KEEP PRAYING
Sermon Text, St. Mark 7:24-30. From there [Jesus] arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden. For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. But Jesus said to her, “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” And she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.” Then He said to her, “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.” And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. Dear Lord, help us not to doubt but firmly to believe, no matterh how great our trials or how distant Your help may appear. Help us, like the Canaanite woman, to “keep asking You,” relying upon Your heart of mercy. Amen.
Dear fellow redeemed by the One who cannot be hidden from all who call upon Him in every trouble and in His name pray, praise, and give thanks:
The main thing in this story isn’t that Jesus cast out a demon and healed a little girl. The main thing isn’t that Jesus helped a Gentile, or that He helped a woman who came to Him and honored her in this way.
The main thing is found in these few words: “she kept asking Him.” This is a Bible story about prayer. But it’s very specific: persistent prayer.
There are other Bible verses about this: “In everything let your requests be known to God.” And: “Pray without ceasing.” We know we don’t pray enough. That’s one reason this is in the Bible. Not to compare us to Mrs. Perfect Pray-er, but to show us what we are in God’s sight, and that this praying isn’t a duty but it’s a “fruit,” a direct and natural result, of faith.
St. Mark tells us that “she heard about Jesus,” and we know what comes from hearing – faith comes from hearing (Rom 10:17). Mark makes it clear: her story doesn’t start with praying; it starts with hearing about Jesus, it starts with her faith in Him.
Prayer comes from faith. Mark takes note that many heard about Jesus – “He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden.” But we only hear that this non-Israelite woman came to Jesus.
This is where faith should lead: to “asking Jesus.” That’s what prayer is.
She has a big thing to pray about. Her “young daughter had an unclean spirit.” It says it’s her “little” girl – perhaps a 5-year-old. She’s possessed by a demon, which speaks through the little girl, gives her no rest, controls her. Where is this mama’s sweet little girl? That’s what she prays about.
She brings a very specific prayer: “asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.” This is something to remember about praying. Be specific. If you have a worry, turn it into a prayer. Ask for the thing you need.
She certainly did that. Not only that, Mark says: “she kept asking Him.” The reason she kept doing it is that strangely, Jesus wasn’t responding.
We hear this most fully in Matthew’s gospel. There it says that the first time she asked Jesus for help, “He answered her not a word.” The next thing He said was: “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” This is devastating to her! She isn’t an Israelite. It seems like Jesus is saying she’s outside His help. Finally, she prays: “Lord, help me!”
Mark just summarizes all this with: “she kept asking Him.” Now, to her last desperate plea, Jesus says: “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
The “children” are the children of Israel – so, not her. But when she hears “little dogs,” she perks up. Israelites called Gentiles like her “dogs” – like street dogs. But they also had little pet dogs that sat under the table and got crumbs. When Jesus mentions the “little dogs,” the ones that she knows get to be under the table inside the house, she rejoices. He’s calling her to consider herself not in the outside-His-house crowd, but inside!
She uses the “table language” that belongs to being inside: “Lord, even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.” She claims a place at His table. It’s about being in His house, staying in His house, eating from His table. She claims the promise as her own. That’s faith.
This is when Jesus now answers her specific prayer in a specific way: “The demon has gone out of your daughter.” She goes home and finds how exactly her prayer has come true: “She found the demon gone out.”
So what is Jesus teaching us about our prayer life?
First, this woman shows what we experience. God sees what you’re going through. Especially when you don’t get a quick response from God. This is often when we give up, when we have to keep asking. When things don’t change, the problems and troubles keep piling up, and we see no light at the end of the tunnel. We pray at the end of the day or the end of our wits. Sometimes prayer is a last resort – that is, God is a last resort.
We worry and fret. We wonder if we missed anything: Could I have done something that would have kept me from being in this predicament? We still mostly depend on ourselves. This silences our prayers.
But secondly, we see here that prayer is not a one-way conversation. How you “keep praying” doesn’t start or end with you. We often think the prayer starts when we say “Dear Lord” and ends when we say “Amen.” But it started for this woman when, as Mark says, “she heard about Him.”
Jesus spoke first, through His preaching the good news. He was already speaking to her before she came to Him. He’d already thought of her before she came to Him. It’s the same with you and me. He knows what pressing needs are coming into your life, before you’re even aware of them.
He doesn’t distinguish between physical and spiritual needs. The demon had taken over this little girl’s body. This situation took over every waking moment of the mother. If it’s big or if it’s little; if it’s a spiritual matter such as your faith or salvation or peace with God or forgiving others, or if it’s a daily-life thing like homework or yard work or your house or your dog, it’s something God already knows but He wants to hear you speak it to Him.
You and I have prayers that God doesn’t always answer right away or in a way that’s clear to us. But as we keep praying, He keeps interrupting us with His Word, His Gospel, His I-love-you promises. It’s listening to His I-love-you promises that will keep us asking Him.
We’re learning that “keep praying,” the “command” to pray, starts with the Gospel. See what brought the woman to Jesus: the Gospel she heard, the gift of faith brought her right to Him where she “fell at His feet.”
That’s really how it is for us. I know when we close our eyes, fold our hands and bow our heads, and we’re worried or troubled about something, it can feel like He’s way up there and we’re way down here. But the Gospel – especially in the Lord’s Supper – brings you face to face with Him. He’s right in front of you. When He’s in front of you, He doesn’t have to say: “Hi. Say something.” As you look at your Savior, you would thank Him – that’s a prayer. And you would ask Him. And if you would be ashamed that you haven’t spoken to Him in a while, or that you’ve been afraid, or doubted, He would say, “Here. Let me give you something.”
We need to see that He’s always right there in front of us. It’s in His Word and in His Supper that we see this. This is where He teaches us His “table language,” we aren’t under the table receiving crumbs but at His table – receiving life, salvation!
It’s good to bring it all to the table with you at the Lord’s Supper: bring a prayer with you, bring someone’s need who’s on your heart. At His table we are with all the company of heaven – not only saints in heaven but the ones on earth who need your prayers. When He gives you His body and blood, it’s for the forgiveness of your sins, but also He opens your mouth to praise Him and to keep asking and asking Him, for whatever’s needed.
He never gets tired of our words. He hears them all. One day we’ll see how perfectly He answers our prayers – if not in this life then in the next one – how perfectly He gives us undisturbed rest. We pray all our prayers seated at His table, where He gives us confidence that He hears. Amen!