Pentecost 11A
August 20, 2017
Matthew 15:10-28
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Tomorrow, as
you likely know, we will have the chance to witness a once-in-a-lifetime event:
a total eclipse of the sun. Well, not quite here in New York, where it will
only be partial, but in parts of our country, the moon will entirely cover the
sun in the middle of the day, bringing darkness over the land for as long as
two and a half minutes. It’s an extraordinary event, and a reminder of just how
magnificent are the cosmos that our God has created.
But I also
can’t help but notice the irony – that this moon-shadow that will be cast upon
our country corresponds with the shadow already cast by a resurgence of some of
the most hateful history of our nation. After what happened in Charlottesville
last weekend, it already seems like there is a shadow cast upon this land. Like
many of you, I looked at images of the event – hundreds of white men (and some
women) carrying torches, weapons and shields, and chanting about their
superiority over anyone who doesn’t look or believe like them – and I felt sick
to my stomach. I didn’t know, or at least wasn’t willing to believe, that such
people still existed in this country in such large numbers, and that they were
willing to make themselves known. Even in the Klan meetings of yesteryear, members
wore hoods over their faces – but these men in Charlottesville were emboldened
to spew hate right out in the open! When faced with counter-protesters, things turned
violent, even resulting in injury and death. It was a stark realization that
the sin of racism did not die in America with the Civil War, or the end of Jim
Crow laws, or the election of a black president. It is still very much a
reality that can no longer be ignored.
I couldn’t
help but think of those white nationalists, spewing hateful words, as I read
today’s Gospel lesson. “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a
person,” Jesus says, “but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles it.”
Well yeah, here was a pretty stark example of defiling things coming out of
mouths! I think Jesus’ observation makes a lot sense, to be honest! But then
the disciples tell Jesus, “Hey, Jesus, just so you know, what you said back
there offended the Pharisees.” Ah, the Pharisees. The Pharisees, you may
remember, are teachers of Jewish law. They are respected, and they are
educated, and they really know their stuff. But they are often called out by
Jesus, because in their hard-nosed following of the law, they often lost sight
of the big picture, and especially the imperative to love their neighbor. Today
is one example of that: the Pharisees are on people’s case about properly
washing hands before eating. A good practice, to be sure, but their insistence
on it has blinded them to the larger concern of how people are speaking to and
about one another. So Jesus calls them out on it. And, the Pharisees are
offended.
Why so offended, you ask? Well,
because they had some deeply held and well-informed convictions about how
things should be (and they were good, faithful people, so their opinion about
how things should be was really, pretty valid). But then Jesus comes along and
says, in essence, “You’re wrong. This thing that you hold so dear – it’s
totally off mark. In fact, it doesn’t matter at all.” Now, I don’t care much
about hand-washing, aside from its obvious health benefits, but I do know how
it feels to believe passionately about something, or even just to hold it as a
truth, and be told – even by Jesus – that I am off the mark, that my viewpoint
needs to change. There are times when I read something Jesus says that
challenges my belief or my way or life, and I think, “But… but… but… I don’t
want to change my views about that! My view makes me feel safer, or it is fun,
or it is more convenient for me.” In fact, sometimes when this happens to me,
I’m inclined to feel offended by what Jesus says – just like the Pharisees.
It’s good to notice that. It’s good
to recognize when God’s Word, when the words of Jesus, rub up against our
beliefs or our ways of life, and show us that we still have some growing and
reflecting to do. When we are willing to read God’s Word and examine our
hearts, and then maybe even change our ways in response – that is what it
called a life of faith and a relationship with the living God. Because I don’t
know about you, but I don’t come to church each week to hear, “You’re doing it
right! Keep it up!” I come to learn and grow and be changed!
This need to re-examine and grow
becomes even clearer in the next part of the story. Jesus leaves that place and
heads on to the next place, and a Canaanite woman approaches him, begging for
help for her daughter. Canaanites are not
Jewish, not a part of the house of
Israel. They are “the other” – a different race. When she first starts asking
for help, Jesus ignores her. The disciples ask him to send her away – she is
annoying them. “She keeps shouting at us,” they say. “But she’s not even one of
us. She’s different, and we don’t really care about her issues right now. She
is claiming that Canaanite lives matter as much as ours, but we’d rather just
focus on our needs right now. Israel’s lives matter more.” To the shock of the
reader, Jesus seems to agree with them! He finally responds, saying he didn’t
come to help her kind. He came to help the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
But she persists. She begs him to help. “The life of my daughter matters,” she
says. “Canaanite lives matter, at least enough to catch some crumbs from the
table.” And finally Jesus says, “Yes, you’re right. Great is your faith!” and
he heals her daughter.
 |
| Christ and the Canaanite woman, Drouais, Jean-Germain, 1763-1788 http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55923 |
Now, I don’t know if Jesus was just
being a little more human here than we might prefer, and this woman helped him
see he needed to broaden his mission, or if maybe he was just testing her and
those watching to show the importance of persisting in faith, but either way –
Jesus’ response here bothers me. Maybe it even offends me, just like he
offended the Pharisees a few verses back. And here’s why: What I want from
Jesus is immediate response to a person in need, no matter that she is a woman,
a Canaanite, or even, as Jesus himself says, a “dog.” Jesus should care about
all the people! Right??
And that moment when Jesus doesn’t
seem to care is offensive to me – because that moment leaves space for me to
have to notice the times when I don’t or won’t take notice of those people who
may be different from me, who are begging for help. In that moment when Jesus
leaves this woman begging, I realize how often I see someone who is in need and
I think, “Not my problem.” Or how I can just turn off the news when it becomes
too much, because I have the privilege of not having to care, because it
doesn’t affect me or my loved ones. Or how sometimes, in my most sinful
moments, I convince myself, even unconsciously for a brief moment, that this
person is in need by their own fault, and oh, what a shame it is.
Now, Jesus may not have been thinking
any those things when he ignores and dismisses the woman, but the hard truth
is: I know that I am. I know that I often ignore the needs of my neighbors who
are people of color, or Jewish or Muslim, or don’t even make the effort to
discover what those needs are in the first place. I know that I am able to
ignore or dismiss others because their reality is not mine, and I can go about
my life relatively unaffected by systemic racism or anti-Semitism. I know that
as a white woman, I am afforded a lot of privileges that I did nothing to earn
– things as simple as being able to find a flesh-colored band-aid that is the
color of my flesh, and things more
significant like being able to shop in a store without being followed or
questioned, or get out of a speeding ticket when I was clearly at fault. I know
that I can enjoy those privileges while others cannot, but I am willing to
accept things as they are, because I benefit from it.
Brothers and sisters, sometimes a
story in the Bible is offensive to us, because it shows us a great big mirror
that forces us to look at our own hearts and find the sin therein. This is one
of them, especially in light of the persisting reality of racism of which our
country has become unequivocally aware. Even if we weren’t the ones carrying torches
across the University of Virginia campus, that does not mean we don’t have a
role in the system that has brought that to the fore. And it certainly doesn’t
mean we can shirk our responsibility to respond to it. As God-fearing
Christians who proclaim the death and resurrection of Christ, we must respond
to it, somehow.
My suggestion, as I wrote in a letter
to you this week, is that we begin with prayerful repentance, by looking in the
mirror. We begin by examining where we have benefitted from or participated in
systemic racism, by checking ourselves and our reactions in our interactions
with people of color, by taking note of when we are offended by something and
asking, “Why does that offend me?” and being open to the possibility that God
is trying to tell you something in your reaction. We begin by listening to and
taking seriously the nagging voice of the Canaanite woman, telling us that her
life and her story matter. We begin by praying that God would not only reveal
our sin, but also turn out hearts back toward the loving grace of Jesus Christ.
I’m hoping to catch at least a part
of the eclipse tomorrow. As the sky starts to darken, around 1:30, I invite you
to join me in praying for victims of racism, and for those who espouse hate. It’s appropriate that 1:30 is also
the time when
Let us pray… God of all creation, open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts to the
needs of those among us begging for help. Help us to see and to confess our
prejudice, and turn our hearts toward you. Encourage us to participate in the
pursuit of peace and justice for all. In the name of the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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