Pentecost 12A 2023

12th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

It might not seem like it at first glance, but today’s Gospel lesson has sometimes been the source of a bit of controversy: Jesus enters an area that’s more Gentile than Jew in its population. A local woman who’s heard of his ability to heal asks for his help. Initially he refuses, but after she persists, he shows mercy and heals her daughter. Not terribly complex on the surface.

The controversy is not about Jesus healing the woman’s daughter. Rather, the controversy is about how Jesus dealt with the woman. How at first he ignored her. Then he refused her, even insulted her by calling her a “dog”. Then, after her persistence, he heals the sick daughter, and does so from a distance. So why did he treat this mother like this?

When I first studied it in seminary, they made us use a specific commentary in which the author says that “the Canaanite woman changed Jesus’ mind.” I don’t agree with that statement. I cannot agree with that statement, because it disagrees with my understanding of who Jesus truly is. When we talk about the Holy Trinity, there are certain principles that always must be true. One of those principles is this: what we say about one Person of the Trinity, we say about all three of Them. Therefore, when we say that God is all-knowing, that means that the Father is all-knowing, the Son is all-knowing, and the Holy Spirit is all-knowing. That means that Jesus *is* all-knowing. In this case, Jesus knew exactly how this conversation was going to go before this woman ever spoke a word.

Some controversies go well beyond this. A few years ago I heard a bishop from a non-Lutheran denomination describe this passage this way: “Jesus was guilty of the sin of bigotry against the Canaanite woman…but he got over it.” I hope that statement repulsed you just now the way it did me when I heard it. Jesus is the one human in all of history who never sinned - “He who was without sin,” right? The way Jesus treated her was not sinful. I could not have been, or Jesus is not the Son of God.

It’s important for all of us to understand what’s happening in this part of Jesus’ story. When you turn back just a page or two from this passage in Matthew’s Gospel, you’ll find that Jesus has just explained to his audience that “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person (meaning: what makes us unclean), but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Later he clarifies that what defiles us are the evil thoughts of our hearts. His followers had been chastised by the Jewish leaders because they were not practicing proper cleanliness laws in their eating. Jesus then proceeded to correct them on their improper understanding.

Cleanliness was of utmost importance in the Jewish culture, and it covered much of their daily lives. This included their interactions with other people, especially non-Jews. It also covered interactions between men and women. If you weren’t married, you weren’t supposed to interact with someone of the opposite sex. There is much within Jewish Law to prohibit Jesus and his disciples from having anything to do with a Canaanite woman, no matter how desperate she may have been.

The fact that Matthew calls her a “Canaanite” instead of just a Gentile tells us that she is descended from people who were originally enemies of Israel. Just prior to this, Jesus was rejected by the leaders of his own people, and now he’s confronted with a woman who is descended from a nation of enemies. In just a few sentences, we see conflict between Gentile and Jew, friend and enemy, male and female, and even between holy and demonic. [Thomas G. Long, Matthew, ed. Patrick D. Miller and David L. Bartlett, Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 174.] This short passage is filled with conflict.

I probably didn’t put enough emotion into my reading of it. When it said she “was crying” - the English here doesn’t really do it justice. It’s actually more like “scream” or “shriek” and is used to describe the cries of a woman in labor pains (Long, 175). Can you imagine this woman crying that loudly, in desperate hope that this Jewish carpenter can help her daughter? She calls him both “Lord” and “Son of David” - both titles that show her amazing faith in him as much more than a carpenter. And yet, she’s not even a Jew, while the top Jewish leaders - the scribes and Pharisees - keep their distance from Jesus and constantly try to find fault with him. She has no traditional reason to have faith in him, while they do. Their strict (and misguided) adherence to tradition kept them from seeing Christ for who he actually is. Her faith let her see the truth about him.

So here’s this mother in despair, screaming for help, and Jesus, who has been helping many, many people…says nothing in response. His silence is stunning. It can get really scary when God is silent. I’m certain this woman felt that deeply. One scholar had this to say:

Matthew (The Great Faith of a Canaanite Woman (Matthew 15:21–28))

“Great faith” endures not only when God’s presence and help are readily available but also in the wintry season of God’s silence—a silence that Jesus himself will experience on the cross.

Jesus would also describe that from the cross when he quotes Psalm 22 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God’s silence is definitely scary.

But this was only the first exchange between the woman and Jesus. The second time she speaks up, the disciples urge Jesus to send her away. So the woman is facing three obstacles: Jesus’ silence, his annoyed followers, and a definition of the Messiah’s mission that is only for “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” but not Canaanites. She breaks the first obstacle with a second cry. Then she simply ignores the annoyed disciples.

Maybe the best part of this scene is that we see a Gentile woman responding to Jesus’ identity as the Messiah with acts of reverence and worship. Falling on her knees? That is an act of worship. It is a part of our liturgy even today. We are to kneel (look at the red rubrics in our worship book) before our Lord and King as a sign that we recognize His Rule and authority. She did the very same.

Her act of worship is a great way to begin her third exchange, in which she repeats her plea. This is where Jesus seems to respond too harshly: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

“The meaning is clear: The people of Israel are the ‘children,’ Gentiles are ‘dogs,’ and what Jesus has to give is intended for the ‘children.’ To call Gentiles ‘dogs’ was a common and well-known term of scorn.” [Long, 176.]

So what should we make of Jesus’ response to her? Is even he sometimes blinded by nationalism and racism? Is Jesus being callously dismissive of this Gentile woman in her time of need? No, we must be careful not to apply modern standards of decency and politeness to this passage. Despite their blunt tone, Jesus’ words are, in very sharp terms, an expression of his true identity. By the use of the metaphor of the children and the dogs, Jesus is reaffirming what he said to the disciples. He is Israel’s messiah, and he has been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Before anything else may be said of him, this must be acknowledged.

Jesus is not a generic savior, an anonymous Superman from a distant planet somewhere in space. Jesus is a Jew; in fact, he is the Jew who stands as the culmination of all of Israel’s history. There are two themes in this passage: the first is the Canaanite woman’s faith. The second is now beginning to emerge: Jesus can be the savior of all people only by remaining faithful to God’s chosen people Israel, even in the face of their rejection of him. [Ibid]

The same scholar offers a good analogy here: “Imagine a woman who founded and continues to manage a shelter for battered women. She has carefully defined the mission of the shelter and energetically cultivated contributions and sources of financial support for that mission. There are other agencies that serve children, the homeless, and the hungry, but this shelter is dedicated to the needs of abused women. One day, however, the woman answers a knock at the door of the shelter only to find a desperately needy man asking for food and money. No matter how much her heart goes out to this man, surely she would wonder about the propriety of taking money donated for the care of abused women and giving it to him, however worthy he may be.” [Long, 176]

So Jesus finds himself in this position - should he help someone with whom his own people have been at war in the past? Since his own people have rejected him, should he then embrace her and walk away from Jerusalem? Of course not. He is the Messiah of the Jewish nation. Her request does not change that. “Everything about her request demonstrates that she grasps the essential theological point: Jesus is Lord of all because he is the promised Son of David. It is Jesus’ obedience to his role as the messiah of Israel that renders him the savior of all nations.” [Long, 177] The woman’s statement about “crumbs” captures the essence of what Matthew’s message: “Because Jesus is the obedient Son of God, the messiah of Israel, he is the savior of the whole world.” [Ibid]

Today’s reading is about Jesus, who is savior of all through being faithful to his calling as messiah of Israel. It is also a story about a Canaanite woman whose great faith gave her perseverance and allowed her to discern that Israel’s messiah was her messiah, too. [ibid]

If we look to the reading from Isaiah, we see that the message is the same. Jesus is not looking for people who were born in the right place, or who have the right name, or have the right nationality. Jesus is looking for faith: those “who join themselves to the LORD,

to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD,

and to be his servants,

everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,

and holds fast my covenant...”

Yes, faith is a gift from God, but faith is evident. It is acted upon. It is lived. When we don’t live the faith that God has given us, we drift away from the path God calls us to walk. As we walk that path, our faith will grow. We will find ourselves more and more “joined” to the Lord, loving His name, and serving Him.

We are still working on our Vision Points. Today is the 1-year anniversary of our Fresh Eyes for Mission summit. It’s a good time for us to take a fresh look at what we determined last year and reflect on what God is calling us to. What is He calling YOU to in your own walk of faith? I invite you to read the back page of your bulletin this week, and pray about what those 3 Vision Points, and their respective Action Steps might mean for you as a child of God and as a disciple of Jesus Christ. We’re on the verge of something, and it will see the best outcome when each one of us uses the gifts God has given us. When we put those gifts together for His Kingdom… I can’t wait to see the outcome. I hope you will join me in praying about it.

In the name of the Father, and the +Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.