Demon Cats, Baptism, and the Tenacious Love of God: A Sermon on Matthew 15:21-28

I know Louie was hoping for a squirt gun this morning, and I’m afraid I don’t have one. But what I do have is this spray bottle, which actually played a really important role in my life for a summer, when it was, quite literally, my salvation. A spray bottle just like this one kept me safe from this little monster right here. Now, don’t let his small size and general cuteness fool you, this fellow packed a punch.

I lived with this little monster the summer between my first and second years of seminary. His name was Worf and I am pretty sure he was a demon. There is really no other explanation for his crazy, maniacal behavior. Notice his flattened face, tattered ear, and lazy, goopy eye, this fellow had a violent past. The rest of the roommates he would ignore but if I entered a room he would turn his head, fixing that goopy eye on me for just a moment, before he would lurch with almost supernatural speed to attach his entire body around my leg, biting and clawing ferociously. I wore long pants through the whole, hot, muggy, DC summer, but to no avail. That cat could draw blood through jeans.

Eventually, I hit on a solution, this spray bottle. I carried it tucked in my pocket like a character from an old western. When I left the house, I placed it just inside the front door so I could reach in and grab it before opening the door all the way. Then I would preemptively squirt a stream of water at Worf, who was hissing at me from the top of the stairs, driving off his attack until I could make my way safely to my room.

By the end of the summer, Worf became at least used to me. I still carried the spray bottle but at night he began to sleep with me, stretching out his body to touch as much of me as possible, goopy eye pressed against my leg. I did not like this, but as we seemed to be getting along I certainly wasn’t going to dissuade him. Even with this uneasy truce more than once I awoke to my roommate standing over me, whispering “don’t move” as she pointed the spray bottle, which I kept on the bedside table, at the small figure crouching on the floor beside my bed ready to pounce. I was never sure what prompted these late-night attacks or his determined animosity to me in the first place, but like I said at the beginning, I’m pretty sure Worf was a demon, and demons simply don’t make sense. [pause]

OK, so I don’t really think the cat was a demon. But in our Gospel reading this morning the Canaanite woman approached Jesus because her daughter was tormented by a demon, and Worf was the best example I could come up with. I’m never really sure what to do with demons in Scripture. It’s not something we’re really comfortable talking about in modern society. But here’s what I wonder about demons, maybe we give too little credit for them if we think about them only as supernatural beings. If we’re broader in our definition, if a demon is something that holds us captive, couldn’t a lot of things be demons. Couldn’t poverty then be a demon, or violence, or our relenting need for control? Could depression be a demon, or alcoholism, or fear? Not in the sense that these things are some otherworldly beings, but in the sense that these things keep us from living up to our best potential, keep us from having the kind of fulfillment that God wants for us. And like Worf’s continual assault on me, these patterns of control are manipulative and tenacious and they do not go away. Even when we think we have them beat; they have this way of sneaking back into our lives, of wresting control again, of telling us lies like we are worthless, unloved, powerless.

And the Canaanite woman just wasn’t going to stand for anyone calling her daughter unworthy. So even though she was a woman and a Canaanite and had no business addressing a Jewish leader and teacher such as Jesus, she marched right up to him and demanded that he heal her daughter. The disciples weren’t really sure what to do with this angry, shouting woman. Even Jesus seemed unwilling to engage in her struggle. But here’s the thing, even when Jesus turned her down, she would not let go. She knew that there was enough for her daughter, that Jesus had enough grace, enough power, enough healing for her daughter. Despite the controls that society had placed around her which said that she didn’t matter, she knew the inherent value of her own soul, and she would not let Jesus walk away from his obligation to see her as truly human. So determinedly persistent was this woman that she stood toe to toe with the divine until he gave her what she wanted, freedom and healing for her daughter.

I don’t understand Jesus’ initial reluctance to help the woman, but quite frankly I don’t think it really matters to the story. After all, it isn’t like the forces that our lives always have some sort of logical cause and effect. Depression isn’t concerned with your abilities; poverty is not a measure of work ethic. Sometimes stuff happens, and it’s bad, and there just isn’t a reason for it. But here’s what I think does matter to the story, that the mother is tenacious, even more tenacious than the demons that control her daughter, even more tenacious than the disciples, or even than Jesus, and that tenacity gives her the strength to demand that her daughter too is worthy of healing. And that tenacity reminds me of God.

This morning we celebrate Lou’s baptism in Christ and we remember our own. When we celebrate this sacrament we make the radical claim that God meets us here. That we are joined to God as sons and daughters, heirs to the promise of life. You know what that means? That means that the ferocity with which the Canaanite woman sought healing for her daughter is the same ferocity with which the creator of the universe clings to us. That means that in baptism, in these waters, God says to us you are inherently of value, you are of ultimate worth, and I am willing to fight for you. God promises in these waters that the tenacity of the things that plague us, call them demons, call them addiction, call them depression, call them the economy, call them whatever you want, they have nothing on the love and the power and the strength of God. In baptism, God says to us, you are my child, you are of insurmountable worth, and there is nothing in heaven or on earth that you can do or that can be done to you that will separate you from God.

Baptism is not a magic potion. It does not mean that adversity will never strike, that we will never have to face any challenges. But what it does mean is that when we feel like we are held captive, when we feel out of control, we can cling to the promises made here. That we matter to God, that we are bound to God, and that no matter what we face, there is enough power, enough grace, enough healing for us. We can approach the creator of the universe with the same confidence as the Canaanite woman, because it is the ferocity with which the creator of the universe clings to us. When the forces of the world seek to call us less than we are. When the powers tell us that we do not matter, that our voices do not count, that we are small and insignificant, we can come back to the font, we can dip our hands into this water and know that we are children of the most high God, sons and daughters of the promise.

So remember that. Next time you reach for a water bottle to squirt the cat, when you’re washing your face in the morning, when you’re standing on the shores of Gougac Lake. Remember as you pour water from a Britta and when you walk by this font. Remember that you are loved. Remember that the God of the universe has named you God’s child. Remember that nothing can ever take that name from you. Pause, make the sign of the cross on your forehead, and remember that you are loved. Amen.