in heaven.” We cannot even recognize Jesus as Lord without the Holy Spirit’s help. Faith is solely a work of God, the Spirit…an invitation to eternal relationship that comes to us as gift and of which we are to grab onto, cling to, and treasure.
God by grace through faith makes us Christ’s saints. Throughout history, the greatest of the recognized, lauded saints are small in number compared to the many anonymous “dogs” and “others” who have looked for scrapes at Jesus’ table and were saved. These knew they didn’t deserve it. They recognized they could not save themselves. Yet, they were saved by grace through faith.
Similarly, if we were to take a poll this morning, I would suggest that for most of us it was not Peter or Paul or any story of a famous saint that drew us to dare to hope that Jesus could save us. It was the Spirit often choosing to work through ordinary, overlooked people in the annals of history: a parent or grandparent…a mentor that witnessed to us of hope…a stranger that helped us discover the true meaning of grace, when the time was right…recognized for the first time or in a new way.
There’s a reason the Church commonly says that some of the greatest saints were the greatest sinners…the most in need of grace…the dogs of the world. A singer, Steven Curtis Chapman, was inspired one day to pen these words (found in his song, “Remember your chains,” on his CD, Heaven in the Real World, 1994) when he saw the hunger in the eyes of a prisoner on a plane he had boarded. It was a sudden Spirit-led realization:
There’s no one more thankful to sit at the table
Than the one who best remembers hunger’s pain;
And no heart loves greater than the one that is able
To recall the time when all it knew was shame.
He was observing an “other,” a “dog” to the world but precious to Jesus…someone that needed Jesus’ love desperately. And this inspired Stephen to actively support prison ministries.
In my own life, while a troubled youth or being a police officer, I remember people who rose from the crowd to speak hope and share a crumb of their faith with me when I was dying inside of hunger. It was a high school friend’s blue-collar father, a humble Sunday school teacher, and a childhood friend who was later a recovering heroin addict. It was a recovering alcoholic man and a woman recovering from food addiction who became spiritual mentors to me. There were many other types of surprising people used by God…I confess with shame…that I previously looked down upon as dogs. When in reality, I proved the dog in need of crumbs, and they responded. I had not even realized my need.
As God loves us one and all as we are, God seeks to meet our need for salvation through the Church. As Dr. Sara Hinlicky Wilson reflected once in a podcast, we, the Church, are “reclaiming faith as the creation of the Holy Spirit through the word [preached] and sacraments, the ministry of the Church, and all that.”[vii] Yet, that’s not good enough for God. God uses it, but that’s not good enough.
We are gathered on Sundays, then sent. Through our daily lives, we are asked to take what little scraps of faith, hope, and love we can muster from that already gifted to us and share it with others. Despite our doubts, darkness, or insecurities…even our sin…no matter how stupid people might make us feel or the “other” we are…by grace through faith, we have been saved in Jesus Christ alone…gathered by God’s Spirit and set aside for a purpose.
It is implausible to many, maybe beyond our own understanding, but we “dogs” and sinners who dare to trust in Jesus have been declared Qedesh Olam. We are part of a much greater story, God’s love for the world. This is no time to wait or waste, for God is calling us. God will use the meager crumbs we offer, those Jesus gifted to us first, to gather still others in…to build up his Church. It is God’s will that our lives and the world be changed forever. It always has been. We have been saved for a purpose. Amen.
[i] No, I am not trying to minimize this woman’s situation. It is not comparable, but I am trying to show that she was loudly begging. Her calling for Jesus caused enough of a racket that the disciples wanted her shooed away.
[ii] Gail R. O’Day, “Surprised by Faith: Jesus and the Canaanite Woman,” in A Feminist Companion to Matthew, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 124.
[iii] Keck, L.E., Chief Ed. (1995). The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary in Twelve Volumes.
[iv] Brother Roger of Taizé often said that we are loved “as if the only one.”
[v] In that ancient honor based society, her behavior would bring shame upon her and her household.
[vi] This does not mean that we always get what we want when we believe, but our prayers and cares are heard and answered somehow by God.
[vii] Hinlicky Wilson, S. (August 23, 2023). Quenn of the Sciences Podcast. “Luther’s Bondage of the Will.”
Below, please find a video of our worship service. The sermon starts at about the 26:15 minute mark.
© 2026 The Rev. Louis Florio. All content not held under another’s copyright may not be used without permission of the author unless under terms of fair use and properly attributed. Scripture passages when used are from the NRSVue translation unless otherwise indicated.
2pennyblog 