by The Rev. Mark Buetow
So this woman has a demon-possessed daughter. She’s in a bad way. But Jesus is in the ‘hood so she tracks Him down. “Lord, Son of David! Have mercy on me! My daughter is demon possessed.” Here’s a Gentile woman of all things to whom the Lord owes nothing, begging Him for help. He ignores her. Then the disciples get all upset. “Lord, send her away! She’s stalking you! She won’t go away! Make her be quiet!” Jesus says He hasn’t come except for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That means the Jews. She’s not a Jew. So He ignored her. Then when she wouldn’t go away He says He’s not here to help her. But she still hangs on Him. “Lord, help me!” Finally, He tells her straight: “You can’t take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs!” Whoa! Did you hear that? Jesus just called her a dog!
And what does she say? “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their Lord’s table.” What does she mean, “Yes, Lord?” She should be offended! She should file a lawsuit! She should tell it to the news media. She should go on the Today show and start trashing Jesus on her blog and take Him off her MySpace Friends List. She should quit his church and go find one where the pastor is nice and the people are friendly. She should take out her keys and scratch up the disciples trucks! She ought to kick sand on Jesus and slap Him and turn around and walk away! But none of that is what faith does. Faith’s word is “Amen.” “True dat!” “Yes, yes, it shall be so.” Jesus speaks and whatever He says, to that faith says, “Amen. That’s for me.” Faith says, “Yes, Jesus, I’m a dog. But even dogs get crumbs. And your crumbs will save my daughter.” Faith doesn’t listen to the world or to rude disciples who are mad that you’re sitting in their pew. Faith clings to Jesus. Listens to Jesus. Learns from Jesus. Confesses what Jesus says. Speaks back the promises of God. Faith says that no matter what is true about me, even if I’m a dog, Jesus is still Jesus, the one who has power over the devil and can save my daughter.
Dear baptized children of God: What do you look to to see how it’s going with the Lord? To your life? To your success? To your accomplishments? To your wisdom? To whatever bad things happen to you? What do you trust in when it seems that even God Himself is paying no attention to you, or worse, flat out tells you He’s not there for you? To what do you cling when things are going well? What do you hang on to when everything turns sour and is a mess and the devil, the world and your sinful nature and even the Lord, it seems, are against you? For this Gentile woman, there was nothing but Jesus. She could not be sure of herself. She could only be sure of Jesus. With Jesus, there would be a way out, salvation. Without Him, she was doomed and her daughter with her. It was Jesus or nothing.
That’s for you to believe, too, dear Christians, as this woman did. To know and believe that it’s all Jesus or nothing at all. When the devil and the world and your sinful nature are on you like flies on a pile of poo, and even God Himself seems to want nothing to do with you, then you cling to Jesus like this woman did. Cling to Jesus who doesn’t come to condemn you but to save you. Cling to the Jesus who carries your sins to the cross and suffers for them, and dies for them. Cling to the holy washing given to you in the baptismal waters of Christ’s font, in which God makes you His child. Cling to the words of absolution which declare that you are no orphan but forgiven and that you stand “not guilty” before God. Cling to the body and blood of Jesus which is way more than crumbs falling from the table, but the rich feast that means you ARE a child of Israel, a child of God, one of Jesus’ own dear ones. Cling to Jesus and His gifts and there will be no doubt that your faith is a great faith, because your Jesus is a great Jesus.
The word that faith says is “Amen.” Sometimes it might sound like a “bow wow” or a woof!” But no matter what, that “Amen” means “Yes, Lord.” And that’s a “Yes, Lord” spoken to Jesus who casts our demons, takes away sins, and turns even sinful dogs into God’s own dear children. “Woof! Woof!” Sorry, I mean, “Amen!”
Pastor Mark Buetow serves Bethel Lutheran Church in Du Quoin, IL. He also serves as the Higher Things Internet Services Executive and taught as a Plenary Speaker at the Amen conferences.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, I don’t think any of you would think me strange if I ran into the street to save my daughter if she ran into the path of an oncoming car. You wouldn’t think I’m silly if I told someone walking in the front door of the church to be careful if the floor was wet. So don’t think it unimportant or silly today as I warn you about false prophets and the danger they pose to you! Just as I would never want to see anyone fall and be hurt, so I would never want that you should hear or listen to or be deceived by the preachers of Satan! And it is not me warning you anyway.
The next way to watch out for false prophets is to learn what a true prophet is. A true prophet, a true preacher, is one who delivers Jesus. In fact, we learn first of all what a true Prophet is by looking at the one who IS the True Prophet, the True Preacher, Jesus Himself. Two things about the prophets to watch out for: how they’re dressed and their fruits.
On the other hand, it is easy for God’s people to measure their preachers by looking for the wrong fruit. That preacher is friendly. That preacher makes me feel good. That preacher keeps the young people in church. That preacher does this or that that I like. These ways of preaching or judging a preacher that are apart from Christ and the forgiveness of sins are not watching out for but welcoming false preaching. They turn all eyes and ears away from Christ and His Word and put it on ourselves and that is just no good. That’s basting yourself to be tasty for the devil’s wolves!
No, I haven’t died and gone to heaven, but this servant of the Lord surely could depart in peace, for my eyes and ears and nose and mouth and hands have beheld the Glory of God in the gifts of His Christ, on earth as it is in heaven, by His Word of the Gospel throughout this week. I’m in St. Louis, completing my duties as the chaplain of the Higher Things conference that began on Tuesday and concludes this afternoon at Vespers. What a joy and delight, what a privilege and a pleasure it has been to serve in this capacity. How rich in grace and mercy the Lord has been to lavish such loving-kindness upon me and all His children here gathered together in this place.
It was a different experience for me to administer the Holy Communion to a congregation of disciples some ten or twelve times larger than I am normally given to serve. Having bread and wine ready to hand for 900 communicants makes for a lot of food up there on the Altar. To take that in hand with the Words of our Lord and to oversee the distribution of His Body and His Blood into the mouths of His people is an awesome responsibility and task. Yet, the same Lord whose gifts I was given to administer also surrounded and supported me with faithful brothers in Christ and in the Holy Office, that all things might be done in love, in decency and good order. Looking out over the distribution as it was occurring last night, there was such a wave of joy that flooded me, I could hardly have expressed it, except by joining in the singing of the hymns as best I could while remaining attentive to my duties.
This year, my dorm is toward the western end of the beautiful campus. I walk amidst fountains and trees and grass. Everything is green and lush and lovely. I’ve seen very little traffic most of the time, because I haven’t had to be on Grand Avenue much. Sure, I’ve spent most of my time in the church, because that’s where I’ve been preparing and officiating all of the services. But I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying the campus in my movement to and fro, and it simply feels like a different place altogether than the last time I was here. My dorm is very nice, too, and I’ve had a couple of great roommates; although I will say that I have missed having my Zach here and rooming with him, which was the other thing I enjoyed best about “Dare To Be Lutheran.”
In the name of Jesus. Amen. “Let it be to me according to your word.” That’s Mary’s “amen,” her amen of faith. The angel Gabriel comes to this young virgin girl with a shocking proclamation of good news. “You have found favor with God…You will conceive a son…you will call His name Jesus.” Yeshua! The Lord saves! “He will be great…the Son of God…the descendant of David whose throne will last forever…an everlasting kingdom.”
The teaching continues too. When the angel told Mary she would conceive she simply said, “How can this be?” Someone must have taught her how babies are made. We ask questions too, don’t we? We ask questions like, “What is Baptism? How can water do such great things? What is the benefit of this eating and drinking?” Mary’s question isn’t about doubt at all, and neither is ours. It’s about certainty. It’s about what you can be sure of. The angel knows the answer. It’s Jesus! There in the proclamation of God’s promise in Christ, Mary receives the incarnate Son of God in her womb, but there also faith receives the promised Christ. Mary is strengthened through the power and work of the Holy Spirit. The angel’s good news is the good news of salvation, which expels all doubt and uncertainty and moves one to rejoice in the gift of Jesus and to speak the Amen of faith, “Let it be to me according to your Word.”
I’m a huge Will Smith fan. I have been most of my life. I remember saving up quarters to buy an old black and white television at a neighbor’s garage sale just so I could watch Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns on UPN. My first album was the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff’s Code Red, which probably pre-dates most who will read this article. Despite my mother’s insistence that I not see Six Degrees of Separation, I broke the fourth commandment and snuck to the theater to see Will Smith’s first movie. Later on I would collect all of his movies and albums. I even enjoyed and own Wild Wild West despite getting horrible reviews at the Box Office. I’m a huge Will Smith fan.
If you set aside the fact that Hancock is a vulgar drunk in the beginning of the movie we can begin to see a bit of a Christocentric character in Him. Our Lord’s “weakness” is His flesh, which He takes on not to get closer to God but to get closer to man. In His weakness He is the Father’s love, dying on a Cross for the forgiveness of our sins. There too, in His death we are raised from our own death, freed from our bondage and resurrected to a new life in Him. Still now, when our Lord comes close to us it’s not as a superhero – not in glory or majesty, but rather in lowly mortality, flesh and blood. Our Lord’s love is in His death, in taking and eating and taking and drinking His body and blood, given and shed for you. All this because the Lord and maker of all has begotten His Son in order to save us.
Our Old Testament reading tells of Adam and the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. One of the questions people like to ask pastors is: If God knew Adam and Eve would sin, why did He put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden? Why did God make something they were forbidden to eat? Why did He do that? It’s like He’s playing games or something. Testing them to see if they slip up. No, that is not why.
The Lord teaches us that first and foremost is His Word. But our heavenly Father also promises to give us all that we need for our body and life. We are to trust Him, because He gives us his Word of life and that same Word of life gives us salvation and tells us that the Lord will provide for us in this life. Adam taught his wife differently and that sin has been with us ever since. Rather than having God’s Word first, we run around trying to grab all the stuff of this life. Rather that having God’s Word as our highest treasure, we think the most important things in our life are the things we can buy. The Devil loves to tell us the lie: “Well, you can’t eat God’s Word. You can’t make your car run by stuffing pages of the Bible in your gas tank. You can’t power your house with God’s Word. God’s Word doesn’t give you anything. It’s just words and talk. That can’t keep you belly full and a roof over your head.” And we believe the Devil! We listen to that! We really do think like that! The Lord says, “I will give you everything you need. Just believe and trust in my Word and make that the most important thing in your lives.” No way! Too much chance there. Can’t be sure I’ll have a full tummy! Do you know what that makes us when we think like that? Do you know what we are when we doubt the Lord will take care of us?
That’s why He feeds the 4,000. Why were the 4,000 there? They had been listening to His Word. Their first concern was His Word. Because His Word saves them. His Word is true food. His Word is life. But just because His Word is life, doesn’t mean daily bread is not important. So Jesus, to show that He is true God whose Word gives life but who also provides all that we need for our body and life, feeds the 4,000.
And when you doubt. When you worry. When you are filled with unbelief. Come and see Jesus feed the 4,000. It’s no random detail that St. Mark throws in when he writes that Jesus took the bread, gave thanks and broke it and distributed it. That ought to remind us of the Lord’s Supper. And here is the truth that the Lord’s Supper teaches us: that Jesus is our Lord not just for eternal life but for now. He doesn’t just give us forgiveness of sins, our “get out of jail” card for later, He provides for and cares for us now. God is not just our God someday but today, not just for heaven but for earth, not just for spiritual things, but for bodily gifts as well. When we eat and drink the Lord’s body and blood, the bread and wine feed our bodies. The body and blood forgive our sins and keep us in Him unto eternal life. Just as Jesus is true God and true man, so He would teach us that just as He dies for our sins and makes us God’s children, so He provides for us all that we need to live in this life. Come and receive Jesus’ body and blood because it takes away your sins. His body, the bread of Life, His blood, shed for you, wipe out your worrying, your coveting, making idols out of your stuff, all of your sins. It is His promise of life and salvation, that He who has given His own Son will also with Him graciously give you all things.
“All good things must come to an end,” the expression goes. Yet it is not entirely true.
What a joy and privilege to gather around your own pastor for the next twelve months, receiving the gifts Christ freely gives, until you join hundreds of others at 
Anakin Skywalker had a problem. Okay, so he had quite a few problems. But one thing that truly plagued him was a fear of suffering, death and separation. There had been no father in his life. At age nine he left his mother behind, in slavery, as he began a new life. When he returned, she had been captured and tortured, and it was too late; she died before his eyes. He was later tormented by dreams of his wife and unborn child dying – all the while being deceived and tempted by a prince of lies to curse the Light Side of the Force. And after he has lost everything, he goes into a rage and destroys the things around him as he screams in utter agony.
The difference between the two, of course, (other than the fact that Anakin is fictional) is Christ. Anakin did not know Christ. He had faith in a power that could be manipulated and twisted into his own image. He believed that he could learn to have power over death, and in the midst of his own suffering, selfishly tried to regain control so that all things could serve his warped idea of what was good.
Anakin was crushed by his traumas and suffering. He fell into a terrible life of serving evil and causing others to suffer. Misery loves company. “If I have to feel this bad, then I’m bringing you down with me.”
This hope is far more than a wish. It is not just a daydream, or something you would like someday.
Today I had a high privilege and honor: preaching for Matins at a Higher Things conference! I have to admit: preaching for a Higher Things conference gives more pressure than a typical Sunday. There are great preachers of Christ’s Gospel here, and youth whom they have catechized well. A “Higher” standard is expected. Because of that, I scrapped my first homily about one-third of the way through writing it. And boy! Am I glad I did.
