“We are Beggars” – Matthew 15:21-28

“Wir sein pettler.”—“We are beggars.” According to reports, these were the final written words of Martin Luther. Lying on his deathbed, delirious from the discomfort that racked his body, he scribbled these words. “Wir sein pettler.”—“We are beggars.” Were these the ramblings of a man whose sanity had long left him? Or were these words the summary of a whole lifetime of experience and learning? Were these words the proclamation of one who had lost all faith and was despairing over the inevitable loss of his life? Or were these words the great testimony of one who had journeyed for years and in the face of death had finally understood the simplicity of what it means to have faith? “Wir sein pettler.”—“We are beggars.”

Her dark eyes are buried deep. They hide behind the lines of her face which, like the rings of a tree, mark the many hard days she has seen. Worries and stresses have shaped her face years beyond her age. Between her broken and cracked lips peek out her crooked teeth. Darkened from years of use and neglect, her teeth taint her breath with a distinct twinge of rottenness. Her clothes are worn and covered with stains, showing the difficult days of her recent past. She has not had much time for self-care—her hair is tangled and disheveled and her odor is pungent. The muddled combination of sweat, sewage, spoiled milk, and bile make those who come close to her involuntarily scrunch their faces and turn their heads.

When she repeatedly calls out to people for mercy they try to ignore her. They quickly pick up their pace, keeping their heads low, gazing at the path in front of them.  Yet her persistence sometimes pays off. Just to get rid of her people will quickly toss a few coins her way—anything to just stop her nagging.

To us, this woman is simply gross. A disgusting and repulsive speck of the dignity of humanity. She is a leech on society. She has lost all self-respect and society no longer respects her. And we hope that our paths never cross with the likes of her. 

This is the woman we come across in our text for today. As Jesus and his disciples were in the region of Tyre and Sidon, this foreign woman pestered them with pleas to save her daughter—her daughter who was stricken with a demon and who made her situation so hopeless and difficult.

Jesus ignored the pleas of this non-Jewish woman and the disciples got so annoyed with her that they urged Jesus to send her away. Jesus replied to his disciples, “I was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel.” Overhearing his response, this shameless woman threw herself on hers knees before Jesus, crying, “Lord, help me!” Jesus replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

Ouch. Dogs in Middle-Eastern culture, Jewish and non-Jewish, are almost as despised as pigs. They are never kept as pets. They are half-wild guard dogs or scavengers which roam the streets for garbage. This hurt bad. Jesus’ words had no sugar-coating. And Jesus and his disciples had every social reason to be disgusted by this entire spectacle. Down in the dirt, the woman kneeled—both figuratively and literally. She was not only a dirty foreigner before Jews, but a woman before men. The cultural hurdles she was attempting to cross were huge. And to top it all off she had not only been ignored, but now she had been disrespected, she had been insulted—she had been called a dog. How would she respond?

My first inclination would be to defend myself. I would be inclined to call Jesus out, to say “How dare you! I deserve to have you help me, I asked as nicely as I could, but you ignored me! And now you insult me?!” And then I would likely storm off. But this would be me being prideful. This would be me feeling a sense of entitlement. This would be me exalting myself to be more than I am.

The woman in our story did not fall into any this. Her struggles in life had broken her down so far that here in this moment she was resigned to simply agree with Jesus: “Yes, Lord.” She accepted the harshness of his words, because she knew—she knew they were true. Forsaking all pride, she embraced the reality which her life had shown her, the reality that she was nothing, that she was a dog who did not deserve anything. She knew she wasn’t entitled to any of this.

And here, accepting Jesus’ assessment as true, she could have turned and left. But she didn’t. She persisted. She humbled herself and begged. She knew she didn’t deserve a thing, but she also knew the one to whom to begged. She knew that he was good. She knew that he was generous. She had heard as much and she had seen it with her own eyes. And so she continued to push forward with the remarkable response: “But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”—“Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Knowing that she was nothing, she demanded nothing. But knowing that Jesus was great, that he was Lord, she expected great mercy. And so she begged. And in this act she revealed a marvelous faith. Jesus quickly realized as much and praised her, granting her request to have her daughter healed. In her willingness to humble herself, in her realization that she was powerless, Jesus saw immense faith. She was not here to use Jesus—she was not here to manipulate him. She was simply here for his mercy. She was powerless to fix her situation. She needed something more, she needed someone more. And so she humbled herself and begged.

And through this woman, I learn a hard lesson about faith. I see that in a lot of ways people such as this begging woman, who I want nothing to do with, are closer to the Kingdom of God than those who are rich, blessed, talented, self-sufficient, proud, and entitled (Matthew 21:31-32) like myself. I wouldn’t dare find myself like this woman—without dignity and self-respect, down in the dirt, begging for mercy from one who had insulted me. I have far too much pride for that. But that is exactly my problem. My unwillingness to humble myself like this woman kills my faith and my relationship with God. Stanley Hauerwas put it well: “Faith is exemplified by our willingness to beg.” Listen to it again: “Faith is exemplified by our willingness to beg.”

In this woman, who I find so repulsive and wretched, we have one of the great illustrations of what it means to be a child of faith. Jesus repeatedly points to people such as this woman as examples of what it means to have faith—of what it means to be great in the Kingdom of God. Later in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus called a little child into the midst of his disciples in order to make this point very clear: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3-4). This is exactly what the foreign woman in our story did: she humbled herself like a child before Jesus. She fell to her knees as one who was helpless, as one who could not live without the scraps from his table. She was like a little child who was 100% dependent on the care of her parents.

“Wir sein pettler.”—“We are beggars.” In the light of Jesus’ teachings we can now see that Luther’s last words were not some faithless rambling—they were instead the great testimony of one who had learned over many hard years what it was to be a child of God. Luther saw that the call of Jesus was a call to humble himself before God. He saw that he was no more than the begging woman in our text. He saw that he, like the Canaanite woman, was a dog who had no right to the children’s food. And so he saw that his entire relationship of faith was one of a beggar who must wait on the crumbs to fall from the Master’s table. “Wir sein pettler.”—“We are beggars.”

This was the very heart of Jesus’ teaching about God’s Kingdom. “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12). Jesus embodied this life of a beggar as he humbled himself before both God and man. Jesus put aside all pride and sense of entitlement. He was disrespected, cursed at, insulted, and spit on. And yet he did not retaliate or strike back. In our story for today, even when his honesty seemed hard and cold, he ultimately burst through all social boundaries and had compassion on this foreign woman. Jesus continually turned the other cheek, went the extra mile, and loved his enemies with no strings attached. He could have avoided the cross, but he humbly threw himself into the arms of his Father, entrusting himself to the one who judges justly. And as he hung bloodied and dying on the cross he prayed for those who were persecuting him.

Therefore, Jesus is the great example of what this life of humility looks like. And you and I are being called to follow in his footsteps—listen to Paul: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8). Jesus made himself nothing. Jesus became a servant. Jesus humbled himself. Jesus became obedient even to the point of death. Jesus lived the life we are all called to live today—the life that the Canaanite woman displayed so clearly in our story—the life of faith, the life of humility, the life of a beggar.

We can live this life of humility today because just as Jesus stated, this life of a beggar ends with great joy, it ends in exaltation. You can humble yourself like the Canaanite woman and you can love your enemies like Jesus because Jesus’ road did not end with death—there was more. God, in keeping with his promise, did not leave Jesus in the grave, but exalted him by raising him from the dead and placing him as Lord over all creation.

In Jesus Christ you too have the same promise. In your baptism you have been united to the life, death, and exaltation of Jesus Christ. In your baptism you have been humbled before God and man and so you can be certain that when the Last Day comes you will be exalted—you will be raised from the dead to live eternally with Jesus Christ.

And so, just like the Canaanite woman, your daily life in baptism, your life of begging, is not from a prideful desire to control or manipulate. Your humble life of begging is because you know that the God of your Lord Jesus Christ is a gracious Father who will hear your every request. Listen to Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matt 7:7-11). This is exactly what the Canaanite woman in our text learned. God is gracious. God is good. God is generous. He will give his good gifts to his children that ask. So come before him boldly, but also humbly. Know that you are nothing and yet know that he will listen to your every plea because you are his child in Jesus Christ.

“Wir sein pettler.”—“We are beggars.” Yes, we definitely are—it is because we know we need something more, someone more. And that someone is our loving and merciful Lord Jesus Christ before whom we fall to our knees: “Lord, help me!” Amen.