Faith "in" or Faith "of "

Matthew 15:21-28

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."

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."

He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.

He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

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A Canaanite woman, a gentile, expelled from the salvation of the Jewish God crawled before Jesus, a man, a rabbi whom had of late walked the earth healing and teaching.

This woman was not born into Judaism. This woman was unaware of the Law – both liturgically as well as practically. She also, at least at this point, seems to be an outsider to the new followers of Christ. Gentiles where not yet accepted, but the point is she does not hold any common or orthodox views of Christianity either. She is a heathen. A near perfect heathen.

But she had faith and her request was granted.

How can she have faith? She has not lived a life of devout ritual. She’s a heathen. She doesn’t even know the steps of salvation. Faith? Are we sure?

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pistis Christou

Apparently there are two schools of thought concerning the above mentioned Greek phraseology found throughout the Pauline epistles. (Rom 3:22, 26; Gal 2:16; 3:22; Phil 3:9) As I do not study Greek I must take upon the authority of the experts here and simply state that the traditional interpretation has been that of “faith in Christ” whereas in modern history there has been a more accurate reading of “faithfulness of Christ”

Mere semantics? I don’t know. Look closer. It may not be our faith in Christ that matters but our complete acceptance of Jesus, whom possesses a perfect faith in God and what God can do. In other words, the strength of my faith may be and is lesser in importance that the faith the Jesus possesses. Somehow we have to come into his faith, not ours.

Elementary?

Do we not sometimes get caught up in our own works; our own process? We say things like, “Well, if my faith was stronger.” or maybe the notion of, “I don’t pray, read, help, or love enough. If I could just do better.” Sometimes we may even project this thought onto each other, “He or She is just not “there” yet.” We think, maybe if there was a way to build their faith.

Possibly it is not our faith that saves, but the faith of Jesus. We simply need to align ourselves with Jesus.

Notice.

In the above story concerning Jesus and the gentile woman, we see that there is no way this woman had somehow walked through a lengthy orientation process into either Judaism or, although not yet completely formed, Christianity. She simply was at the mercy of God, at the mercy of this man named Jesus.

“Please save my daughter.”

If your daughter was in trouble, would you have a list of rituals to complete in order to activate your God? Would you rely on your own righteousness to turn the face of God? Or would you, in broken tears, melt into a puddle of humility grasping at any assistance that God may through your way.