Sent to Love: Speak & Act for Justice
Posted on Aug 20, 2017 by David Whetter
I love Jesus and I love the promise of salvation he brings to this world. But, there are times that his words and actions greatly disappoint me and today’s lesson is one of these times. Reverend David Lose, the senior pastor at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, a congregation of over 14000 members, and the most recent president of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, wrote this week, “I find the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman one of the most painful in Scripture.” I must agree with Pastor Lose. Today we hear Jesus call a mother, who is begging for mercy for her daughter, a dog.
Now this is isn’t the only time Jesus called people names. He called Herod a “fox” (Luke 13:32). Today that would be like labeling someone a weasel He called the Pharisees “fools” (Matthew 23:17). Which in Jesus’ day had more the meaning of “moron” or “immoral.” And, he also called the Pharisees “snakes” and a “brood of vipers” (Matthew 23:33). For some reason I can live with Jesus calling these people names, but to label someone a dog is unimaginable to me, especially from Jesus.
Now, just prior to our story today, Jesus had fed the 5000 and he had walked on water, as you heard last week, and that story ended with Jesus and the disciples landing in Gennesaret where the people flocked to him to be healed, and some were healed just by touching the hem of his rob. And then, as we heard today, Jesus teaches the people that what they eat, or what they touch will not make them bad, or as Scripture says, defile them. No, Jesus says what defiles us is what comes out of our heart; “evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile” (Matthew 15:19-20). As I read this teaching I am struck that what Jesus is saying is that one’s race, ethnicity, gender, disability, or class does not defile a person.
So, when we hear that Jesus moves into gentile territory and a woman comes to him seeking help for her daughter, we are expecting him to help her. But when she begs him for mercy for her daughter’s sake, he attempts to ignore her and when she refuses to be ignored and persists with her request that he help her, he calls her a dog. I don’t know about you, but I am appalled that our Lord would call another human being a dog.
Now, many subscribe to the traditional interpretation here and that Jesus wasn’t really being mean to this woman. Many will argue that he was merely testing her and she past his test when she persisted that she only needed a mere crumb of God’s grace. Now, it is true that all we need is a mere crumb of God’s grace, but I don’t think that this was a test on Jesus’ part. There is nothing in the rest of the Gospels that would indicate to me that Jesus would offer such a test. Instead, as I read this story, I interpret this story to be telling us that initially Jesus had a very narrow focus for his mission; that is he had been sent to bring salvation to the Jews and so he was not about to offer help to a non-Jew. If you read Matthew’s Gospel carefully up until this point, he has not interested in assisting the gentiles. In fact, in Chapter 10, when he sent the Twelve out in mission, He specifically said, ”Go nowhere among the gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans…” (10:5). But in this story something happens to his vision and mission. A Canaanite women, a non-Jew, breaks his mission “wide open by [her] faith and audacity and persistence.” This woman opened Jesus heart and mind to all humanity. Jesus goes from healing Jews to healing the world. This change of focus in his ministry will lead him to command his followers at the end of this story “Go and make disciples of all nations… (Matthew 28:10).
Now that may make some of you uncomfortable. You may be saying, but Jesus is the Son of God, surely he knew this. Well, to that I say Jesus was also a human being. We proclaim he was fully human and fully divine which means to be fully human that in that mystery of faith we have to make room for his humanness. The power of this story for me is that through the words of another human being, albeit a non-Jew, Jesus allows his heart to be opened to God’s grander vision. And just as that Canaanite woman was able to teach Jesus that God’s compassion, mercy, vision and mission were bigger than the world could imagine, she says that to us today, as well. In today’s world when we Christians see and hear of synagogues being threatened, mosques being fire-bombed, neo-Nazis and white supremacists marching the streets and spewing words of hatred then we need to stand up and speak out. We need to speak out and take action to proclaim God as the king and judge of all. Last weekend a group of people attempted to draw a line in the sand. Such people start with the premise that white people are superior to others. Nowhere in Scripture is such a teaching taught and we should not support or advocate for such hatred. Last weekend these people attempted to draw a line between who’s in and who’s out, and as I have said many times before when we do that, we will always find the God that made us and that became human in the form of Jesus is on the other side.
Yes, I find Jesus’ initial words about this woman painful, but I also find it greatly reassuring and promising to know that my Lord, will always end up on the side of justice. All too often out of ignorance, or out of pride, we refuse to empathize with people whose experience is different from our own and when we do this we fail to experience the richness of God’s creation. Jesus allowed himself to experience the richness of a faithful woman who was different from him. When we fail to empathize with those who are different form us, our Jewish brothers and sister are threatened, our Muslim sisters ad brothers are threatened, our African American bothers and sisters are threatened, or anyone who is different from us, then we fail to live out the Gospel. And yet, our Lord, when challenged to have compassion and mercy for someone he thought was his enemy, offered compassion and mercy. We are called to do the same.
God’s justice is for everyone, even those who are different from us, even those who spew hatred, if they will accept it. And so, today I think we are being challenged to stand on the side of justice. We are being challenged to proclaim the Gospel as clearly and compellingly as humanly possible and that Gospel message is this, in Jesus’ death on the cross and His Resurrection we discover that God’s love is, in fact, for everyone. God is working in and through us to make this world a more just and equitable place.
Proclaiming and living this Gospel won’t be easy and it will at times be dangerous, but to not speak out against injustice and to not have the courage to speak out against those who seek to curtail God’s Will is wrong. To remain silent against such words and action of hatred is wrong. We are called to have faith and persistence of this Canaanite woman who knew that all she needed was a mere morsel of God’s grace. May you know today that in this Gospel story, God grants you the courage and grace sufficient to meet the challenges of the world today and that when we stand with and for those who suffer or are persecuted, we encounter God in a powerful and compassionate way. Amen.