Sunday, August 16, 2026… Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
“Mercy for Lost Sheep”
Scriptures: Psalm 67; Isaiah 56:1-8; Romans 11:1-2a, 13-15, 28-32; Matthew 15:21-28
Service Order: Divine Service IV with Holy Communion, Lutheran Service Book
Hymns: “Jesus Sinners Doth Receive” #609; “When To the World Our Savior Came” #551; “Have No Fear, Little Flock” #735
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
If someone is what Jesus calls “a lost sheep” – walking apart from Him, apart from God, and apart from saving faith – it’s so easy for us to judge them or berate them or walk away from them. That is the easy way to deal with them, in fact. But Jesus’ answer when it comes to lost sheep isn’t to judge them, but to act in mercy and go and find them. For all the lost sheep we know, and the ones we will meet, may we all have hearts full of mercy, compassion, and prayer. Father in Heaven, may all Your lost sheep at last be found! Amen.
Why did Jesus go to Tyre and Sidon? That place was full of Gentiles! Pagans, idol worshipers, Canaanites and Philistines; it was enemy territory. The Jewish leaders had been giving Him a hard time in Judea, making their threats and plotting their plots against Him, but He wasn’t afraid of them, and He wasn’t being compelled to run from them. He’d confronted them and bested them on a regular basis, over and over again.
He wasn’t going to Tyre and Sidon to run away or hide out; He didn’t need to.
One reason for His going there, of course, was the Canaanite woman. Jesus knew her, heart and soul, like He knows you and me. He knew her heart, knew about her troubles, and knew about her daughter, and He loved them both. It was never His intent to ignore her or not help her; Jesus is more merciful than that.
Another reason for His going there was for His disciples to see what they needed to see. It was another learning experience for them, another lesson in mercy from their Teacher, for them to absorb. They’d all been raised in the “salvation is only for the Jews, we’re God’s chosen people” mindset, born and raised to believe that the Jews were God’s special people, and that all the unclean folks – pagans, Samaritans, Canaanites, the goyim, the Gentile nations – were unworthy of God.
Jesus’ intent and reason for coming into this world and doing everything He did was that the Gospel of salvation would be preached and taught in all the world, and extend far beyond the borders of Israel. “Go ye therefore and teach all nations,” He said. These disciples were the ones to begin to do that good work. And for them to do it, those old divisions, hatreds, and prejudices were going to have to go. There is no place for such divisions in God’s Church. God is “no respecter of persons,” but accepts “people from every nation who love Him and do what is right” - on the basis of faith, no matter who they are or where they come from.
As we read this morning in Isaiah, if you’re a person who wants to do right and cares about justice; and if you have a heart that loves God and wants to keep His commandments; and if you fear God with reverence and respect, and keep God’s Sabbath and worship Him – then it doesn’t matter if you’re a foreigner or a Gentile or a Canaanite or even a eunuch; you’ll always find a warm welcome in God’s House. What Jesus was doing here in our Gospel -- besides showing mercy to the poor Canaanite lady, and especially to her dear daughter -- was to show His disciples who God loves, and who they needed to show love and mercy to.
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession." A Canaanite, of all people! The Canaanites were the ancient enemies of Israel, lower on the totem pole than Samaritans, even. No self-respecting Jew would acknowledge or even speak to such a person. They were unclean, uncircumcised (akrobustia, the Jews called them, the “uncut ones”). They were out of bounds as far as the Jews were concerned, written off as unredeemably lost.
And yet this woman, Canaanite though she was, had heard about Jesus. She was desperate of course, as only a mother worried to death for her child can be. She’d heard about what He’d been doing in Israel and among the Jews, the miracles He’d been doing in Judea and Galilee. So she was thinking maybe, just maybe, in spite of who I am, maybe He could work just a little miracle for me.
She did everything she could. She called out to Jesus out loud. She named Him as the Son of David, the Savior of the Jews. She named the reason for her calling out, that poor, suffering child of hers. And she begged Him for mercy. Did she have faith? I think so, or she wouldn’t have dared to call out at all. Strong faith? Maybe not; but faith enough, at least, to ask and hope and pray.
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." And Jesus answered not a word. Why would He do that? That’s not what we’d expect of Him, not like Him at all. It wasn’t because He looked down on her, or hated her, or considered her unworthy of an answer; He loved her and came there to find her and help her. No, the delay was for those disciples looking on. They had no problem at all with sending her away. She was a Canaanite, after all, a foreigner. Why should they want anything to do with her? She isn’t “one of us,” after all. So Jesus, please send her away. They weren’t seeing her as a person, and had no compassion for her need. And that, again, was something that had to change.
He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." Why would He say that? That would leave US out, too, wouldn’t it? I’m not a Jew, and neither are you. The disciples may well have been nodding and agreeing at this point. Yeah, Lord! You tell her!
The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. This is another one for those perfect three-word prayers, coming from a pleading and desperate heart; just the kind of prayer that moves the heart of God, no matter who it is who’s praying the prayer.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” Oh, no! He’s not insulting the poor woman, is He? And doesn’t this make you and me dogs as well, and unworthy of God’s bread? Again, the statement isn’t aimed at her, or meant to exclude her or anyone else from God’s grace. What He says is for the disciples again, the students looking on. It’s a test question for them, one meant to touch their hearts and change their thinking. Isn’t that what you’ve been taught, gentlemen? That God’s gifts and grace are only for Israel? So the lesson they need to learn comes from the mouth of woman that none of them ordinarily would have given the time of day.
"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Lord, I know I’m not worthy to receive Your gifts of grace. I am a Canaanite, a foreigner, a dog, I know that well enough. But, Lord, I do believe You can help me, because of who You are. I’m not asking You for the world, just for a crumb of mercy, and that will be enough. She isn’t proud, or arrogant, or thinking, God forbid, that she has a right to demand anything from the Lord. She’s humble about her request. Her only hope is that when she gets on her face before God, she’ll find Him to be merciful.
And it should be no different for you or me; all we have is the hope of finding grace.
And when we ask, when we ask, when we ask… When we come in the faith we have, as small as that faith may sometimes be…
Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour. Jesus always meant to help her; He came there to find her. He wouldn’t have just left her there in her grief and walked away; that’s not what our Savior does. Her faith, borne of desperation at it was, may have been small; but Jesus saw and appreciated the reality and therefore the greatness of it.
We come to Jesus as we are, “weary, worn, and sad.” And when come to Him in our need, hoping for grace, begging for mercy -- this beautiful Savior of ours never says no. When we come to Him on our knees and on our faces, He lifts us up again in the most profound and wonderful way. We get to hear, “Your sins are forgiven! Go in peace!” And then we get not just “crumbs from the Master’s table,” but the body and blood of Christ Himself, given to us on the cross, so we can live. We come asking only for a crumb, and we get the whole loaf, the whole blessed heavenly bakery, and every gift that our Heavenly Father has to give us. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.”
And it’s for you! Whether you’re a Jew or a Gentile or a Canaanite or anything else at all! That’s the Good News Jesus has given to us to give to our world: God has mercy for all His lost sheep. I was one of them once, too; “we all like sheep have gone astray.”I once was lost, but now, praise God, I’ve been found! The lesson for the disciples, and for us, is about how deep God’s mercy is, and how far God’s mercy goes. Even to me… even to me.
Blessed Jesus, as You showed great mercy to the Canaanite woman and her precious child, so also You have shown great mercy to us, as You invite us once again to come and eat from Your very own table. May we who have been blessed with such mercy, now show that same mercy to everyone we meet, that we may have a part in the good work of bringing all the lost sheep home to You. We pray in Jesus’ name; Amen.
Rev. Larry Sheppard, M.Div.
Trinity Lutheran Church, LCMS, Packwaukee, WI; St. John’s Lutheran Church, LCMS, Oxford, WI
pastorshepp@gmail.com