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Even Jesus Needed to be Reminded to be Inclusive
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| 8/15/1999 |
Only a foolish preacher, in these hot
summer months when a congregation hopes for short, snappy sermons with lots of
funny stories about how blessed they are in God’s love, would preach a sermon
about the sin of hatred and scourge of racism.I am that foolish preacher!
But the events of this week demand it,
and the Gospel today calls for it. When Buford Furrow opened fire on school children in a Jewish community
center, because he was filled with hate and believed that Jews are a threat to
white Americans, and then killed a Filipino postal worker because he was
nonwhite and an employee of the Federal government, I suspect that the heart of
God broke. I know that mine
did. We have been so bombarded by
the actions of ignorant hatred that it has become psychically exhausting. From the bombing of the Oklahoma City
Federal building, to the vicious killings at Columbine High School, to the
senseless murder of Andrew Shepard, and now the shooting this week of
preschoolers, to name just a few, the carnage creates a fatigue within us that
leads to apathy about the effects of ignorant hatred rather than creative
engagement with it. But we are
called, as Christians, to be the agents of change.Jesus changed, can we?
We have before us this morning one of the
most important Gospel teachings on reaching across boundaries to be open to the
person different than the norm.It
teaches us, amazingly, in first showing us Jesus in a less-than-positive light,
and then showing him change.Are
we all not to change?
Here is the
text:
Jesus went away to the district of Tyre
and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started
shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a
demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him,
saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was
sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt
before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the
children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the
dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered
her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her
daughter was healed instantly.
Matthew
15:21-28
Why didn’t Jesus, at first, answer the
Canaanite woman who cried out to him to heal her daughter who was severely
possessed of a demon? He clearly
heard her.Jesus had not yet
refused a request of any person seeking healing. Demon possession, blindness, a sickness unto death, Jesus
heard everyone’s needs, but this woman he did not acknowledge.
When he heard her crying out, but did not
respond, his disciples grew weary, begging Jesus to “send her away,” because
they grew tired of her crying.Still, Jesus did not respond.
Why?
Two possibilities. One, she is a woman, and in the time
and culture that Jesus lived, women were to be invisible and silent, certainly
not making requests of a man of healing and teaching like Jesus.
The other possibility: she is a
Canaanite, she is not a Jew, like Jesus. Her ethnicity is “Syrophonecian,” meaning she is one the Jews despise as
foreigners and the unclean. She
cries out, and Jesus remains silent.
Was it because she was a woman, or
because she was from an ethnic and racial group that Jesus had been taught by
his culture to despise that he remained silent? For both reasons?
Jesus tells his disciples, “I was sent
only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” suggesting that his reason for
snubbing the persistent woman was that she was not a Jew. But Jesus did not
withhold healing from the Roman soldier when he pleaded to Jesus on behalf of
his dying slave. The gospels are
full of accounts of Jesus reaching across boundaries to heal the sick. What is happening here? Clearly, the intent of his mission was
to reach beyond the racial and ethnic boundaries of his cultural world.If not, why are we here, since this
congregation certainly doesn’t represent “lost sheep of Israel”.
This woman, who is nameless, no doubt a
widow or a scorned woman, who loves her daughter very much, convinces Jesus to
change his mind. She convinces
Jesus to see the world differently, that those who are the chosen of God are
not the only important ones. She
tells Jesus that all of humanity can receive God’s blessings, not just the ones
who consider themselves as special and chosen.
When Jesus refuses to acknowledge her,
pretending her to be invisible, reflecting the experience the minority has had
over the eons of living in a majority culture, she breaks through Jesus’
defenses and throws herself at his feet. She’s an assertive, if not an uppity woman[1], who loves her
daughter so much, she will do anything for her. Further, her faith in Jesus as Lord, Savior, Healer, Son of
David, is so more refined than that of those closest to Jesus, for she is in
greatest need. She doesn’t
question him; she doesn’t challenge him. She worships him and relies on him.
Jesus is harsh, if not rude, if not
derogatory and, to use contemporary terms, racist. Kneeling before him, she simply asks for the help he has
given freely to so many, and he responds, “It is not fair to take the
children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
There is no sugar coating that sentence,
though commentators have tried for centuries. Jesus knew what he was doing, they write; he was simply
testing the authenticity of the woman’s faith; he was doing what was best for
her.
But there is no escaping that he called
her a dog, and that “dog” was a clear ethnic epithet--a racial slur--toward
this Gentile woman. Decorum
prevents from using the word related to a dog that we use in our language, and
Jesus’ use of the word “dog” in his own language
I know it may seem too bold, if not
arrogant and sacrilegious on my part, to suggest that Jesus is using “hate
speech.” No matter his motives, I
respectfully suggest that hate speech is always hate speech. I think the woman in the story knows
it’s hate speech, as shown in her response.
She is kneeling before Jesus, and after
he calls her a dog, I imagine her not dropping her head but staring him in the
eye, and breathing deeply in her lungs the air of God’s love for her, and then
carefully and slowly speaking her words with pride, firmness and
assurance. “Even a dog gets to eat
the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”
In my mind’s eye, I see a long, and quite
uncomfortable, silence pass between them. She refuses to break her stare. Finally, it is Jesus who speaks, “Woman, great is your faith.”
I believe she has changed him. I believe that you and I today are the
inheritors of her prophetic action. In this moment, we see that Jesus has the capacity and the power to be
inclusive of all of God’s children and not just the chosen few who look the
right way, come from the right family, and have the right connections.
That Jesus expanded his vision to include
this woman who was considered ethnically inferior as worthy of the Kingdom of
God means that we, who follow Jesus today, must always expand our vision to
include those who do not fit the status quo.
This example comes to mind.
I was quite moved when former President
Gerald Ford argued persuasively last week in an editorial that the vision of an
inclusive America is under attack. Commenting on efforts to end affirmative action programs at his alma
mater, the University of Michigan, he writes, “Of all the triumphs that have
marked this century. . . , none is more inspiring yet
incomplete, than our pursuit of racial justice.” He concludes his piece by saying that the ending of
affirmative action programs mocks the vision of an inclusive America, that,
“Carl Sandburg had in mind when he wrote, ‘The Republic is a dream. Nothing
happens unless first a dream.’ Lest we forget: America
remains a nation with have-nots as well as haves. Its government is obligated to provide for hope no less than
for the common defense.”[2]
President Ford is making the point we can
gather from the account of Jesus with the Caananite woman. As America must strive, through hard
work and reparation for past injustice, to be truly inclusive of all its
citizens, the Christian must strive, through the hard work of living out the
baptismal covenant, to be truly inclusive of all of God’s children. Where President Ford speaks of America,
the Christian speaks of the world. Remember, we promise, as Christians, “to seek and serve Christ in all
persons,” and “respect the dignity of every human being.” How much easier the Christian life
would be if all were many and every human being was most human beings,
especially the ones like us.
So, when Serbian Christians kill, in the
name of ethnic cleansing, Albanian Muslims, because Christianity is seen as
superior, then we, who see Jesus changed by that nameless woman, must speak
out. When we hear an ethnic or
racist joke, and laugh rather than speak up, we admit we forsake the message
the Gospel gives us this day. When
we see mistreatment of gays and lesbians, we must show our own actions of
inclusive love. When
African-Americans must enter a public building adorned with the Confederate
flag, we, who have been saved by Jesus, must show the power of reconciliation
far more comforting than living in a tragic past.
I know I am not perfect, nor near
perfect, on any of these matters. Thankfully, God is not finished with me yet. Where I am weak, I pray you, my Christian brother and sister
are strong. Where you are weak, I
will strive to be strong. Together, we will be the inclusive community of Christ that proclaims
the inclusive Kingdom of God. Look! Jesus changed and
grew when the Caananite woman fell at his feet and spoke the harsh words of
truth. You and I can change.
One more story seems to fit for the
conclusion of this sermon. Two
summers ago, I was privileged to have a private conversation with Archbishop
Desmond Tutu. He was in New York,
having chemotherapy for prostate cancer. He had been working non-stop on the difficult work of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, and he was away for a short time for
treatment. With some trepidation I
asked him a question I ask many who suffer with cancer: “Archbishop, what have
you learned from your cancer?”
With a deep pensive look in his eyes, he
said, “I have learned that life is too short to be filled with so much
hatred.I don’t think we realize
how much time we waste on hate until the end, when we can’t get the time back.”
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior,
teaches us the same this day.May
we have the power, resolve and grace to take this lesson to heart, and work for
those who know not yet the power of its truth. Amen.
[1] New
Testament professor Sharon Ringe writes, “The Church has trouble with uppity
women,” in her tesrrific essay “A Gentile Woman’s Story,” in Feminist
Interpretation of the Bible, Letty M.
Rusell, editor, the Westminster Press, 1985; pages 65-78.I have relied heavily on her exegesis
[2] Gerald R.
Ford, “Inclusive America, Under Attack,” The New York Times, August 8, 1999, Section: The Week in Review, p. 15
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