Help us to be bold in our faith and to trust the
wideness of your grace, O Lord. Amen.
There’s no way around it, that passage from Matthew is a tough text. As much as I would prefer to preach on a different passage, I know that avoiding tough passages is a dereliction of duty for a preacher. We also know from the story of Jacob in Genesis that blessings often come through wrestling with God, and so I pray that this challenging interaction between Jesus and a Canaanite woman gives us all a blessing.
It
would have never occurred to me that I might need to explain why this is a
tough passage until I read an article in The Atlantic this week called “How
America Got Mean.” You can hear it from restaurant staff, flight attendants,
hospital nurses, or school teachers; we have an epidemic of meanness on our hands.
And if you like data more than stories, we know that gun sales are on the rise,
as are hate crimes, while charitable giving is down. It’s a thought-provoking
article in which the author suggests that two most significant causes of our
meanness are a lack of moral formation coupled loss of communal virtues in
favor of the disastrous “you do you” mentality that is run amok in our society.
But I’m not here to comment on Atlantic articles. The point is, we’ve
become so accustomed to meanness that some might not see the difficulty in this
text when Jesus refers to a foreigner as a “dog.”
And
people have had all sorts of ways of wiggling around this. Some try to say that
it’s not as bad as it sounds; but calling someone a “dog” meant the same thing
then as it does today. Others come at it from the other angle and claim that this
is an example of Jesus’ humanity and that he learns from being corrected by the
Canaanite woman. But any explanation that requires Jesus to be less than God is
insufficient, at best, and heretical, at worst, reading. Neither of those solutions
are satisfying and both are attempts to dismiss the text instead of wrestling
with it.
To
better understand this interaction, we have to remember that Israelites and Canaanites
had some bad blood and a lot of history between them. Canaanites were seen as
pagans who were outside of the promises of God and had historically been
enemies of Israel. A lot of people, upon hearing Jesus call her a “dog,” would
have thought “Got that right.”
This
Canaanite woman is a profound hero of faith. When it comes to the Bible, there
can be more than one hero in the story. Certainly, Jesus heals this woman’s daughter
and is a hero. And the Canaanite woman, who knows that there is no limit to God’s
mercy, is also a hero. Even though St. Paul has not yet written his letter to
Rome at this point, she knows the truth of it. We heard St. Paul ask, “Has God
rejected his people? By no means!” Even though most assumed that “God’s people”
meant only the people of Israel, the Holy Spirit guided her to know that God’s “yes”
is bigger than our “no.” One theologian has put it this way, that the worst sin
that any of us can ever commit is to say “no” when God has said “yes.” And the
reverse would also be true, we get into a lot of trouble when we say “yes” to
that which God has said “no.”
And
if we look around our lives and society through that lens, we sure do have a lot
of things that we can call to mind when we say the Confession later in this
liturgy. God has said “no” to things like predatory lending, violence, adultery,
and lying. Yet those are all generally accepted as normal. Furthermore, God has
said “yes” to welcoming the refuge, to treating all people with dignity, to
forgiving those who have wronged us, to living generously, to sabbath rest, and
yet such things are hardly commonplace, even among those who claim to be followers
of Jesus.
The
fact of the matter is that God did not create only the nation of Israel, rather
God created the whole world, meaning that God’s blessing and provision is for
the whole world. In creating, God spoke a loud and resounding “yes” to all that
is, and the Canaanite woman trusted that. She demonstrates that in God there
are no outsiders. And that’s a reminder for us all. Has God rejected us? By no
means! Regardless of what you did but should not have done and what you did not
do but probably should have, you are still loved by the Father. When Jesus was
on the cross, he did not say “Father forgive them, except for that one.” When
the Holy Spirit was poured out, that gift did not skip over anyone. Whatever
your past, whatever your doubts, whatever your mistakes, whatever your
imperfections, whatever you wish was different about your looks, or your personality,
or your situation, you are the beloved child of God to whom God has said “yes.”
The
Canaanite woman was saved by this “yes” which reverberates through space and
time. And, clearly, it’s all grace. She had done nothing to deserve this
healing, it was given to her. And while I can’t prove that my theory is correct
because I don’t know what was going on in her mind or in Jesus’, I do think this
is exactly where the text is pointing.
When
she first comes to Jesus, she shouts “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.” That
sounds rather official, especially the “Son of David” bit. Again, this woman
was not an Israelite, but that title, “Son of David,” is obviously a Jewish
title. It’s almost formulaic – “I don’t really even know what ‘Son of David’
means, but it seems to be the right thing to say.” At this point in the
narrative, I absolutely believe that Jesus had every desire and intention to
heal her daughter, but Jesus wanted to do more than heal her daughter, he
wanted to heal her of any exclusion she felt, and he wanted to heal the
disciples of any xenophobia or self-righteousness they were carrying.
As
we pray each week as we begin worship, “to God all hearts are open, all desires
known, and from God no secrets are hid.” The Father knows us better than we know
ourselves. And Jesus, as the shepherd of our souls, knows us intimately. He
knows when to push and when to pull; when to comfort and when to challenge. If Jesus
had initially said “Let it be done for you as you wish,” she would not have had
the opportunity to grow in faith, nor would we on account of her bold example.
But Jesus, as the master gardener of our faith, knows how to prune and
fertilize our faith.
To
be very clear about this, I am not suggesting that Jesus causes any of us harm
or is against us, but sometimes we don’t realize how strong our faith muscles
are until we use them. The Canaanite woman was using a title for Jesus that, presumably,
would have excluded her. She was not a part of the promises made to David, but
she is a part of the “yes” that God has spoken to all of creation. And so Jesus
pushes her as a parent or a coach would lovingly push a child who is on the
cusp of a breakthrough. Does it sound harsh when he calls her a “dog”? Yes, it
does. And Jesus knew what she would need to grow in faith and set that
opportunity before her. I wonder what such opportunities are being set before
you?
Again,
she is such a great example of boldness before God. God does not need to be
treated with kid gloves. We can yell at God, we can scream, we can argue. Jesus
put her in a situation for her to say “But I deserve something, too,” to which
Jesus then says “You’re absolutely right, and I’m glad you now see that.” It’s
not that Jesus changed his mind about this woman, rather that he helped her to
change her mind about herself and the disciples to change their minds about who
is embraced by the mercy of God. The text points us towards this reading. Her
first request was the formulaic “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.” And it’s
worth noting that the word translated here as “Lord,” doesn’t necessarily mean “Lord”
in the religious sense that we assume, it’s also just the regular word for “sir.”
But after being pushed to go deeper, she pleads differently “Lord, help me.”
No religious-speak that
didn’t mean much to her. No titles that she didn’t think included her. Just a
simple expression of her need and the trust that Jesus could and would do something
about it. Instead of trusting in external things like her ethnic background, or
class, or accomplishments, or wealth, or reputation, or flattery, or getting
her prayer request quote-unquote “right,” she simply pleads with Jesus: “Help me.”
If you’re not sure how to pray, start there “Help me.” I’m not saying that
titles for God are bad or that the wonderful prayers of our tradition are not
good, but we use such words wrongly if we think they are for God instead of ourselves.
God does not need us to say “Our Father,” rather God wants us to know that we
are loved as children. Your prayer is no more effective if you conclude it by
saying “through the same Jesus Christ our Lord who with you and the Holy Spirit
lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever,” but saying it is intended to more
deeply remind us of where our hope comes from.
It should also be noted
that Jesus takes a request for healing and turns to table-talk. In teaching
about healing, grace, and inclusion, Jesus uses the metaphor of a table. This
is because Jesus, the Bread of Life, intends to feed us all. And, lest we
forget, all of us are dogs. Perhaps a few of you might be Jewish, but the vast majority
of us are ethnically Liberian, Zimbabwean, German, Irish, Scotch, English, or Italian.
And from the perspective of this encounter, that makes all of us dogs. When
Jesus calls this woman a dog, it is our hubris that makes us think “how rude”
instead of thinking “Thank God that dogs like me get some scraps.” We have grown
so accustomed to seeing ourselves as the main characters that we forget that it
is only by grace that we are brought into the promises of God.
And by grace we are.
Jesus gave his life to make the point that God has said “yes” to us, therefore
we can be bold in our faith, our belovedness, our belonging. By loving us to
the end, Jesus makes it clear that we are not dogs, we are children. It is not
by our striving or deserving, but by God’s gracious love that we are adopted as
children of the Father. And, as children of God, we are not given scraps,
rather we are given a veritable feast – we are given the very Body and Blood of
Christ. It then becomes our duty and delight to share this good news with all people
– that they, too, are a part of God’s beloved community and there is a seat at
the table for them.
One of the greatest
prayers of our tradition is drawn from this encounter – “We do not presume to
come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but
in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up
the crumbs under thy Table. But thou are the same Lord whose property is always
to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy
dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in
him, and he in us.” The love of Jesus takes us from being dogs who had to
scrounge for scraps to being children who are given his very Body. Thanks be to
God!
