Loading...August 20, 2017
offered by the Rev. Matt Rowe
Sermon Text: Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
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A few weeks ago I stepped into something the spiritual essayist Madeleine L’Engle might call “a wrinkle in time.” We visited the Plymouth Plantation, a re-creation of the settlement established by the Puritans when they crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower and landed at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts in 1620.
The settlement is populated by a team of historical actors who carry on as if it is 1624. Some stroll about the village, talking with visitors, while others await visitors to their cottages. In one such cottage we met William Brewster, the ruling elder of the Puritan congregation, kind of like the senior warden in our way of arranging things. The colony was without an ordained minister at the time, so Mr. Brewster said the he was in essence the Minister in that congregation. At that point my wife “threw me under the bus” when she told Mr. Brewster, “My husband is a minister, too.” “You are, sir,” he said, fixing his eyes on me. “Yes, sir, I am,” I said, fixing a scowl on my wife for outing me while on vacation! “In which church do you serve?” I was asked. I started to explain my church affiliation, but then remembered the wrinkle in time into which we had stepped meant that the Episcopal Church was still 165 years in the future. Beth intervened by saying, “He is Anglican.” “Oh really?” said Mr. Brewster, “you are part of the King’s Church, and you use that Prayer Book?”, “I do,” I confessed, half-expecting a couple of armed men to enter and take me where I did not want to go. What a vacation this was turning out to be! Thankfully, no armed men appeared, but Mr. Brewster launched into a diatribe against the Book of Common Prayer, his thesis being that one cannot truly pray with proper intention through words that are already written down. Mr. Brewster was well-versed in the theology, not only of the Puritan cause, but also of the Church of England of that day. He was on his game, but I, being in full vacation mode and not being naturally inclined to controversy, was unprepared for a disputation.I felt caught off guard and regarded by him as was the Canaanite woman who came seeking the mercy and help of Jesus but was addressed as a dog.
I did not appreciate being subjected to criticism, being made to feel outside of God’s circle of grace for not adhering to the Puritan doctrine, of being a dog who must beg for scraps from the master’s table. I imagine, also, the Canaanite woman did not appreciate being referred to as a dog, even a little dog who is allowed to come into the house, as she was called, called by Jesus, no less, whom she had approached with agonized cries for mercy. If we could read and understand this text in its original Greek, a very important point would be more clear, for the mood of the word for mercy denotes the emotion of someone whose compassion is stirred by the undeserved suffering of someone else. So, right away, Jesus knows that the woman’s request is not for herself, but on behalf of another, in this case her daughter, whom she says is tormented by a demon. It could refer to some sort of psychotic behavior, or perhaps a seizure disorder,
something that would cause erratic behavior on the part of the sufferer. We must, however, be not too eager to rationalize the idea of demon-possession away, for there is spiritual warfare in the Christian life,
which we acknowledge in the Baptismal Covenant when we renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of evil that rebel against God. Whatever it is, something has a grip on this poor girl and her mother is interceding on her behalf.
This is among the most problematic texts about Jesus. Why would he first ignore the woman, and why then, when he finally speaks to her, would he respond with such a seeming insult? Some interpreters will say that Jesus recognized the great faith of the woman, and somehow enlisted her to play along in this dialogue as a demonstration that salvation is for all people, not just Jewish people. Other interpreters say that Jesus was caught unawares by the Canaanite woman and forced into a face to face encounter with his own prejudice, the idea being that Jesus, being fully human and fully Jewish, inherited the cultural biases of his people.
I know which interpretation suits me, and that is the first one, where Jesus enlists the Canaanite woman in playing along with the ruse as means to demonstrate the wide-embracing love of God for all people,
which probably means that I need to open my mind to the other way of looking at this text, because there is probably something for me to learn from it, perhaps about God, certainly about myself, and I suspect most of us could learn something from this way of interpretation about our own need to confront our own prejudices.
One of the good bishops I have served under is Duncan Gray III, who was the 9th Bishop of Mississippi,
and my bishop while I served the Church of the Nativity in Greenwood. He once came back from a House of Bishops gathering and announced that the Episcopal Church was launching an initiative aimed at racial reconciliation. That initiative continues today, and is known as “Becoming the Beloved Community.” Bishop Gray, who was always honest with his clergy, confessed to a certain skepticism about the initiative. About six months later, when the clergy were all together with him again, Bishop Gray told us that his skepticism was no more after he took part in a symposium in Natchez, where an African-American woman told about one day when she was in 11th grade in Meridian, right after the public schools were desegregated, when she was accosted and roughed up by four fellow students. Bishop Gray told us that he remembered the incident, because he was there, himself in 9th grade at the time. He witnessed the incident, but did not intervene, and in that moment at the symposium in Natchez, was confronted by his own prejudice, even if passive, in his negligence to respond to the suffering of a fellow human being.
Prejudice lives on in the world today. This most recent place names where it has surfaced are Charlottesville, Barcelona, Helsinki, Kissimmee. Hearts are hard. Fists are clenched. Hateful words spew from lips. Minds are closed tightly. The common bonds of humanity are torn asunder. We, the human race, are tormented by a demon. Who can help us? From the Canaanite woman, unflinching in the face of rebuff, comes the answer. She does not take offense. She does not storm off in anger. She does not lose heart. She kneels before Jesus in worship, and asks him again, “Lord help me,” pleading that some of the food intended for the children might fall to the floor for the dogs. The food for which she asks, according to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, means specifically bread, the kind that the head of the house takes in hand at the beginning of the family meal, blesses, breaks, and gives to those who share the table with him.
Where is healing to be found for prejudice, hatred, and all that ails our human family? From the one who took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take, eat.” From the one who comes to us in the breaking of the bread. From the one who speaks to us as we kneel with outstretched hands, saying, “Great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish.”
A little while after leaving Mr. Brewster’s cottage, feeling inadequate and overmatched, I saw him out walking in the Puritan village, and I thought of a prayer that inspires me to sincerity of devotion
whenever I pray the oft-used words of the Prayer Book, and so I approached him and told him about this prayer. It says, “O priest of God, celebrate this Holy Communion as if it were your first Holy Communion, your last Holy Communion, your only Holy Communion.” Mr. Brewster gave a smile and said, “There may yet be hope for the King’s Church after all.”
Today, dear friends, we fall at the feet of Jesus and say, Lord, help us, and we wait with great expectation for the bread he gives, the bread he is, as we celebrate this Holy Communion as if it were our first Holy Communion, our last Holy Communion, our only Holy Communion.
In Jesus Christ our Lord, there is hope for the human family.
