In the Pause

Sermon preached at Community of Christ Lutheran Church on August 20, 2023, based on Matthew 15: 21-28.

This is a story only a mother can love. 

At its center is a mother, a Canaanite (so, not a Jew, as Jesus is) but she shows a kind of desperation that translates across ethnic lines, economic lines, any lines. No matter how you live, how you got there, or what keeps you there, if your child is sick and no one can help, you fall into the group that is desperate, clawing your way to any possible solution. So she shouts at Jesus: “Have mercy on me! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” Nothing else matters but finding help. 

Yet Jesus acts like the boundaries still hold. Like the lines between Jews and Gentiles actually matter. Oh no, sir. We passed that a long time ago. If you were a mother, maybe you’d understand. Besides, he’s the foreigner in her region. He is the interloper. What right has he to tell her she doesn’t count? To us, perhaps Jesus’ response sounds heartless, but to Matthew’s original audience, he probably would have sounded like a rabbi, upholding the sacred tradition. The Canaanites were Israel’s most ancient foe, from whom they were told in Scripture to separate themselves. When the 12 tribes of Israel moved out of Egypt and into the land already occupied by others, the land of Canaan, these were the people whose land they fought over… believing it was promised to them by God. (It’s also where Abraham once was, at the Jewish people’s origin.) So, it’s complicated. But when Jesus tells this Canaanite woman that his people are set apart from hers, he is acting as a rabbi, holding onto holiness, boundaries made for their good, by God, but also perhaps upholding their “superiority” over those whose land the Israelites had colonized. Look out. Jesus the rabbi, steeped in the tradition, holds on until even he, the Son of God, must answer the questions: “Who is God’s mercy for? And what is our sacred tradition, anyway?”

First, Jesus gives the woman the silent treatment. He responds, not to her, but to his disciples, but apparently she’s right there, because she hears. Then he does something no one should be proud of—this ain’t in the tradition—he compares her and her daughter to dogs. If you, as a woman, have been excluded or demoralized you might take the abuse aimed at yourself… but they have another thing coming if they think I’m going to let them repeat it on my children. 

God is here for her child’s need. The mother is sure of it. Her fierce love for her child drives her. She has faith that her daughter is beloved by God. She deserves healing. This mother doesn’t care who would contradict it! They are wrong. It can be the Son of God himself and he will receive correction from this mother. Now maybe she’s just a desperate, wild-eyed woman. But by being who she is, doing what she cannot help but do, she shapes Jesus’ own understanding of his mission on this earth. Whoa. She calls him back to himself, by spitting his own words back out at him: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” And he hears it. You called us dogs, not even human. Is that your tradition? Is that why you are here?

There is holiness in contradicting Jesus, if he’s not acting like the God you know. This mother is demanding to know: “Who is God’s love and mercy for? Is it wide enough for those your people have a long history of hating (maybe because of the shame of your past with them)? Is your tradition hate, or is it mercy?” 

Pause

How long was the pause between the Canaanite woman’s contradiction of Jesus, and his declaration: “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish”? It could have been an instantaneous flash of recognition on Jesus’ side: “You are right, that reaction is not who I am. Not how God is to walk around on this earth.” Or it could have taken longer, an inner struggle between the tradition he is firmly rooted in, and the person in front of him, but eventually he gets there. 

We know life in that pause. In the space of being convicted of our wrongdoing as the Body of Christ in this world, and the pull between confession and self-righteousness. It would be more comfortable, more stable, more confidence-bolstering, if we could send away those who try to force us to rethink our mission, how we talk about them, or God. But encounters with others we have tried to ignore or send away can transform and radically reorient our faith. If our love of tradition, or comfort, is standing in the way of an embrace of people who need God’s love, we are off course. 

What are our opportunities to be changed like this? Sometimes they come to us, right? Like the mother who pursues Jesus because she’s heard what he’s been up to. People struggling with mental illness or hidden disabilities or complicated families or isolation are already among us. Aren’t we? But maybe sometimes to have the kinds of encounters that are going to change our faith, we have to go to Tyre and Sidon. Or Tatum Park in downtown Toledo, as Sarah is planning for “God’s work. Our hands” day. Or where Gen Z hangs out online. Or stopping at the Plains Indian museum on the Blackfeet reservation while leaving Glacier National Park. Going among people where we are not the dominant majority can shift our “religion” into what it should be now.

What if this is the religious tradition that both Jesus and now we live within? It’s not something rigid that cannot be questioned or it will burst, but instead change is baked in? Loving compassion for other people is at the foundation of who we are. God’s mercy is wider than any of our forebears can imagine. Even when it means changing what we’ve always said, or always done. Great is the faith of those who know they deserve God’s attention and force others to acknowledge the same.