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Pentecost 14A -- August 17, 2008 Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Today in our Gospel lesson, we have an interesting story. There are so many different ways to go with this one. There are so many important points that can be made with this story. It is hard to choose. My temptation is to give you a snippet of several, sort of a food for thought kind of thing, in the hopes that you will find time to contemplate and think deeply about one aspect or another that this story brings to mind. Sometimes it helps to put this story into its context. Matthew has crafted his Gospel in a very specific way. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is like an arrow that has been notched onto the bow. Matthew then slowly draws the bow back, taking Jesus farther and farther from the scene of the main event, Jerusalem, and then, when that arrow is released, it flies quickly to the bull’s eye, his death and resurrection in Jerusalem. At this point in the narrative, Matthew has taken Jesus all the way outside of Israel itself. Jesus is about fifteen miles north of the border, in Phoenicia. This is the farthest point of Jesus’ travels. Soon, he will go flying back to Jerusalem. But today, he is somewhere on the road between Tyre and Sidon, in a foreign country. And a woman approaches Jesus. Matthew takes great pains to tell us that this woman is a Canaanite woman. Our twenty-first century ears miss the significance of this fact. But the first century ears of Matthew’s listeners would not have missed this bit of information, and it would have raised old memories and deep feelings. These deep-seated feelings of hatred go back to Genesis, chapter 9, where Noah issues a curse upon his son Ham’s offspring, namely his grandson, Canaan. Noah is cursing Canaan because Noah’s son Ham, after surviving the flood in the ark, sees his father, Noah, lying naked in his tent, after Noah had became drunk on the new wine. The curse goes like this: “Cursed be Canaan;
lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers. Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem and let Canaan be his slave. May God make space for Japheth, and let him live in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his slave.” And, if that isn’t bad enough, when God makes a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17, God says, ”And I will give to you,
and to your offspring after you,
the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.” Subsequently, the Israelites do inhabit that land, killing many citizens of Canaan to take that land. In time, the Jews quarrel among themselves, split the land in two, and the two kingdoms fall, First the northern kingdom, and then, A hundred and twenty five years later, the southern kingdom. After eighty years in exile, the Jews of the Southern kingdom return and rebuild the temple. Whereas the Samaritan people, also hated by the Jews, live within the boundaries of Israel, the Canaanites live to the north. The Canaanites are greatly Hellenized at this point in time. They do not worship Jehovah, the Lord God Almighty, rather they are pagans, and worship the gods and goddesses of the Greeks and Romans. So, as Jesus is walking along, he is approached by a Canaanite woman. How this pagan Canaanite woman got the guts to approach Jesus can be summed up in one word, love. She was motivated by love for her daughter, who was suffering from demon possession. Our modern day term for demon possession is mental illness. This woman’s daughter suffered from one form of mental illness or another. Today, through the marvels of modern medicine, this young girl could have received help, but in the first century there was nothing that could be done. So her mother gathers all her courage and approaches Jesus, a Jew, but someone who may be her daughter’s only hope. And Jesus ignores her! Now understand that this woman was not Minnesota nice about the whole thing. She did not politely clear her throat and wait for Jesus to notice her. No, she came after him, screaming for his attention, shrieking out her request, begging him at the top of her lungs to stop and hear her. Jesus just walks on by. It doesn’t say that there was a large crowd around Jesus, It appears to be just Jesus and his disciples, When some of the disciples cannot take this woman’s screams any longer, they ask Jesus to send her away, just get rid of her. Jesus answers his disciples with the terms of his calling . . “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” This woman is not of the house of Israel, but neither are we! We are honorary Jews, our faith being an offshoot of the Jewish faith. We cannot trace our ancestry back to Abraham. If the person knelling at his feet, pleading for mercy, was one of us, A member of Church of the Cross, He would have dismissed us also. Now wait a minute. This picture of Jesus doesn’t fit with the picture we have all been taught, that Jesus was all compassionate, all caring, Instead, here we have him showing a most uncaring attitude! What gymnastics many theologians have gone through to try and soften this blow. They say things like, “Our Lord and Savior would never reject anyone, never turn from one in need. God our Father is all loving. Jesus his son came to show us the loving Father. Jesus was only teasing this woman, challenging her to be all she could be.” It is easier to say that than to face or perhaps be called to ponder, some of our basic assumptions about God. We have been taught, have long held, that Jesus, as part of the Godhead, is unchanging, unmovable, ever the same. When Moses asked God his name, God replied, “I am.” I am who I am, I was who I was, I will be who I will be.” God is our never changing center. So how do we explain what happens next? Jesus is telling the woman that he did not come to save her. Jesus must either change, or turn away any who are not Jewish. Yet the woman persists. She falls at his feet, calling him Lord, begging for him to help her. And his reply was a verbal slap in the face. He calls her a dog. In English, the proper term for a female dog is “bitch.” Try calling a woman that and see what reaction you get, or precede it with “son of a” to a man, and the reaction will be much the same. However, even with insults raining down upon her, this clever, resourceful, determined woman holds on, turning Jesus’ harsh words, not back at him, but into a new aspect he may not have thought of. She fights to change the way he sees her, and thus her daughter. This Canaanite woman agrees with him! Saying “I am a dog, but even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters table.” She is saying, “I understand that I don’t deserve anything from you Lord, but even dogs receive better treatment than that you are giving me. Can’t you spare just a few crumbs of grace?” And Jesus answers, “Great is your faith. Your request is granted.” And people everywhere stand and cheer, “You go girl!” The unmovable has just moved. The unchanging has just changed. To me, this is one of the most moving stories in the Bible. God, our God, hears, cares, and responds, even if doing so will cause an adjustment in his plans. God, through Jesus, reconciles the whole world to himself, bringing salvation to all of creation. Jesus shows mercy, grants grace, even to those who are undeserving, even those who are not of the house of Israel, even those who are outsiders. Jesus grants healing to her daughter because of this woman’s faith. Notice it was not her daughter’s faith that caused the healing, it was not the faith of the one who was suffering, but the faith of the one who loved the one who was suffering. Intercessory prayer, the same kind of prayer we practice. This is why we pray for others, this is what we are asking for, just a crumb of grace. This morning, as we feast at the table, we receive just a crumb from his table. Undeserving as we are, we rejoice, knowing that just a crumb is enough. Beggars we are, dogs we may be, but our God loves us, has compassion on us, and showers us with his grace . Thanks be to God. Amen. Rachel Flogstad-Heise,
Pastoral Assistant |
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