Joshua Ferris Sermon th Sunday after Pentecost Isaiah 56:1, 6-8 Psalm 67 Romans 11:1-2a, Matthew 15:[10-20] 21-28

Transcription

1 1 Joshua Ferris Sermon th Sunday after Pentecost Isaiah 56:1, 6-8 Psalm 67 Romans 11:1-2a, Matthew 15:[10-20] To be honest, I ve been struggling with this Gospel passage all week, trying to make sense of what is going on. Trying to understand why Jesus said what he said. And I tell you this because it s okay to admit when we re having a hard time with something even the Bible. I know that many people grew up in homes and churches where it wasn t okay to ask questions or express doubts. But God can handle our questions and struggles and doubts, and this church is a safe place to share them. No one has it all figured out, vicars especially. The question I ve been trying to answer in relation to the Gospel lesson this morning is this: is Jesus serious, or is he trying to prove a point with the Canaanite woman? I don t know, I really don t. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it might not matter quite so much, especially in light of the events we ve seen in the news over the past week. Our reading this morning begins in verse 10, but we have to go back a few verses earlier to really understand what is going on. You see, just before this morning s reading Jesus was confronted by the religious leaders about the fact that his disciples didn t follow all of the religious traditions of the day. This is a common occurrence in the Gospel of Matthew. This time they pointed out that Jesus disciples didn t undergo the ritual hand washing before eating, which was part of their religious tradition. Jesus debated with the Pharisees, offering examples of how they themselves disobey the law and stating that God s law isn t just about following a bunch of rules, it s a matter of the heart.

2 2 This is where our reading picks up this morning. Jesus goes on to explain where the religious leaders got it wrong when it comes to drawing the line between clean and unclean. External things like what type of food someone eats, or whether they wash their hands before eating according to Jesus, these are not things that make a person unclean. And this is where things get interesting. After he finished teaching and traveled on, Jesus is approached by a Canaanite woman who begs him to heal her daughter. It s not surprising, as Jesus has been healing people left and right for a while. But Jesus responds in a way that surprises us: he ignores her. When his disciples finally say something, Jesus tells them that he was only sent to help the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (v. 24) This Canaanite woman is most certainly not part of the people of Israel. She is a Gentile, meaning someone who is not Jewish, and worse, she s a Canaanite, one of Israel s ancient, pagan enemies. She is the epitome of unclean, looked down upon and avoided by observant Jews. When the woman continues to beg, Jesus refuses her again and calls her a dog. And when she still won t be quiet, expressing humility and heart-breaking need, Jesus finally gives in and heals her daughter. This doesn t sound much like the Jesus we know. And so I ask: was Jesus serious, or was he trying to prove a point? It s possible he was serious. For centuries the church has taught that Jesus was both fully God and fully human. Maybe here we see part of what it meant for Jesus to be fully human. After all, he grew up as a first-century Jew, and was taught the values and beliefs of that culture. He would have grown up hearing that the Canaanites were Israel s enemy, that they were evil and unclean, without value. As he grew up he surely heard that only the Israelites were God s chosen people, and that everyone else was different and an outsider.

3 3 Perhaps the Canaanite woman helped Jesus to grow in his understanding of his own purpose and role in the world. As humans, we regularly encounter people who force us to grow and reconsider how we see and understand the world. By showing that she was a human being with value and real need, the Canaanite woman challenged and pushed Jesus to get beyond the cultural divisions he knew so well. By the end of the Gospel of Matthew Jesus was calling his disciples out into every nation and to every people of the world (Matthew 28:18-20), and perhaps it was at least partially because this Canaanite woman helped Jesus to realize that God s love and grace is for everyone and not just one particular people. How does that sit with your understanding of Jesus? The idea of Jesus learning and growing and being influenced in this way by the culture that surrounded him makes many of us uncomfortable. This doesn t sound like the Jesus we know. So maybe instead Jesus was trying to prove a point. Maybe something else is going on. It seems weird that Jesus would make such a stink over healing a Gentile when he had already that very thing just a few chapters earlier in Matthew s Gospel. (8:5-13) When a Gentile man who was a soldier asked Jesus to heal his servant, Jesus responded rights away, offering to go to the man s house and take care of the problem immediately. He praises the Gentile man s faith and said that many Gentiles from far across the world would be a part of God s kingdom. (8:11) So if healing a Gentile wasn t a big deal just a few chapters ago, why is Jesus calling this Canaanite woman a dog and dragging his feet? Maybe he responded this way to show how silly the religious leaders really were. Maybe he s parroting back their same words about clean and unclean, about who is in and who is out, about God s promises only being for Israelites, all in order to expose how ridiculous that

4 4 thinking was. Maybe he was trying to elicit a response of faith from the Canaanite woman, so that he could show that there were people of faith outside of Israel, and that the Gentiles were God s people too. Maybe I don t know. The list of maybes goes on. If Jesus is serious here, then I m uncomfortable. If Jesus is trying to prove a point, I wish he had made it a bit more obvious. Because I just don t know. But maybe that s not the important part of this story. When the author of Matthew wrote these words down he wasn t concerned about questions of Jesus being fully human and fully God or whether or not Jesus learned throughout his life. He was concerned about telling the story of Jesus, the story of God s salvation coming into the world. And so we can ask: what did he think was going on in this interaction between Jesus and the Canaanite woman? It s not a coincidence that the author of Matthew put this story immediately after Jesus debated the religious leaders about who is clean and unclean. It s not a coincidence that Jesus argued about the idea of who is in and who is out and then immediately ran into a Canaanite woman, the epitome of those considered to be outsiders. And this tells us what actually matters in this passage. It s not about whether Jesus was serious or trying to prove a point. It s not about whether Jesus grew or learned or was taught by the Canaanite woman. It s not even about Jesus being fully God and fully man. It s about the fact that in Jesus, all those things that divide and separate and dehumanize people are torn down and abolished. This is a truth that our world desperately needs to hear. Today there are still so many things that divide and separate and devalue people. National identity still encourages us to sometimes draw lines between modern-day Israelites and Canaanites, allowing us to create

5 5 categories of us and them. And when we create these categories, it is too easy to see outsiders as less important and less valuable, until even children fleeing from terror and death in their own countries are met by some people at our border who believe and shout not our children, not our problem. We are divided by economics that determine who has access to basic human rights and dignity, creating categories of haves and have nots. And when we create these categories it is too easy to see the least in our society as less important and less valuable, rather than as people with dignity to be cared for and loved. This week in the news we have seen division in our own country. Last Saturday, 18 year old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Eyewitnesses say that he was unarmed and surrendering. In the last week, we ve watched as Ferguson has been torn apart. We ve heard the pleading and angry cries of our black brothers and sisters who do not feel safe and who rightly point out that this story is being repeated far too often. Protests have spiraled out of control, and we ve seen disturbing videos of citizens being met with tear gas, automatic weapons, and armored vehicles. And amidst all the commentators and opinions it s been easy to lose sight of what really matters that a young man was shot and killed. A life is gone, forever. And this is a tragedy, because all people are valuable and loved by God. Canaanite, black, every life matters. Our presiding bishop, Elizabeth Eaton, put it this way this week: We are at greatest risk when we divide into us and them. Then, we are unable to see each other s humanity. In Christ there is no them, not Michael Brown, not the community, not the police. All are one. All are us and in Christ there is no other, only brothers and sisters.

6 6 Jesus is opposed to anything that creates categories of us and them. He transcends and tears down anything that seeks to divide or separate or dehumanize people. We are tempted to consider some people less, but Jesus tells us that no matter someone s nationality, ethnicity, gender, net worth, orientation, color, job, religion, height, weight, or any other factor, each person, every person, is a human being, with value and worth, loved by God. Everyone matters. And Jesus showed us that, when he died on the cross, for you, for me, for each person in this world, showing us that there is no us and them, there is only us God s children. My God Sighting this week occurred on Thursday night in Ferguson, Missouri. That night Capt. Ronald Johnson from the Missouri State Police was put in charge of the situation. He sent home the SWAT teams and armored vehicles. He put down the automatic weapons and took off the gas masks. And on Thursday night Capt. Johnson walked with the protestors in Ferguson. He walked with the people as they expressed their outrage and their anger, their pain and their hurt, their confusion and their faith. He walked with the people and acknowledged them as human beings with dignity and worth. He walked with them, dissolving the categories of us and them. And for one night, there was peace. That is the love of God that transcends all divisions, that is the interaction between Jesus and the Canaanite woman, and that is the church s call in this world. To do the work of Jesus, to tear down all those things that divide and separate and dehumanize people, to affirm the value and dignity of every last person, until there is no longer us and them, there is only us. Amen.