A Sermon preached on Sunday August 16, 2020 Proper 15 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden
Isaiah 56:1,6-8, Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32, Matthew 15: 21-28.
One of feminist theologian Phyllis Trible’s most well-known books is called “Texts of Terror.” In it, she examines four rather nasty Old Testament narratives in which women suffered and were abused: Hagar, Tamar, an unnamed concubine and the daughter of Jephthah. Quoting from the cover “In highlighting the silence, absence, and opposition of God, as well as human cruelty, Trible shows how these neglected stories…. challenge both the misogyny of Scripture and its use in church, synagogue, and academy."
Now while today’s extract from Matthews Gospel is not a text of terror, it certainly seems to throw Jesus in a bad light regardless of whether his first ignoring the Canaanite woman, and then insulting her “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Matthew 15:26) is due to her being a woman, or a foreigner, or both.
It appears particularly disappointing coming at the end of the week in which our church’s calendar recognized some very important women of faith. Tuesday was the feast day of St. Clare of Assisi. Inspired St. Francis’ preaching and example, and despite much male opposition, she founded and then governed the order of the Poor Clares (officially the Order of Saint Clare) for 40 years, an order that embraced the Franciscan rule of absolute poverty and of works of mercy for the poor and the neglected. Wednesday it was Florence Nightingale’s turn, English social reformer and the founder of modern nursing. An Anglican, albeit at times an unorthodox one, she felt that genuine religion should manifest itself in active care and love for others. And then yesterday was the feast day of Saint Mary the Virgin: Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ: blessed and venerated not only for her status as “Mother of God,” but for her faith and witness.
And I think there is even a connection between these three female saints, and the Canaanite woman. She too was faithful, as Jesus attests at the end of the passage: “Woman, great is your faith!” (15:28) She acts not for herself, but selflessly for her daughter. And she also has to overcome male resistance - from the disciples and from Jesus. I am reminded of another connection between her and Mary. In John’s Gospel, at the wedding in Cana, it is Mary who forces Jesus’ hand and gets him to do the first of his public signs. When she approaches him to help, his initial reaction to his mother is also a little insulting: “Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’” (John 2:4-5). But she perseveres: “His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’” In today’s Gospel from Matthew, the Canaanite woman’s bold humility forces Jesus’ hand into declaring a more expansive view of his ministry, one in which he is no longer only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
And that brings us to Jesus. How do we explain his position and his reaction to this woman and foreigner? There is already a lot of discussion in the Old Testament between what we call a more inclusive or universal view of God on the one, and a particular or restricted view on the other hand. The inclusive view is represented for example in the book of Ruth, a foreigner who later even appears in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, in the book of Jonah, in which even the city of Israel’s ancient enemy Nineveh is saved when they repent and turn to God, and in the Book of Isaiah, as documented by today’s extract in which all foreigners who love the Lord and keep his covenant are welcome and God’s house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. (Isaiah 56:7)
The opposite, restricted view is represented for example by the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. According to Ezra it is God’s will that the newly returned exiles separate themselves from the neighboring peoples and from their foreign wives, who are to be sent away, with their children. In this view, God’s house is a house of prayer only for the people of Israel. And as we know, this debate continues in the New Testament. The Acts of the Apostles and many of Paul’s letters address the question and the arguments around whether and under what circumstances Gentiles can become part of the new “Jesus movement,” with Peter and Paul initially taking very different opposing positions. Ironically, if we look at today’s extract from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, the issue is no longer whether Gentiles are included in God’s plan of salvation but whether the Jews are (you bet they are, says Paul, emphatically). And let’s be honest, issues of in- and exclusion and division are still very much with us today.
It’s clear that in the beginning Jesus’ ministry was focused on those he calls the lost sheep of the house of Israel. When he first commissions and sends out the twelve, he commands them not to go among the Gentiles or into a Samaritan City (Mt. 10:5). Yet at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, the commission has changed, and the disciples are now sent out to make disciples of all nations. (Mt. 28:19) And while Jesus spends most of his time teaching and ministering to his own Jewish people, we notice more interaction with minorities in the latter half of the Gospel and more and more parables that show that God’s kingdom is open to all. Was this change all down to the Canaanite woman? No, not just, her (or the other Gentile figures who paly similar roles in other gospels), but I think she played an important role. The church would not have kept this critical episode in the canon otherwise.
We teach that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine and that in becoming a human being, God’s Son freely relinquished some of his powers – we call this kenosis or emptying. The emphasis in Jesus’ ministry changes over time as he grows, as he learns more in prayer – he constantly seeks the guidance of his Father – and as he learns through experience and from other examples.
As Jesus comes to realize, “Israel first” does not mean Israel only, and the persistence of the Canaanite woman is one factor in that change. Instead, “Israel first” is to be understood as Isaiah understood it. It is a call to Israel to be an invitation and to set an example - maintaining justice, doing what is right to bring God’s salvation to the whole world. Salvation does come from the Jews through Jesus and his followers and then into the world. I don’t know whether Jesus had a tidy plan to first call Israel to repentance and then the world, but sometimes reality gets in the way of tidy plans. At our Wednesday Bible study Dorothee also helpfully pointed to the parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8) as an example of how we can and should expect God to be moved. In that story, we hear about a widow who keeps coming to an unjust judge asking for justice until he is worn down by her persistence and says: “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” Jesus concludes by saying if an unjust judge reacts this way “will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?” The Canaanite woman helps persuade Jesus even at this early stage of his mission that God’s chosen ones are all who believe.
So today’s passage from Matthew is not a text of terror, but a text of hope. It offers us two human examples we can easily follow. First of all, the example of the Canaanite woman and her unwavering faith in the pursuit of justice and healing. The other example is of the (very) human Jesus being willing to be changed by her faithful witness. And finally, the passage reminds us that God is so much bigger than any of us can imagine, even at that moment in time Jesus. None of our petty little human boundaries and divisions interest God, only love and faith received and shown.
Amen.
