How Great Is Your Faith!

July 9, 2008

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

On July 4th, the Florida Catholic news service website published an article about a pretty remarkable woman.

Her name is Susanna, and she lives in Tampa, FL.  She has discovered a unique way of spending her daily devotional time with God.  Every morning she sits down at her desk and hand copies a portion of the Bible.  She started months ago with Genesis 1:1 and wrote for 100 minutes straight, and then the next day she picked up where she leaves off.  100 minutes, every day.

There’s another catch.  She does this first in English, and then she goes back and writes the same passages in Korean.  You see, Susanna grew up in Korea, and spoke very little English when she arrived in the United States 20 years ago.  So, she began this little project, writing the words of the Bible in English, in a language she could not understand, doing little more than copying the symbols and lines by hand.  

Eventually, her English handwriting became smoother and less messy.  As she learned to sound out the words, she began to learn many of her first words in English because of this exercise.  And now, when her English-speaking Catholic priest does the mass, she can recognize what he is saying.

When the interviewer asked her why she began to do this, she said simply, “I do this in order to write a love letter to God, every day.”

If we were to overhear a conversation between Jesus and Susanna, he probably would say, “Woman, how great is your faith!”

That’s what Jesus said to a certain woman who came to him for help with a daughter who was being tormented by a demon.  We don’t know her name, but we do know her ethnicity.  Like Susanna, she was a foreigner.  She didn’t look the part of someone who would normally be ministered to by Jesus.  But she took a risk.  She decided that her cultural barrier would not preclude her from receiving a blessing from Someone that she believed wanted to reach out to her.  So she came to Jesus.

Jesus’ words to her might read as condescending:  “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  But maybe we can hear a different tone.  A gentler, more inquisitive tone:  “You know, don’t you, that this is not normally how this works?  The rules of the game, of cultural and society, find your request unusual?”

In that light, the woman’s response is more profound:  “Yes, I know society’s ‘rules.’  But I believe your blessings, even the leftovers of your blessings, are enough to break down those barriers.”

It’s interesting, in the gospels there are only two people who manage to impress Jesus with their faith.  There is the Roman centurion in Luke 7 (“I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”) and there is this Canaanite woman in Matthew 15 (“Woman, great is your faith!”) .  What’s special is that in both cases the individuals are outsiders, willing to take great risks in seeking the help they knew Jesus could provide.  It is that risk-taking, barrier-busting courage, to buck cultural expectations and shed social constructs, that ultimately impresses Jesus.  

So how about you?  What kind of risks are you willing to take for your faith?

• How about breaking cultural expectations of over-achievement and upward mobility and carving out a little more time in devotions with God, following the sample of Susanna in Tampa?  
• How about breaking cultural expectations of self-centeredness and egocentrism and going out of your way to minister to someone in need?
• Or, how about this:  how about breaking cultural prejudices and recognize the way that your actions, as harmless as they may have seemed to you, may have caused barriers of division between you and someone else?  Maybe that person is willing to forgive you, if you’ll just admit your faults.
  

Wouldn’t it be great one day to hear Jesus say to you, “How great is your faith?”

Grace,

Magrey  

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA  51012
Ph:  712-225-3955
http://www.cherokeespumc.org



Matthew 15:21-28
21   Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
22  Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’
23  But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’
24  He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’
25  But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’
26  He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’
27  She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’
28  Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.