I almost didn’t read the first part of today’s gospel. The Revised Common Lectionary suggests that verses ten to twenty are optional, and certainly there is plenty to chew on in the story of the Canaanite woman’s encounter with Jesus.
But hearing all of it together, I think, helps us remember the biblical narrative is not just a series of patchwork events stitched together. It is instead a whole cloth quilt, that invites us to see a fuller vision of God’s love for us.
In the first part of this chapter, Jesus is talking with the religious leaders about the traditions and rules dictated by their faith. In verse 8, he quotes the prophet Isaiah to them, convicting them of honoring God with their lips but keeping their hearts far away from God. (Matthew 15:8)
When our gospel reading begins, the disciples come to Jesus, asking, “"Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?" (Matt. 15:12) This week, I heard another pastor say, “Sin cannot stand to be named or confronted.”[i] Let me say that again:
“Sin cannot stand to be named or confronted.”[ii]
When we react with offense at Jesus’ own words, we need to stop and reflect on what is provoking that emotion within us.
Jesus wasn’t surprised that he had offended the religious leaders, and he wasn’t apologetic. Instead, he answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.” (Matt. 15:13)
His words recall the parables of the sower and weeds and wheat that were in our gospel lessons earlier in the summer.
God did not plant sin in this world. Sin is not of God. It is like wild kudzu that grows unchecked out of our “self-centered failure to trust God.”[iii]
In Compline at the end of the day, our prayer of confession states, “Some of my sin I know – the thoughts and words and deeds of which I am ashamed – but some is known only to you.”[iv]
Insidiously, sin entwines itself around our hearts and chokes our hearts, hardening them against God.
I am grateful that confession prompts me to ask, “What needs to be uprooted in my life?” and “Where does my heart remain far away from God?”
Puzzled by the newest parable, Peter asks Jesus to explain, and Jesus answers,
“17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. (Matt. 15:17-19)
Faith and discipleship – following Jesus – is heart work.
The story of the Canaanite woman shows us a Jesus whose heart needs some work. At first Jesus doesn’t even respond to the woman’s plea for mercy and then, when he does respond, he scorns and insults her.
We want to come up with a reasonable explanation for his callousness. Jokingly, we might wonder if Jesus was “hangry,” tired and hungry from long days of ministry.
We want the Jesus who felt compassion for the crowds or had healed lepers and paralytics. We want the Jesus who is above reproach. But when we proclaim Jesus is both fully divine and fully human, we must be willing to see the fullness of his fallibility and humanity. His prejudice, name-calling and seeing the woman as “less-than-human” all comes from his heart.
When Matthew calls the woman a Canaanite, she becomes the archetype for the “other” or a “foreigner”, the very kind of person considered unclean and unwelcome by the Pharisees earlier in this chapter. And then, Matthew adds the woman’s confession that her daughter is demon-possessed, marking them both as untouchable, undesirable and unworthy.
And at first, that appears to be how not only the disciples, but even Jesus, see them.
Despite the mother calling him “Lord” three times and crying out to him for mercy and help, her ability to use all the ‘right’ words and even prostrate herself on the ground before him, Jesus appears unmoved. The disciples just want her to shut up and go away.
It sure looks like they all were behaving in exactly the same ways as the leaders Jesus had rebuked earlier.
Their hard-heartedness makes me ask, “Who are the “Canaanite women” in my life - the people I can ignore because I’ve been taught they aren’t worth my time?
But the Canaanite woman doesn’t give up. She trusts who she has heard this Jesus is. She trusts what she knows he has done in the name of God. And, she believes that God’s mercy is wide and deep enough to include her daughter and her.
And in the end, Jesus responds to her witness of faith.
A teacher once told me, “What you see depends a great deal on where you sit.” This woman’s experience illustrates that “Jesus does not always come through for us as we expect. Inside this story and inside our own stories, Jesus does not always conform to what we hope for.” And Matthew leaves us wondering, “How do we respond honestly and reengage our faith when Jesus does not come through for us as we expect? [v]
The woman persists even when she would have rightfully been defeated by her circumstances and the hateful actions and words directed at her.
And, the Good News is the woman was right.
God’s life-saving mercy is abundant and it is for all. Jesus comes alongside us, the Son of God in the flesh, and shows us a better way, a way where our hearts are not choked off but draw near to God and all of God’s people.
Committing to the same “heart work” we see Jesus do, let us pray with the words of Jesuit priest, St. Claude La Colombière:[vi]
O God, what will you do to conquer
the fearful hardness of our hearts?
Lord, you must give us new hearts,
tender hearts, sensitive hearts,
to replace hearts that are made of marble and of bronze.
You must give us your own Heart, Jesus.
Come, lovable Heart of Jesus.
Place your Heart deep in the center of our hearts
and enkindle in each heart a flame of love
as strong, as great, as the sum of all the reasons
that I have for loving you, my God.
O holy Heart of Jesus, dwell hidden in my heart,
so that I may live only in you and only for you,
so that, in the end, I may live with you eternally in heaven.
Amen.
[i] Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson
[ii] Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson
[iii] Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson
[iv] Compline, Evangelical Lutheran Worship.
[v] Bartlett, David L.; Taylor, Barbara Brown. Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Feasting on the Word: Year A volume) (Kindle Locations 12122-12124). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
[vi] Hearts on Fire (St. Louis, MO:Institute of Jesuit Sources 1993) p54.
No comments:
Post a Comment