Genesis 45:1-15
Psalm 133
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15:10-28


Introduction

When I was asked to preach this Sunday, I read this morning's assigned scriptures and started asking people, "what do you get from these Scriptures? What would you expect in a sermon on these scriptures?

Many wouldn't give me an answer. Some focused on the first part of this morning's Gospel: it's not what you put into your mouth but what comes out of it, it's not what you eat but what you say that matters.

One person suggested focusing on the faith of the Canaanite woman. Some women ministers assured me they would be preaching about this "uppity" woman. But there's something here that everyone seemed to be avoiding: Jesus makes a perfectly horrible comment to the Canaanite woman: "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." Maybe there's something here we'd better spend some time on.

1. Courage.

The story of the Canaanite woman is first of all a story of courage, and if you put yourself in the Canaanite woman's shoes, you will realize how courageous she is. Look at what we know of her:

First, she has a daughter who is sick with a demon, or mentally ill. Imagine her grief, watching a child that was happy and whole retreat into a mental prison. This is the source of the determination that energizes the rest of the story.

Second, she has heard about Jesus. She calls him by name and she knows his reputation as a healer. She hopes he can do something for her daughter.

Third, she is a woman alone. In her culture every decent woman has a male protector--first father, then husband, then, eventually son. Where is her man? Why is he not here to intercede with these other men for her and her daughter? Because there is no such man in the story, it's a fair guess there is no such man in her life. She is unprotected, and approaching this band of Judean strangers is dangerous.

Fourth, she is a Canaanite; the Canaanites once lived throughout Palestine from Gaza in the South to Sidon in the North. If she heard the old stories from a Canaanite perspective, she would have heard how her people once welcomed a man named Abraham and his flocks; but his descendants, returning from Egypt, repaid the hospitality by invading Canaan, "utterly destroying" cities and farming villages, sometimes killing every living creature or sometimes, as we hear in Judges, killing everyone except 400 virgin girls they abducted for their own use. Some Canaanites were enslaved and others, like this woman's ancestors, were driven north to present day South Lebanon. To a descendant of these "ethnic cleansing" victims, Jews such as Jesus and his disciples might appear as harsh, ruthless, unforgiving killers.

Fifth, we know that at the time of this story Jesus and his disciples are one of many bands of men traveling about Palestine. Some are religious cultists, performing wonders and seeking alms and converts; others are revolutionaries, seeking to drive out the Roman overlords; some are simply robbers. Most of these groups are armed and we know from the story of Peter's sword in Gethsemane that Peter and perhaps others of Jesus' disciples carry weapons.

The woman knows she must be crazy, a lone Canaanite woman, approaching an armed band of young men from her people's sworn enemies. Are they thugs? Will they harass her verbally or attack her physically?

They prove their decency by merely telling her to go away. Encouraged, she gets closer.

"Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David: my daughter is tormented by a demon." At first, Jesus doesn't answer. Then he says, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Finally she comes and kneels before him, saying, "Lord, help me," and Jesus answers, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

Trying to make this remark seem less hurtful, some commentators speculate that Jesus was using a term of affection, calling her a puppy. But that's not how the Bible uses the word "dog".

** In one of the Psalms, "dog" refers to any Gentile.

** In II Kings, dogs ate the flesh of enemies so they could not be decently buried; as scavengers, dogs were often vicious and were considered unclean.

** One of the Proverbs compares fools repeating their foolishness with dogs returning to their own vomit.

** In Deuteronomy, a "dog" is a male cult prostitute.

Imagine these words in a modern context to get their flavor. Imagine it is 1954 and a governor in Little Rock is discussing school integration and he says, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." These are ugly words.

What should the Canaanite woman do? Seeing herself through their eyes, she is dirt, a mangy cur existing only to be kicked and beaten. And yet the sickness of her daughter gives her courage to continue and not be deflected. How many of us would have responded, "I am not a dog. I am a human being. How dare you put me down like this?" Doing this, she might easily be diverted from her purpose. She could be righteously indignant, show up Jesus' apparent verbal cruelty--and go home to an unhealed daughter.

Instead, like a martial arts expert, she lets her opponent's assault wash over her, seeking in Jesus' own words the clue that she needs.

There in his very insult she sees her opening. "Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table," she says. Even the dogs that a family kicks have a relationship to the family. They may be on the fringes of your family circle, but they are part of it. Jesus, by calling me a dog, you have given me a claim on you. Like the crumbs from your table, give me what you have that is more than you need. Give me healing for my daughter!

Jesus responds "Great is your faith. Let it be done as you have asked."

2. Humanity

Let me tell you a secret. When I was a teenager, I liked to get my mother's Ladies Home Journal and read "Can This Marriage Be Saved". Her story. His story. So different. Are these two people living in the same marriage? Are they even on the same planet?

How differently the same experience looks from a different set of eyes. So now let's turn our attention from the Canaanite woman to Jesus.

The first thing we know about Jesus is that he's human. That's important to say because if we're like a lot of Christians, we don't really believe it.

We hear the classic Christian doctrine that Jesus is "Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting" and still let our ideas of divinity override Jesus' humanity.

We imagine a baby that never cries, a youth who astonishes his elders, and an adult who knows all the answers from Astrophysics to Zen -- in short, a God who fakes it for our sake, a Jesus who has no choice about being who he is and therefore simply goes through the motions. If you believe that about Jesus, this story doesn't make sense, and neither do most of the others in the New Testament.

Secondly, if Jesus is human, his knowledge is limited, less each day than it will be the day after, as Luke reports him growing not only in stature but also "in wisdom."

His limited knowledge consists of what his community has taught him. And what have they taught him about Canaanites?

Jesus will have heard how Noah, after the flood, got drunk and naked, and his son Ham saw him in this state. Jesus will have heard how Noah cursed Ham, and Ham's descendants in Canaan and Africa, who were now fit for nothing but to be slaves to the descendants of Shem and Japheth -- a story used in the American south 200 years ago to prove that the Bible commanded enslavement of Africans.

Jesus will have learned that the Canaanites' religion was idolatrous. Psalm 106 will have taught him that Canaanites engage in human sacrifice.

Jesus will have learned that Canaanites are sexually disgusting people who sell themselves for fertility rituals conducted "under every green tree" in the hopes that crops will grow and the flocks will produce young.

Jesus will have been taught that intermarriage with such people is strictly forbidden, and all others should keep pure from association with them.

Jesus will have heard that God commanded the heroes of the faith to utterly destroy, enslave, or drive out such people. And Jesus will have learned that God looks on Israel as "my treasured possession out of all the peoples...a priestly kingdom and a holy nation," while the destruction of outsiders like the Philistines is a proof of God's existence.

So this is the terrible mental baggage that Jesus will have been carrying on that day when, needing some time away from the crowds, unable to flee them by going from one town to another, unable to flee them even by crossing a lake, Jesus leaves Judea entirely to go into the foreign country of the Canaanites.

3. Growth

As it plays itself out, we see this story as not only about courage, not only about humanity, but also about growth.

The Canaanite woman comes forward and keeps coming even when the disciples tell her to go away. She is not put off when Jesus tells his disciples, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." She comes and kneels directly before him and asks again, "Lord, help me."

Still thinking of his mission to Israel, Jesus speaks the attitudes of his parents, his village, his community: "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

But the woman does not give up. Seizing on an opening within the ancient bigotry, she says, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

"Even the dogs are part of the family," she is saying in effect. "Call us what you will, but you can't draw a line at the borders of Israel and say, 'I will take care of the lost ones this far and no farther.' You can't shut us out. Call us what you will, and feed us only crumbs, but we are part of your family."

* ~ * ~ *

There are times when an issue is in our face and we can't make it go away, and this is such a time for Jesus.

Up until this moment, perhaps Jesus never has been challenged on his community's attitudes. Like all humans, he has simply accepted them. Whatever ideas about Canaanites are in his mind were put there by his parents, his village, his community.

Prejudices are the most difficult ideas to let go because they are like viruses that bond to our ideas of right and wrong. The things we are prejudiced about are things that we know we are right about. That's not surprising, because our prejudices came from the same place we learned that fires are hot and stealing is bad and we should look both ways before crossing the street.

Jesus has made choices in the past. As a 12 year old he chose to stay on in the temple at the time of his bar mitzvah. He faced three major temptations in the wilderness. And today he faces one of the most significant choices of all.

Jesus has to affirm society's ideas and make the prejudices his own--or let them go. Never again can this be something he's simply never thought about. He can choose one way or the other, but he cannot not choose. From now on, the choice is his own.

This can't be an easy moment for Jesus. All the voices from the past that tell him to do the right thing are telling him now to do the wrong thing. A thousand years of hatred, killing, disgust, rejection tell him, no, don't help her, it's the wrong thing to do, she's not one of us, she's disgusting, people like her deserve to have diseases, they're not like us, listen to the community, listen to the traditions, walk away and leave her, do the right thing.

But Jesus listens to a different voice. He sees a human being. He sees a person of faith. And if she is a person of faith, then God is not bound by the old boundaries.

In that moment, Jesus grows. To do what he is asked to do, he must enlarge his understanding of himself and of God. And he rises to the challenge.

Acknowledging her as a spiritual being who is already blessed by God, he says, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." He knows her faith is great because it has enlarged his own.

In the end the woman who sought healing--brought it. She sought healing of the demon in her daughter. She brought a measure of healing of the demon which divided Jews and Canaanites, and in her story lies the potential of healing the divisions of today: Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, rich and poor, black and white, male and female, straight and gay.

Conclusion

Now the pattern of today's Scriptures is clear. Each of today's scriptures points to a larger vision, of which we are the beneficiaries. Each one is about enlarging the circle of God's love.

In this morning's continuation of the story of Joseph and his dysfunctional family, we see vividly how they seek to shut him out, but he widens the circle and draws them in.

In this morning's epistle, St. Paul talks with us Gentiles, who have so quickly forgotten we are the "dogs" from whom the young Jesus once would have withheld the children's meat, and who are now trying to shut out the Jews. God's circle is larger than that, says Paul.

We have such difficulty asking for things and yet sometimes the act of asking can be the greatest gift. It was because of a Canaanite woman who had the courage to ask for help, that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, from one who thought of himself only as one sent "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," to the one who said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations."

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