United Church of Pittsford

Matthew 15:21-31 and II Kings 5:1-4; 9-15

Our gospel reading for this morning, from Matthew’s Gospel, is a text with which I have had a love/hate relationship for many years.  It disturbed me almost every time I read it and reflected on it.

In some ways, it made no sense to me:  portraying Jesus as harsh, insensitive and cold.  In other ways, it was full of rich, deep meaning and significance!  Let’s take a look at this text together this morning.

There is a companion piece to this text found in the seventh chapter of Mark’s Gospel.  The two have much in common! They also part company at various points.
For Matthew, the woman is identified as a ‘Canaanite’!
For Mark, the woman is identified as a Syro-phoenician woman.

They agree:  she is not a Jew! She is a Gentile!

In Mark’s account, Jesus sought privacy and anonymity….’he went into a house and did not wish anyone to know about it’.
In Matthew’s account, by noting what is NOT in the text, Jesus was out and about; out in the open…….in public.

We know that Matthew and Luke made use of Mark’s writing when they wrote their own.  We know that the Apostle Peter was a primary source for Mark’s account; and later on, especially in the book of Acts, we know it was a giant hurdle for Peter to take the gospel message out into the Gentile world – to help it break out of its Jewish womb.

Perhaps this is the reason Mark ‘hides’ Jesus (now in Gentile territory) in someone’s house.  Do Peter and Mark want to keep Jesus a secret from the Gentile world?

But it doesn’t work!
Both accounts have a Gentile woman coming to him with a request for healing for her daughter.  One can wonder:  is she a single parent…or is she married but has more hutzpah than her husband!

Let’s back up a bit:  we cannot overlook a significant point!

Jesus just had a verbal tussle with the religious leaders – the Pharisees and the Scribes.  They were after him for his disregard for, his inattention to some of the Jewish laws about that which is clean and that which is unclean.  To summarize the debate, Jesus declares that it’s not so much what goes into the mouth that defiles – makes unclean, but rather what comes out of the mouth.  This was not the first time the religious leaders critiqued and criticized him – and it would not be the last.  It was more than clean and unclean foods…clean and unclean utensils…clean and unclean hands!  It was clean and unclean people.

Jesus needed some ‘time away’!  He leaves Jewish territory and moves into Gentile (non-Jewish) territory.  He needs to sort out things in his own head and heart.  No sooner had he arrived in the region of Tyre and Sidon, than he is met by this woman with a mother’s request:
Heal my daughter!

Right up front, she had three strikes against her: she’s a woman….a non-Jew….and not a part of the Jewish faith tradition.  Yet it is most interesting that she addresses Jesus as ‘Lord, Son of David’!  Where did that come from?

Upon hearing her request, Matthew writes:  ‘But he (Jesus) did not answer her at all’!  Why the silence!  No words, but perhaps a look!

There were other times when Jesus was silent but offered a ‘look’...
at the rich young ruler,
on the crowd when his brothers tried to dissuade him from his mission,
on his disciples,
on the people tossing their gifts into the Temple treasury
and among them a woman who gives all she has,
on Peter after his denial,
at the sky as he prayed.
In this silence, Jesus searches the heart of the woman…
and, perhaps, his own heart………as well.

Remember...Jesus is not being received among his own people; among his own faith community.  Even Herod of the secular political establishment is labeling him a nuisance, a rebel, a trouble maker, a source of potential unrest!

The woman’s presence makes the disciples uncomfortable...and they urge Jesus to send her away.  But He is troubled by this thought of who’s clean and who’s unclean!

Jesus’ response is harsh:  “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’  Now what does that mean?  Earlier in Matthew’s gospel when Jesus sends the Disciples out on their first mission trip, he says:  ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’.

Jesus saw his ministry and mission to those on the fringe of the Jewish faith.  One commentator after the word ‘lost’ inserts the note:
i.e. leaderless – the inactive, those just on the rolls of the membership books; those infrequent in their attendance at the Synagogue and Temple worship services.

Is this Jesus’ ‘dark night of the soul’ as he wrestles with his reason for being?  What’s clean and what’s unclean; who’s clean and who’s unclean; who’s in and who’s out!

The woman comes right back:  ‘Lord, help me’!.

And then another harsh, downright ugly statement:  ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs’!  The crudeness of this analogy compares Jews to children (of the house of Israel) and Gentiles, to dogs!

This Mother is up to the challenge:  ‘Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’  Seemingly unresentful, the woman persists and pleads  her case – not that the dogs can eat later, but that they receive crumbs even as/while the children are being fed.
And note that each time she speaks, she refers to Jesus as Lord!

In this holy and sacred moment of intense conversation and debate, Jesus chooses to respond by drawing the circle larger.

Recall this bit of wisdom:
He drew a circle that shut me out!  Heretic,
rebel a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win!
We drew a circle that took him in!

He includes her in his mission!  A Jewish rabbi including a Gentile woman in his ministry!

The searching of his heart as he traveled from Jewish territory to Gentile territory,
the replay in his mind of the Pharisees and Scribes rejection of his ministry,
the replay in his mind of the treatment he received in his hometown of Nazareth after reading the Scripture; (according to Luke’s gospel the townspeople ran Jesus out of town)!
all of this...moves Jesus...enables Jesus
not to defend his point of view – his mission
but to amend it – to draw the circle of God’s saving grace larger!

The woman is commended for her faith;
(in Mark’s gospel account she’s commended for her ‘quick wit’ and words..a clue that Mark is unable or unwilling to acknowledge her faith)!
the daughter is healed:
Jesus leaves that place, passes along the Sea of Galilee, climbs a
mountain (presumably to rest and reflect).
Crowds press in on him and he heals many persons who then praise God.

So...what’s the ‘take-away’ from this Gospel text?

For one, I think it teaches us how to lose an argument.  When Jesus recognizes that the woman’s argument is stronger than his own, he grants her petition.  Many of us do not have nearly so much graciousness.  Even when we know the other person is right, we may try to justify ourselves again and again, rather than agree and get on with the important business at hand:  ministry, service, healing, restoration!

Another ‘take-away’ is this:  any discomfort caused by this story challenges me (you…us) to examine how we treat ‘Gentiles’:  persons from another racial or ethnic background, from another lifestyle or from another socio-economic background, from another theological position, from another ‘whatever’!
Do those who ‘differ’ from us in whatever way find themselves welcome or unwelcome in our congregation?
Do they get what is leftover after all our needs are met?

This story serves to challenge the sexism and racism and classism of people – ancient and modern – who tend to consider those of different gender and ethnicity and lifestyle and socio-economic status as ‘the other’ – that somehow they are more distant from God and the divine order and plan.

Even Namaan – in our Old Testament reading today – was not a member of the household of Israel – the people of Israel – he was an outsider – yet he was cured by the prophet Elisha!

This story invites me (you…us) to place ourselves in the role of ‘the other’ and struggle not only with God but also with our own perceptions of ‘the other’!

And in doing so to recognize that the story pronounces such enduring struggle to be ‘great faith’!

Someone, after reading this text from Matthew, summed it up in these powerful – yet touching – words:

Jesus forgot the ‘song in his heart’ –
The woman sang it back to him to help him remember!

As a community of faith – gathered as and in the United Church of Pittsford, let us look at those we serve:
who are those not yet a part of our community of faith;
who are those of our society, our neighborhood, our world
not yet among us this morning;
who are those who were a part of this family of faith – but
now are not with us;
who are the ‘others’ not yet a part of our family of faith;
who are those who have left because they felt ‘not listenedto’; ‘not wanted’; ‘not included’;
who are those ‘others’ yet to be invited and welcomed into
our congregation – into our faith family?

As Jesus listened to the voice of an ‘other’, he drew the circle larger – wider; and we are called to do the very same thing.

I invite us to listen to our ‘other voices’ that we might, as did Jesus, hear God’s call to us through them.

A man, walking along an ocean beach, noted a figure in the distance that appeared to be dancing – running from the water line onto the beach – bending down – running back to the water with arms swinging.

As he got closer, he discovered the person, a young women, was picking up something and tossing it back into the water.  Arriving within conversation range, he asked her what she was doing, and the reply came: ‘Saving starfish!  They’re brought in when the tide comes in, but when it recedes, they’re left stranded on the beach.  I’m saving starfish.”

The man who had been watching this noted literally hundreds – maybe thousands – of starfish stranded on the sand and replied ‘Why bother; there are so many here.  What you do will not make a difference!’

The young woman smiled, bent down, picked up a starfish, tossed it into the sea, and replied:  ‘It made a difference for that one!’  And she continued down the beach, picking up and tossing in!  The man stood silent for a moment – then bent down, picked up a starfish, tossed it into the water and joined the young woman in her mission of saving starfish.

My friends – there are lots of ‘other voices’ out there.  There are lots of people not yet among us; not yet with us.  We may not be able to respond to all!  In fact, we cannot!  But for those voices to whom we respond in and out of the love of God – known to us through Jesus Christ – it will make a difference – a big difference – not only for them but also for us!

For...as we receive God’s love and impart it to others, we are given the power to repair the world!

Amen!