1. JesusMeister
Arthur Bühl is a master who can pick any lock in the world; but Jesus is the only Master who can unlock the human soul.

2. Jesus wants to unlock our hearts, but we must supply the tools.
So pick any lock in the world and you are dubbed the Arthurmeister, Master of the Universe. But picking your way into locked hearts…no tools or skills can do that. There is no competition for soul-entry because there is only one entrant.
Jesus, true Master of the Universe. The “Jesusmeister,” as it were.
If you want to see how lock picking works, you can read the MIT Guide to Lock Picking. But if you want to see how soul-picking works, you read texts like Mark 7. At first glance it is a common encounter in the life of Jesus — a woman comes to Jesus to have her daughter healed, and a deaf man is brought to Jesus to have his speech and hearing restored.
But with a careful reading, there is a strange element that emerges in both healing accounts. Verse 24 tells us that “he entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there” and verse 33 says that before he healed the deaf man, “he took him aside in private, away from the crowd.”
Biblical scholars call this the “Messianic Secret” that runs through the book of Mark. Jesus seems to be avoiding the public attraction that his healings might create. Strange approach for one who would draw the world to himself!
But he is not a Messiah who seeks his own renown and celebration. Unlike the Arthurmeister and his fans, Jesus does not laud his Master status through public spectacle. He is not self-aggrandizing.
In The Name of Jesus, Henry Nouwen confesses three temptations that most honest Christian leaders face; we want to be relevant, spectacular, and powerful. Jesus’ temptations in the desert (Matthew 4) forced him to stand against all three of these enticements.
As Savior, he would establish himself not through relevant, spectacular, and powerful miracles, but through death. He would bid the crowds cling to his cross for soul healing; he suspected that they were attracted to him because they thought he might work a miracle for them, pick a lock and set them free. He was a Messiah of humility and would draw it from those who wanted to follow him.
But there is another obvious difference between the Arthurmeister and the “Jesusmeister” that connects today’s story to our lives. The tools that Arthur Bühl uses to break into locks are the pick and the tension wrench. The tools that Jesus uses to unlock people are different ones. In fact, the tools of the soul-picker actually reside in the souls that are picked!

3. First tool, honesty. There has to be the understanding that we have a manifest need for Jesus to do his work in our lives.
Jesus always attracted messy people. These are not people in denial. These are not people who think that they’re not sick, or they’re not possessed, or they’re not needy. They need help, and they need it right away. They have genuine, honest clarity about their condition and situation.
The Syrophenecian woman is as honest as they come, but she has three strikes against her — she is a woman, she is a Gentile, and she has a demon-possessed daughter. None of these things won 1st Century Jewish popularity contests. And being physically imperfect, the deaf man would have been marginalized by his socio-religious culture as well. The sick were sick for a reason — perhaps God was punishing them!
The woman has heard about Jesus (v. 25), and the deaf man and his friends must have as well — He was a healer and a need-meeter. They have evident needs, they are willing to admit it, and these needs are the very thing that makes them attracted to Jesus.
Honesty

4. Second tool, humility. She had a humble spirit
Second tool, humility. She had a humble spirit. This Gentile woman comes and bows at Jesus’ feet begging him to cast the demon out of her daughter (v ). Jesus’ response is interesting: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” He makes reference to being the Messiah for the Jews as God’s children over and above the “dogs,” as the Gentiles were scornfully called.
Perhaps he is testing her faith. Perhaps he is setting up a chance to level the playing field between the Jews and Gentiles, similar to the way he eliminated clean and unclean food items earlier in chapter 7.
Either way, the woman responds with a humble spirit, and instead of being defensive, she is contrite. She might be a cultural dog, but she will gladly accept that position if it means being fed what she seeks.
Bernard of Clairvaux says that “it is only when humility warrants it that great graces can be obtained…and so when you perceive that you are being humiliated, look on it as a the sign of a sure guarantee that grace is on the way. Just as the heart is puffed up with pride before its destruction, so it is humiliated before being honored.”
We are taught to hide our weaknesses. We’re supposed to pull ourselves up by the boot straps. We put our best foot forward.
But hidden needs can never be met. Scholar David Garland puts it this way: “Pride stiffens the knees so that they will not bow down and muzzles our voice so that we do not call out in humble supplication.”
The Gentile mother both bows down and cries out on behalf of her daughter. Her approach to Jesus is humble and broken.
Humility

5. Third tool, faith. The woman responds in faith
Third tool, faith. The woman responds in faith. The bravado of the woman’s response to Jesus proves that she knows of whom she is encountering. Jesus heals, and nothing will stop her from being faithful to that knowledge. In the same story in Matthew 15, Jesus responds to her by saying, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”
In healing the deaf man, Jesus puts his fingers into his ears as a symbol of opening them. He spits and then touches the man’s tongue as a symbol of loosening it. After healing him, the Master bids him and his friends to remain quiet.
But look at the response of the deaf man and his friends. The healed tongue won’t stop running! Ironically, their disobedience to Jesus’ request shows how much faith they have in him. They were “astounded beyond measure” and proclaimed what he had done zealously (36-37).
Today our culture values faith in ourselves. Faith in science. Faith in technological advances. Faith in our money and its security. It never promotes faith like a child.
For both the woman and the man, their need was evident. Their spirit was humbled. And their response was faith.
While the circumstance of their stories is different than ours, Jesus operates the same today as then. He still picks the soul of messy people when their needs drive them to humility and faith in him.
Our needs are varied. An outsider to Jesus needs reconciliation. A person with daunting, hidden sin needs freedom. One suffering from pain in the past needs healing. A struggling marriage needs honesty. An uncertain future needs hope.
Faith