Empty Hands, Great Faith
Read: Matthew 15:21–28
Having dismantled the notion that outward religious cleanliness commends us to God, Jesus travels into Gentile territory and meets a woman who comes with nothing in her hands. She is a Canaanite, a woman, an outsider, and the mother of a tormented child, and by the Pharisees’ reckoning she has no claim whatever on Him. Yet she does not demand what she is owed. She does not ask for a fair go. She cries out for mercy, and the difference is profound: a fair go is what we believe we deserve, while mercy is what we know we do not.
Jesus meets her at first with silence, and then with words that sound severe. But He is drawing her out, allowing her faith to be seen by disciples who have just been called slow to understand. She neither argues nor takes offense. She simply says, “Yes, Lord,” and clings to the hope that even crumbs from His table are enough.
Jesus calls it great faith, an honour He gives in Matthew only to one other outsider, the Roman centurion (Matt 8). The Pharisees arrived in Matthew 15 carrying a clipboard and challenging Jesus and ended up departing with a warning, while later in this Chapter, this woman arrived with empty hands and went home with her daughter healed.
Reflect: Do you approach Jesus with a résumé, or with empty hands?
Pray: Lord, help me. It is one of the shortest and yet, most honest prayers we can pray.
▶ Watch the full sermon: Clean Hands, Pure Heart