Yesterday's Sermon (best so far?)

My spouse is very demanding when it comes to sermons.  He has years of training in Philosophy, which gives him certain expectations when it comes to critical thinking and lines of argument/support for a thesis.  

So, when he said that the sermon I delivered yesterday impressed him, I took that seriously.  He didn't say it was my best sermon so far, but he's never praised my past sermons in the way that he did yesterday's.  The idea about the Canaanite woman causing Jesus to pivot and expand his ministry was something that stood out (and it's an idea I got from one of the writers of the Feasting on the Word commentary).

So, without further ado, here's my sermon manuscript for August 20, and it's fairly close to what I delivered:

 

The Gospel:  Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

 

 

Once again, this Sunday, we have a chunk of text that seems to be in two parts that don’t exactly go together.  In the first chunk, Jesus talks about what goes out of the mouth as being more important than what goes in—a clear swipe at purity laws (or at least, that’s what it seems at first).  Then in the second chunk, we have Jesus seeming to be needing to be mindful of his own teaching, when we watch him interact with the Canaanite woman.  In between, we have disciples reporting that the Pharisees aren’t very happy with Jesus.  We could almost visualize him retorting, “Well, I’m not very happy with them and the way they haven’t been teaching well!”

 

This issue of purity isn’t one safely settled in the past, of course.  We’ll see it again in Acts, as the disciples try to decide how to adapt their new branch of Judaism, especially as they go to cultures that aren’t predominantly Jewish.  Peter has a dream about eating unclean meat and getting the message that nothing is unclean in the way he’s been taught.  We see it through the centuries:  real Christians believe this way or that way—and we see very blood wars break out when people can’t agree.

 

It's interesting to look at each story to see who is delivering the truth:  Jesus, in his preaching about what defiles, the Pharisees, who have been studying the law for much longer than most people, the disciples who report back to Jesus, or the Canaanite woman.  In the first chunk of the Gospel, Jesus gets the last word, delivering the truth.  In the second chunk, it’s the Canaanite woman who speaks truth to the one in charge.  Both passages have people asking questions.  Both passages are concerned with what is right and proper.  Both chunks have a certain amount of messiness—that might be a comfort or we might feel anxious about it.

 

The second chunk of text is the one that has always made me feel the most anxious.  Why on earth does Jesus speak to the Canaanite woman this way?  This is not the expansive, inclusive, savior of deep love and compassion. 

 

Some Biblical scholars and preachers will try to tell us that Jesus delivered these words in a joking tone—he’s only kidding.  To which I say, “Give me a break!”  That’s what all bullies say, isn’t it?  “I was only kidding.  Lighten up.  Don’t take everything so seriously.”  Some of us might blame the Canaanite woman for not knowing her place, for causing a scene.  Ouch.  How many of us have been told that we’re too much, that we should take it down a notch, that we’re being too loud.

 

Let’s not sugarcoat this issue.  Frankly, this depiction of Jesus shows me a savior that I’m not sure I’d like to meet in person:  he’s grouchy and pretty close to abusive with that reference to dogs.  It’s one of the clearer ways to support the parts of our creed that say that Jesus came and was fully human.  He’s fully human right down to his dismissiveness.

 

 

What happens if we accept this picture of Jesus?  Here’s some background which makes it easier.  Jesus and the disciples have left their home territory of Galilee.  They are in the district of Tyre and Sidon—in other words, alien territory.  And here’s a woman shouting at them—she’s out of line, and she won’t go away when Jesus and the disciples try to ignore her.  But it becomes clear that they will have to do something—she keeps shouting.

 

Maybe Jesus is gentle at first when he explains the limits of his mission.  He’s not here for her.  And then there’s that reference to dogs—ouch.  Let’s be blunt—Jesus is talking to her in a way that’s not acceptable.

 

I admire her tenacity, her ability to talk back to Jesus, to answer his argument with one of her own.  “Even the dogs get crumbs.”  And so, once again, we get a parable where a woman with great faith gets rewarded with health (remember the bleeding woman from a few Sundays ago?).  Again, we get an encounter where Jesus learns an important lesson from a woman.  And here, it’s a woman from an outside culture—in terms of purity, he shouldn’t be speaking to her.  But she changes his mind.

 

Wait—did you get that?  Jesus changes his mind?  For those of us who want to believe that God is all knowing and all powerful, we might feel uneasy.  If God knows what’s best, why would God change?  And yet we see that happen throughout our sacred scriptures, the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Does that mean that God can’t foresee the future?  Does that mean that God might not know what’s best? 

 

Is God relying on us to point out where we see a need for change?  If you believe in the concept of free will, then that’s exactly what God does.  If God just intervened in the world, that would violate the principle of free will which God instilled in creation. But if we invite God to action, then God has grounds to act.

 

Even as I don’t like the way that Jesus speaks to the Canaanite woman, I like that he listens to her and changes course.  He doesn’t punish her for her impudence.  The way he has done so many times, he responds to her cry of “Help me!” 

 

Does this encounter change Jesus’ sense of his mission?  It certainly seems to.  A few weeks ago, in Matthew 10, Jesus sends the disciples out to the lost sheep of Israel, giving them instructions NOT to go to the gentiles, not to go to the Samaritans.  By the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the instructions are different:  “Make disciples of all nations.”

 

If you read all of the Gospels, you’ll find a different sense of mission in each of them.  In Mark, for example, Jesus seems to be figuring out what he’s been sent to do; in this Gospel, his sense of mission comes late (and you might argue if it comes at all—at least in the way that we understand his sense of mission).  In Matthew, Jesus seems much more sure of his mission.  But the Canaanite woman appears to let him know that his idea is much too small.  In some ways, she demands that he have a bigger vision.  And he does.  And we do.  Think of how successful she is in terms of changing Jesus’ mind.

 

Of course, she’s not looking to bring the word of salvation to every land—she just wants her daughter back.  She’s lucky.  Every time there’s a story of healing, I’m mindful of all of us who might feel deep sadness in the times that our faith could not cure our loved ones.  God doesn’t always come through in ways that we demand or expect or yearn for.

 

But the good news that Jesus proclaims is one of incarnation; God wants to know us so deeply that God comes to us in any number of ways.  Maybe that way will be one of healing.  But even if it’s not the healing that we expect, walking with God will restore us to wholeness.  And our wholeness can extend outward; our wholeness can enable the wholeness of others, God’s table expanded to include lost sheep and teachers who already think they know it all and irritable people and pushy outsiders who demand a place at the table and all the dogs who would happily settle for scraps and crumbs, but can have a seat at the table too.