The sermon is based upon the gospel reading for today - Matthew 15:21-28, in which Jesus basically calls a Canaanite woman a “dog.”
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Today’s gospel lesson has certainly caused many people problems,
because a casual reading of this text makes it appear that Jesus is being rude, even cruel in his response to a Canaanite woman’s pleas for help.
Jesus is in a foreign country,
and when Mark tells the story he says that Jesus went there in order to escape the growing attention that surrounded him and his ministry.
In other words, Jesus is here on a brief vacation or retreat of sorts,
looking to get some rest and enjoy being anonymous for a while.
But as soon as he and his disciples check into their seaside cottage shore,
their peace and tranquility are shattered by a woman who comes up to them and literally starts shouting for help.
Her daughter desperately needs help and so she turns to Jesus.
It sounds like just the kind of situation that Jesus is perfect for.
But then the text tells us that Jesus ignores the woman’s pleas.
Matthew says: “He did not answer her at all.”
And then the disciples speak up and say:
“Send her away, Lord, for she keeps shouting after us.”
Or to put it another way:
“Jesus, we came here for some peace and quiet,
and this woman is ruining it for us.
She has got to go, Jesus,
just listen to her, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Please, just send her on her way before she drives us all crazy.”
And so Jesus tells the woman that he can do nothing for her.
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he says.
But this woman doesn’t give up easily.
She comes over to Jesus, falls at his feet and cries “Lord, help me.”
To which Jesus replies in what seems to be an devastatingly cruel insult,
“It is not fair to take children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
Or to put it even more plainly,
“It is not fair to take what I have come to give to the children of Israel and give it to you,
you, who are no more than a dog.”
Now surely Jesus wouldn’t say something like that.
I mean here he is, the Messiah, the Son of God,
and he is insulting a woman who has come to him for help?
And she’s not even asking for something for herself.
She wants her daughter to be healed.
Yes, she’s not a Jew, but she is a human being,
and by this time in Matthew’s gospel,
Jesus has already helped at least two other foreigners before her,
but today he is calling this woman a dog.
Here is where a little more biblical scholarship comes in handy.
Now Matthew is using a story that Mark first told in his gospel,
but he’s changing it slightly.
In Mark this woman is a Syrophoenician.
Matthew changes it to “Canaanite.”
Do you wonder why?
Bible scholar Grant LeMarquand has an idea.
“Syrophoenician” is a long word,
but basically it just tells us where the woman is from.
“Canaanite,” however, is different.
The word “Canaanite” has a history that goes back hundreds of years to the time when God told the Israelites to take possession of the land of Canaan.
In Deuteronomy 7 you can read:
When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy,
and God clears away many nations before you …
and when the LORD your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them.
Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy!
Matthew is deliberately using language that recalls old controversies, old angers, and old enemies.
If this woman is a Canaanite, then she is an enemy of Israel.
Further, she is also an enemy of God,
and according to the OT, she should be shown no mercy.
And yet here she is, asking Jesus for exactly that . . . mercy.
As my colleague in ministry, Don Hoffman, says,
“What Matthew does here with his version of the story is to make this conversation even more unlikely and even more shocking.
Matthew basically turns this whole story into a parable.
He subverts peoples’ ideas of correct behavior,
and he calls into question his earliest readers’ long-held prejudices.
You see, when Jewish Christians of Matthew’s day read this story,
they probably were not at all shocked by Jesus’ initial words and behavior.
That’s how you should talk to foreigners.
Especially a foreign enemy like a Canaanite.
That’s even how you should talk to women.
In fact, they would be most surprised by Jesus talking to her at all.
People like her, many thought, should be ignored at best.
She’s just lucky her particular ancestors weren’t slaughtered back in the day.”
That would have been the prevailing attitude of many, if not most.
Of course, knowing this doesn’t make the story any easier for us though.
I mean, if there is a more difficult passage for us to ponder in the gospels,
I don’t know what it is.
As I said earlier, this passage has caused problems for even the greatest and most intelligent of biblical scholars.
Many of whom seem willing to view Jesus’ words as a sort of test.
They claim that Jesus is putting roadblocks before the woman to see what she is made of,
to see if she really has faith.
Now I am certainly not a great biblical scholar,
but I think this way of interpreting the passage misses out on the meaning.
I think part of the meaning is obscure because we see only the printed words in scripture.
For instance, someone can take down a conversation word for word,
but still not convey what was actually said.
Because sometimes it’s not what one says, but how one says it.
I can say something to you with a smile on my face and a wink of my eye,
that would hurt you or insult you or cause you to become angry at me if I said it with a straight face.
But because of the way I say it,
we both know that it is not to be taken seriously.
(Example here - Alice Seidts, a member of my church, the most cynical and negative and stubborn woman I know)
It’s often how we say things that helps people interpret what we say.
That’s why Shakespeare’s play are often not very good reading material.
In fact there can be quite boring as words written on a page,
but put them in the mouths of skilled actors who know how to bring them to life, well, then they become works of art.
It’s how something is said that makes all the difference in the world,
and I think this is the case here.
You see, Jesus has used the phrases in today’s reading earlier in his ministry.
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus warns the people to “not give what is holy to dogs,
and he tells them not to throw pearls before swine.”
And early on in the gospel Jesus made it clear that his first priority was to minister to the children of Israel.
In fact, when he sends the disciples on their first assignment in chapter nine,
Jesus tells them to go only among the Jews.
“Go nowhere among the gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans,” he said, “but go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.”
Sound familiar?
Now of course, as I mentioned earlier,
Jesus himself had healed foreigners before this - one was a Roman Centurion’s son and the others were two men from Gadarene.
But at the beginning of the disciples’ ministry,
Jesus set limits for them.
In effect, he says: “You worry about the Jewish people for now,
don’t try to do too much until you have been with me for a while longer and learned more from me.”
And though we don’t know how long it was between Jesus sending out the twelve disciples and the event we read of today,
we can safely assume that it was a while,
and that the disciples have seen much and heard even more since then.
They have heard Jesus say all human life is valuable to God.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” he once asked,
“yet not one of them falls without God seeing it,
and you are of much more value than sparrows.”
They have heard Jesus talk about not being judgmental.
“Let the weeds and wheat grow up together,” he said,
“don’t try to separate them yourselves,
let God take care of that in God’s own time.”
And they have seen miracle after miracle.
Jesus has healed a crippled man’s hand,
he has caused the blind to see, and the mute to speak,
he has brought sanity back to those tormented,
he has fed over 5000 people with just a little bread and fish,
and he has walked on water to the disciples’ boat.
Given all this, I believe that in today’s passage Jesus is wondering what the disciples have learned.
Are they ready for more responsibility?
Have they listened to his teaching?
Have they seen how he has cared for others?
And will they do the same for others,
regardless of who they are or what they might look like?
So I believe that when the woman approaches them screaming for help,
Jesus remains silent, not because her cries fall on deaf ears,
but because he is waiting to hear the response of those with whom he has taught and lived.
This is a test, but not of the woman’s faith.
It is a test for his disciples.
A test that they fail.
“Lord, get this woman out of our hair.
We can’t believe that she had the nerve to come here looking for help.
Why she has her own people, her own faith.
Let her go elsewhere for help, Lord. Send her away.”
Now at this I think Jesus’ heart fell,
and perhaps he sat down and put his head in his hands.
And I think he repeated the words he had once said,
not out of spite but in order to drive home a point.
“Woman, Jesus said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.
How can I help you?”
But rather than leave the woman came to him,
fell on her knees, took his hand in hers. and cried again,
“Lord, help me.”
And once more Jesus repeated words he had uttered before,
not as an insult, not to hurt,
but to show the disciples a new way of responding to people who are different, who are not like me or you.
“You know,” Jesus said, looking at the woman with love,
that it is not fair to give the children’s food to the dogs.”
And I do believe he said those words with love,
with more than a touch of sadness in voice.
And that’s very important, because after seeing the love in Jesus eyes,
the woman could reply,
“Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
And then Jesus stood up,
he stood up and took her hand and lifted her to her feet,
and after making a pointed look in the disciples’ direction,
he turned back to her and said,
“Woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”
Now notice that Jesus didn’t say,
For a Canaanite you have a pretty good faith,
nor did he say, well you might be a foreigner and all,
but I’ll do this one thing for you anyway.
No, Jesus looked at her and said something that he hadn’t even said to his own disciples,
those who should have known and believed,
those who should have had the faith.
Jesus said to this woman, this foreigner, “Great is your faith!”
Now if you read through Matthew’s gospel in one sitting,
it is interesting to notice that Jesus has commended someone on their faith only once before,
and as you can probably guess,
it was another foreigner, the Roman centurion.
This centurion came to Jesus for help, saying to him,
“Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed and in great distress.”
Jesus offered to come to his home to heal the servant.
But the centurion wouldn’t have this, and he replied,
“Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof,
but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”
And when Jesus heard this he exclaimed,
“Truly I tell you, I have not found such faith in all of Israel.”
and then he continued,
“I tell you,many will come from the east and the west and will eat with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven.”
In other words,
the kingdom of heaven is not an exclusive club for a select few.
Rather it is open to all those who have faith,
to all who believe.
My friends, if we are honest, we would admit that it is very often the disciples of Jesus who have the hardest time believing.
It very often those closest to Jesus,
including the church today, who lack faith.
Jesus had to chide his disciples constantly on their lack of faith.
When the disciples crossed the sea of Galilee one night,
a storm suddenly blew up,
and in fear of their death the disciples awoke Jesus,
In an instant, and with just a word,
Jesus calmed the wind and waves, and then he asked them,
“Why are you afraid, you of little faith?”
When five thousand men, not including women or children,
needed to be fed after a long day of listening to Jesus teach,
Jesus sent the disciples out into the crowd to see what food there was to share, and they came back with the reply,
“We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish,
how in the world can they do any good?”
But Jesus said, “Bring them to me.”
And he took them in his hands,
raised them to heaven and prayed a short blessing.
And with that Jesus fed the entire multitude.
And once when the disciples had gone ahead of Jesus in a boat,
Jesus came out to them, walking on the water.
Peter thought this was great and jumped out and starting walking himself until he became afraid,
and Jesus had to fish him out of the waves.
Afterward he asked Peter,
“You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
It is amazing that time after time those closest to Jesus show the least faith,
And in Matthew it is only the faith of the foreigners that is commended.
Their faith alone is commended because it is the kind of faith that trusts in Jesus and in him alone,
because there is no one else to whom they can turn.
Theirs is a faith that relies not upon status or proximity to Jesus,
rather it relies upon his love and grace and desire to reach out to those in need regardless of their status or prestige.
It’is the kind of faith that realizes that one’s response to need should not,
can not be based upon such meaningless differences as nationality, or race, or social status,or any other arbitrary human difference.
After all, Hurt and Pain and suffering are universal conditions,
afflicting all people,
and every person needs Jesus Christ,
every man and woman needs to see the eyes of Jesus looking down upon them with love and acceptance and mercy.
That is the kind of faith Jesus wanted his disciples to have.
That is the kind of faith God wanted Jonah to have.
And that is the kind of faith that God and Christ want us to have, as well.
It was the writer of Hebrews who said that we should show hospitality to strangers,
because we never know if we are entertaining angels unaware.
Now I don’t know how many angels you meet on a given day,
but I do know that you and I meet a great many people,
and if our commitment to Jesus Christ is to have any meaning,
then we must accept each person as the child of God he or she is,
and we must treat them as the brothers and sisters of Christ that they are.
Otherwise, all or proclamations to the contrary are worthless.
If we do not show the love of Christ to others,
if we do not show the acceptance of Christ,
and if we do not offer the hand of fellowship and grace to all we meet,
our church we will surely die a slow and painful death due to the lack of love,
and it will be, my friends, a well-deserved death..
One writer has said it well.
God is waiting,
waiting for us to come out of our comfortable homes,
to come out of our comfortable churches,
and to come around to Jesus’ way of loving.
If this church is ever to be a light on a hill,
we must shine our light to everyone we meet,
and not just to those we think might fit in here.
If this church is ever to be faithful to Jesus Christ,
we must look upon the world with his eyes,
and see that there is no longer Jew or Gentile,
slave or free, male or female;
but that all people can be children of God through faith.
The circle of God’s love is wide enough to encompass all humanity. . .
In fact, the gospel for today reminds of a short poem Edwin Markham once wrote:
He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
May we do the same.
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