“That Woman Has Great Faith”

ne of the first things that we notice about the adult Jesus is that he did not like the folks at the synagogue, and they did not like him. Lots of un-churched people today do not like church folks too much either. Both Jesus, and today's population who have not been reared in the Church, feel that many active in synagogues and churches are not living up to their faith. They had, and often we appear to have, too many useless rules and regulations that miss the point. The Pharisees took the Ten Commandments and turned them into ten thousand commandments, mostly dealing with the foods that a person was not supposed to eat. Today, many local churches have developed mores that have little to do with true religion. Both groups seem to be self-righteous, exclusive and out of touch with God's truth.

How can we avoid developing a kind of self-created culture that is missing the vision that God has for our individual lives, and our corporate life in Christ?

In Matthew fifteen we overhear Jesus offending the Pharisees because he said that it was not what went into a person's mouth that defiled, but it was the evil that came out of a person's mouth that was sinful. I think this speaks to us whenever we insist of outsiders jumping through our devised hoops in order to get inside our fellowships. The only real requirement that Jesus set up was faith in his Sonship.

So, Jesus left his own people for a mission to the Gentiles. On the way they encountered a Syrophoenician woman who believed that Jesus could heal her daughter. Anyone who has ever had a sick child can empathize with her concern. Yet, the slow to catch on Apostles, had no sympathy at all. They just wanted Jesus to get rid of her because she was bothering them. She did not care if they called her a dog, a pagan, or an outcast. All she wanted was to have Jesus heal her daughter: yet, in so doing she was confessing great faith in the Divinity of Jesus: "Then Jesus said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.' And her daughter was healed at once." (Matthew 15: 28, NASV)

So, do we identify with the Pharisees who rejected Jesus, or the hero of our story who found favor because of her faith?