August 16, 2020 Sermon

P11A 2020—Matthew 15:21-28
One of the things that I’ve been missing during the pandemic is the ability to travel,
especially to travel out of the country. I think it’s exciting to experience life in other
places, even if I get a little anxious about accidentally doing something culturally
insensitive. I’m sure I haven’t always been the most well-mannered visitor, but I am not
alone, because as we can see from today’s gospel, even Jesus has a moment when he’s
not exactly a gracious guest.
When Jesus enters Tyre and Sidon he’s venturing into gentile territory. The people
who lived there would have been religious foreigners from the perspective of Matthew’s
community, but Jesus and his disciples are the ones in the minority when they are
traveling there. Since, as Jesus points out, his mission is primarily to Israel, we might
guess that it’s only for expediency that he’s traveling through this region—not with any
intention to stop and teach, preach, or heal. He certainly doesn’t leap at the opportunity
to interact with the woman whom Matthew calls a Canaanite—a strange descriptor
considering that by Jesus’ lifetime, there were no longer people who would have referred
to themselves as Canaanites. Matthew names her as a representative of a long tradition of
religious and cultural opposition, Canaanites being Israel’s enemies in the Old Testament
battle stories. And although, as the woman seems to indicate, the gentiles had a more
generous attitude towards four-footed creatures than was common in Jewish culture,
make no mistake: Jesus comparing the woman to a dog was every bit as offensive to both
of them then as it would be if someone said it to us now.
So it’s a remarkable progression for Jesus to go from ignoring the woman, to
explaining her exclusion from his mission, to insulting her, arguing why she is unworthy
of his help, to commending her faith and healing her daughter. Which begs the questions:
Did Jesus change his mind? Was he wrong and had to be shown what was right? Did the
woman’s persistent, demanding argument persuade Jesus to give her what he originally
intended to withhold? And since Jesus is God, does that mean that God regularly changes
God’s mind? Do we have to keep pushing God to give us what we need, because God is
inclined to withhold it? Is it accurate for us to see ourselves like this woman, or like
Jacob-Israel, wrestling a blessing from God? And if, like the woman, we get what we
pray for, is that how we know that our faith is great?
There are no easy answers to these questions, because they’re asking us to explain a
mystery that wouldn’t be a mystery if it could be explained. These are the questions we
ask when we are trying to fit an infinite God into the box of our finite imaginations, one
that is small enough and rigid enough for us to hold it shut.
We seem to have two possible broad interpretations of what happened here: either
Jesus changed his mind because of the woman’s faithful persistence, or this was Jesus’
way of teaching his disciples, and by extension us, that God’s love breaks through every
boundary and that faith—even great faith—can be found in those whom we least expect.
I can’t say for certain which it was, but either way, the point seems to be that compared to
God’s ever-expanding grace, the focus of our own loving kindness is always too narrow.
If, in this one instance, Jesus grew in his ability to see—really see—the image of God in
an outsider—even in an enemy, if even God has room to grow in grace, then certainly we
have room to grow more gracious as well. My guess is that Jesus didn’t need this woman
to teach him that she was a person of inherent value, but Jesus did need to show his
disciples that people of a different nationality, ethnicity, religion, and cultural tradition
could still be people of deep faith. After all, Jesus praises the Canaanite woman for her
great faith just one chapter after he he saves a sinking Peter while saying to him: you of
little faith, why did you doubt? If finding faith where we least expect it was a lesson
Jesus needed to teach his first disciples, then surely it’s a lesson we need to learn as well.
If Jesus was persuaded—that is good news: if even the God of the universe can
change and learn and grow, then we have permission, in fact, we have a calling to change
and learn and grow as well. If, that whole time, Jesus intended to bless the woman’s
faithful persistence with the healing she desired, that’s still good news, too: that God
wants us to ask, God wants to hear the deep desires of our hearts, and God hears our
persistent prayers not as annoying nagging but as our faithful confidence that God will
respond. Of all his moments, this is maybe not be the one where Jesus looked his best;
but he still managed to show his disciples and us that whenever we think we’ve got a
handle on God, we always find that God is bigger and God’s love is deeper than we
expected. May God take us outside of ourselves to show us faith where we least expect
to find it, and may we be so encouraged by God’s ever-widening love that we boldly pray
for the healing that we need.