Rev. Debra Cato
Matthew 15:10-20; 21-28
Fairfield Community Church
September 3, 2023

O Holy Creator, you spoke all of creation into being, we ask that you
keep speaking to us now. Speak to us as we read Scripture; speak that we
might hear your voice ringing clear and concise through the many voices
around us. Speak to us so that we might hear and understand. Amen.

 

 

A Dog’s Faith

 

This week’s scripture takes Jesus from one intense encounter to another as he weaves his way between those who keep tradition and those on the other side of the holy wall of Israel.  We expect this of Jesus; His pushing against religious tradition.  But this morning, we are in for something unusual from Jesus.  Did you catch his unexpected reactions?  His confusing responses to the cries for help?  Jesus’ different than normal responses of compassion that allows us to open our imagination to the humanity of Jesus and examine our own responses to situations we face today?

First-century Jewish religious teaching is dominated with long lists of instructions about what and when things could be touched or eaten.  Just take a look at Leviticus 11 if you don’t believe me.  In fact, that would be some light Sunday afternoon reading for you!  These dietary laws were commanded by God to the Israelites as they journeyed to the Promised Land.  But Jesus turns these traditions on their head.  He is more concerned about what comes out of our bodies that can contaminate and hurt the world than he is about what goes in.

In fact, Jesus is down-right crude!  “Don’t you see that whatever goes into your mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” Jesus says.  But what comes out of your mouth  – the evil; the lies; the hurt; the hate; that’s what’s toxic, he says. 

No surprise – religious tradition means nothing if the heart isn’t right.  Jesus is consistent about this, about the condition of the heart, which is why I think his encounter with the Canaanite woman is so confusing.  In fact, Jesus’ attitude and language with the woman is downright shocking! 

This is a desperate mom who wants healing for her demon-possessed daughter. “Lord, Son of David.  Have mercy on me.”   Jesus ignores her!  He seems deaf to her cries for help; refusing to even acknowledge her.  But she refuses to give up!  “Lord, help me!” she cries.  Jesus tells this frantic mother that his mission is “only to the lost sheep of Israel”.  He can’t; actually, he won’t help her.  I came to save the Jews, he says.  Not the Gentiles.  Certainly not the Canaanites who were despised by the Israelites! 

Still, she persists.  She’s got nothing to lose. She’s pleading for her daughter. Finally, Jesus calls her a dog – a name that his fellow Jews called Gentile pagans.  “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” Jesus says.  Is this really Jesus?  Is the Son of God showing signs of prejudice?  Is Jesus admitting to limits on God’s mercy?  This is not the Jesus I know!

For many years, my ministry was housing families experiencing homeless-ness in Pierce County – in western Washington.  In fact, that’s what I was doing when God called me to go to seminary.  We had a shelter program where we worked with 5 families at a time stay while they waited for permanent housing.  These families come from living in their cars, in parks, in the streets, places not meant for human habitation.  They got services during the day at our Day Center and then they received dinner and spent the night at host churches in the community. 

We also had 95 families living in permanent supportive housing.  These were families that were chronically homeless, living with disabilities that were now permanently housed in apartments that also received support with case management.  

We also had a large program for veterans – both single adults and veteran families experiencing homelessness.  The last year I was there, we served a total of 800 families experiencing homelessness in Pierce County.  Think about that.  800 families.  It sounds like a lot, and it is but it’s a drop in the bucket.  In 2016, (that’s the last year I worked there) there were 3,483 households experiencing homeless in our community.  In 2022, Spokane County had 2,390 people homeless plus 1,435 people living in shelters.  This was a 36% increase from 2021.   Spokane County’s population is approximately 229,000 people while Pierce County’s population is approximately 925,000 people – just to put it in prospective.

 Anyway - I wonder if is it these; the homeless in our community, that would be called dogs today?  They are the people “outside” the accepted ones in our society.  Outside the “holy wall” so to speak.

 Like the frantic mom, it is the homeless who cry out, “Lord, son of David, have mercy on me!” Are these the ones who like the Canaanite woman are ignored?  Is it the poorest of the poor in this rich country of ours who endure, crying out for compassion, but are told you don’t belong to the people who we are helping?  To the people being saved.  To the people who matter?

 When we engage with others, we learn about their humanity.  We understand them – that they have feelings and needs not unlike ours.  We come to see that like us, they desire mercy and healing and compassion.  When we sit down and eat dinner with families experiencing homelessness; when we talk with them and get to know them, we realize how much we have in common.  When we get close enough, we see that we are more alike than different; that we are all children of God.

That’s why the hate and racism and violence we are seeing is so hard for me to understand.  It’s tearing me apart.  I don’t know what to do with it.  I can’t understand how people can hate so deeply.  Seems there’s enough hate for everyone.  People of color are dogs.  Jews are dogs.  LGBTQ are dogs.  Anyone who believes differently; a dog.  Refugees; dogs.  Women; dogs.  This toxic hate comes from a place deep within and it is evil.  Friends, white supremacy is a sin.  It comes from bad, bad theology and the Church needs to repent from it.  We are more alike than different. Like the Canaanite woman, we must cry out with persistence, “Lord, help us!”  and then we must act.  With love and compassion and respect and earnestness.  Religious tradition means nothing if the heart isn’t right. 

 There’s a sonnet by Emma Lazarus on a plaque on the inner wall of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, also known as the “Mother of Exiles.”

From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome…

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched reuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I left my lamp beside the golden door!”

Luke Power, dean of Duke University Chapel suggests it could be re-written to say this:

 “Give me those you consider dogs.

Send these to me:

The refugee, the alien, the foreigner, and more.

Send the wretched refuse, the ailing daughters of ostracized women,

Because they yearn to be free.

The unnamed Canaanite woman reaches out to touch the golden door of God, to set her daughter free.”

It’s not the stuff we eat; the stuff we put in our mouth that defiles us.  It’s the words; the ugliness; the evil; the hate that is toxic. 

For the Canaanite woman in today’s passage, justice was not some abstract thing.  She perseveres in the face of cultural norms.  Oh, she understood them! She knows where she’s from, but Jesus walked into her neighbor-hood and she’s going to take full advantage.  She knows she’s a woman, but she’s fighting for justice for her daughter.  She knows she’s a Canaanite, but she’s fighting for her beloved daughter who needs her. This woman does not give up easily.  She presses up against Jesus’ resistance.  She continues to speak up until he listens.  She pushes until she gets what she wants.   Her daughter is in desperate need.  She may be from the wrong side of the holy wall. She may be considered unclean; undesirable; but she’s as human as you and me.  She doesn’t give up.  This is her daughter.  She doesn’t allow Jesus’ insensitivity and insulting words to deter her.  “Yes, Lord.” She says.  “Yet, even the dogs eat crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  She speaks the truth, and because of it, she breaks through whatever is holding Jesus back.  Her faith is great, he says.  Her faith heals her daughter. 

 The Canaanite woman teaches us that God’s mercy is for everyone. Everyone.  Every single person this society dares to call a dog; God calls a beloved child; created in His image.  Every single one.  Even you and me!  Praise God!  Am I right?!

So, how do we make sense of Jesus’ interaction with this Gentile woman?  Was Jesus really being the jerk it sounds like?  Did even Jesus have moments of intolerance; is it even possible he was a bigot?  Is it possible that Jesus had something to learn? Did this Canaanite woman, desperate for her daughter, challenge him to reach beyond the boundaries of his faith to enlarge his own claims of God’s justice and mercy?  What do you make of it?

 Or is Jesus trying to challenge our own reactions?  Is he trying to show us our own prejudices by his own shocking behavior? 

Friends,  the truth is, we will never know!  Scripture doesn’t tell us.  What we do know is that the persistence of the woman gets her daughter healed.  Her continued pleas get answered.  The daughter is healed.  She’s able to lead a normal life because her mother, who was “outside the holy walls” believed in Jesus’ healing power.  She believed in God’s justice and mercy.  Her belief and persistence was enough.

The rest is for us to figure out.  It’s for us to figure out and examine our own beliefs and prejudices and understandings.  Thanks Be to God.  Amen.