Sermon for 2nd Sunday in Lent, 2021

Homily for Lent 2, 2021

Fr. Tony Melton

Christ the King Anglican ATL

There is nothing scarier than demon possession. This is why horror movies, which aim to scare, are filled with possession. It is the greatest human fear because to be possessed by a demon is to lose possession of one’s self. That is the height of desperation. There is no cry for help stronger than from one who loses possession of one’s own vessel, as St. Paul says in our our Epistle. Our Propers this morning couch the human predicament in terms of possession, and the solution as possession of the heart by God.

Our subject this morning is the cry of the heart to God for help. Throughout this homily, I will touch on all four of the Propers in your booklet. I encourage you to take your bulletin home and on some morning this week retrace the clear connection between them.

First, I’d like to show you simply how the Propers connect with each other. Then, we will notice the common theme of the cry of the heart for one’s own heart. Then, we will focus on the story of the Canaanite woman as a template for our own petition to God for deliverance.

First, the propers for this morning connect to show that God answers the cry of the foreigner. The Old Testament lesson is on page 7 of your booklet. It is the prayer of Solomon at the consecration of the Temple. In the second paragraph, Solomon asks God to hear the cry of the foreigner, to do what the foreigner asks of God, so that the foreigner would come to know and fear God.

The Gospel for this morning is on page 11. It is the story of the Canaanite woman, a foreigner, crying out to Jesus, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.” The foreigner cries out to Jesus, who is the New Temple, and her prayer is answered.

Psalm 86 is on page 5. It is a cry for help. Verse 1, “BOW down thine ear, O LORD, and hear me; * for I am poor, and in misery.” Verses 1-7 are all about a person crying out to God to save them. Verses 8-10 are all about how God is above all the other gods and how all nations and foreigners will know the true God and turn to Him only for help.

So again, Solomon prays that God would answer the prayer of the foreigner who prays toward the Temple. The Canaanite woman, a foreigner, prays towards Jesus and is granted her request. Psalm 86 is really a powerful prayer, a cry for help. I encourage you to read through Psalm 86 this evening or this week imagining it to be the prayer of the Canaanite woman. The overlaps are enlightening. Like in verse 16, “Give thy strength unto thy servant, and help the son of thine handmaid.”

Now that we have the connection between these three passages, namely the answered cry of the foreigner, let’s look at a theme which arises from each of these petitions. At the center of all three petitions is the possession of the heart by God. All three passages ask God to possess the heart.

Teenagers are known for their fervent desire for freedom. With their partially formed frontal lobe, they will fixate on the next stage of their independence. “Oh, when I finally get a car!” “Oh, when I finally get a phone!” “Oh, when I’m finally on my own!” The idea of freedom is that they will finally get to do what they want to do. What most men and women come to find out, and it is a rude awakening indeed, is that not only do we don’t possess our own lives, the greatest barrier to freedom is that we do not possess our own selves. Our hearts are possessed by many other things. By God’s grace, they will come to their Romans 7 moment where they realize that even though they have a car, and a phone, and an apartment, they still do what they don’t want to do, and the don’t do what they want to do. They will come to realize that true freedom comes when we possess ourselves, truly. And to truly possess ourselves means that we are possessed by God.

Let’s walk back through the three passages and see how they are really about the cry of the foreigner for possession of his own heart. Solomon prays, “…whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your people Israel, when each one knows the plague of his own heart, and spreads out his hands toward this temple: then hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give…” This is the prayer that we bring to God. “God, my heart is diseased! Help me!” Or, as we pray today in our Collect, which totally has to do with what we are talking about, “O God, who sees that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves, keep us…” Possess us.

The Canaanite mother is asking God to possess her daughter’s heart, to drive out the demon that oppresses her. To fill her daughter’s heart like the smoke filled Solomon’s Temple.

And the Psalmist, too, cries out for God to possess the heart. Psalm 86:11 is perhaps my favorite verse in all of Scripture. “Teach me thy way, O LORD, and I will walk in thy truth: * O knit my heart unto thee, that I may fear thy Name.” O knit my heart unto thee… Possess me. Possess my heart. This is the cry of the foreigner. It is the cry of humanity.

What does this have to do with us? It connects with us in at least three ways: who we are, where we are in the Church Year, and what our task is. First, we are the foreigners in Solomon’s prayer. Praise God that the Gospel has gone out to us, most of whom are Gentiles. Second, this word meets us where we are in the Church Year. It comes to us on the 2nd Sunday in Lent, 10 days into our fasts, just long enough to really see what our Collect says, “that we have no power of ourselves to keep ourselves.” 10 days to see that our heart is far more possessed of its habits and sins than we thought. And so we are given several ways to cry out to God for Him to possess our hearts. “O God, heal the plague of my heart!” “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.” “O knit my heart unto thee, that I may fear thy Name.” “Almighty God, I have no power of myself to keep myself. Keep me. Possess me.” Third, it helps us understand our task.

In the Epistle, St. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians, “that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God.” Do not be possessed by Sin like the foreigner. Possess your vessel in sanctification. This is our task. Possess ourselves. Possess our hearts. But we are like the Canaanite woman. We have no power of ourselves to help ourselves. We are like the Psalmist, we are poor and in misery. Like Solomon says, each man knowing the place of his own heart spreads out his hands toward the Temple. St. Paul says possess your vessel, and we labor for that, with all our strength. We walk in the commandments of Jesus.

Here what Paul says, “We beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication…That you do not defraud others in any matter. That you possess your vessel.” That task stands. We all have this duty upon us. And we are all powerless to help ourselves.

What we do in this powerlessness is very important, and it is where many get off track in the spiritual life. In so many branches of theology within Protestantism, the only purpose of God’s requirement is to show us that we can’t meet it so that we accept His forgiveness for our failings. That’s ridiculous. The primary purpose of God’s requirements is to show us what He must be, what we will be. His command to possess my vessel, to be perfect, is not so that I can say, “Thank God that I’m forgiven for not living up to it!” It is to drive me to prayer of the Canaanite woman. “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David. Possess my heart.” It is to drive me to the prayer of the Psalm, “O knit my heart unto thee.” It is to drive us to the question of the disciples when God told them the requirement of perfection, “Who then can be saved?” At this moment of desperation, when we realize that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, can we truly pray and cast ourselves upon the mercy of God. Our hope is not primarily that God would forgive us our sins, though He has and He will. Our prayer is that God would possess our heart. That He would knit our hearts to Himself. That He would make us perfect, holy, and happy in that holiness.

And He will if we ask. If we truly ask with all our heart. If our true desire is that God would save us, then He will. “Knock and the door will be opened.”

It was customary at many monasteries to deny those who came to join. The newbie would knock at the door and ask to be a monk and they would tell him, “No, go away.” If he stayed, or came back, they would tell him, “No, go away.” Only if he was really persistent would they allow entrance. This is often how God is with us.

Notice in the story of the Canaanite woman how she begged God for her daughter, and Jesus answered her not a word. Then, the disciples asked Jesus to shut her up. Then, he said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” She simply says, “Lord, help me.” Then, he says, “It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.” Finally, after she responds with some wit, does Jesus grant her request. She was rejected 4 times! First, by silence, then by dismissiveness, then by criteria, then by insult. Jesus called her a dog!

Listen. The Scripture is clear. If you want to be possessed by God you must cry out to Him. Not with half your heart. Not once. But all always. The desire for Him should fill our being, so that entrance into His Kingdom is our only possible future, so that no matter how often we meet with failure, no matter how often He is silent, or tell us, “No, go away”, we keep knocking. We keep praying. We keep begging.

He will answer the prayer of the foreigner. He hears the cry of the heart. He heard it in Solomon’s day when people prayed toward the Temple made with hands. But this morning we ascend into heaven itself, we press through the veil that was torn, into the Holy of Holies. We don’t pray toward the Temple, we pray in the Temple. Praise God that He has allowed us, foreigners, to be that close. Amen.