“Role Reversal”
A Sermon Preached by the
Rev. Jean Niven Lenk
Sunday, August 14, 2011
First Congregational Church of Stoughton
United Church of Christ
Text: Matthew 15:21-28
In today’s Gospel lesson, we see a side of Jesus that we almost don’t recognize.
In the verses leading up to this passage, Jesus has returned to his hometown of Nazareth where people who have known him since childhood have taken offense at his teachings. He has been distressed by the news of the beheading of John the Baptist. He has been hassled by the religious authorities for not following the ritual law about hand washing. He has become impatient with his disciples who, for the umpteenth time, are unable to “get” the message of his preaching and teaching. And then, to top it all off, crowds of needy people have been relentlessly following him, trying to get his attention, seeking his healing touch.
Jesus is at the breaking point and says, in effect, “That’s it; I’m outta here.” And he tries to get away somewhere by himself.
This isn’t the first time Jesus has tried to find some alone time. In last week’s lesson, we read how he got into a boat to try to get away from all those people who were following him, but when he docked on the opposite shore, there they were. In that story, despite being anguished and worn out, Jesus responded to the crowds in the way we would expect: with compassion.
In today’s passage, however, Jesus is like a completely different person; in fact he comes across not as fully human and fully divine, but as fully human period, with no image of God reflected in his words and actions.
Since his last attempt to get away hadn’t succeeded, this time he decides to go into the enemy territory of Gentile country. Surely the throngs won’t follow him there. But even far from Galilee, Jesus cannot get away from people who need his healing touch.
A Canaanite woman rushes up to him, begging Jesus to heal her afflicted daughter. “Have mercy on my, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” This woman has much going against her. She is a foreigner, a Gentile, and a hated Canaanite. And if that weren’t enough, as a woman in an oppressively patriarchal culture, she is supposed to be seen and not heard. As we begin to read this passage, we anticipate that Jesus will be above the prejudices of society in first century Palestine; we expect him to uplift and affirm this outcast woman; we expect another show of compassion, another miracle, another person made well.
But inexplicably, he ignores her, not even responding to her pleading words.
Undaunted, she keeps shouting after him. The disciples urge Jesus to send her away, and he agrees with them, making a statement that sounds like a rationalization: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Can this be the same Jesus of Nazareth who laid his hands on the sick and the needy, who let their grimy fingers catch hold of his clothes as he walked past? Is this the same Jesus who said, “Let the children come to me”… and “Zaccheus get down out of the tree”… and “bring blind Bartimaeus here”?
And yet, Jesus’ words to the woman say, “You don’t belong. You’re not my concern.” Crushed, she falls on her knees, and cries out once again, “Lord, help me.” And again he dismisses her, this time with the condescending response, “It’s not right to take food out of the hands of your children to feed the stray dogs.”
We struggle with this story, with this depiction of Jesus. And for generations biblical scholars have searched for some reason, some explanation, that would explain away Jesus’ harsh words and inaction.
I suggest that this story is a mirror into the human heart.
Or, more accurately, this story is a mirror into my human heart. Because I have acted just like the Jesus depicted in this story when confronted with pleas for help. I found in our mail basket at home this week all kinds of requests for donations. There are the requests to help illness and disease: Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Easter Seals. There are the requests to help the environment: the Natural Resources Defense Council (two of those), the Ocean Conservancy, and the Defenders of Wildlife. And here’s a request from the Southern Poverty Law Center to support racial and defend against such hate groups as the KKK and Aryan Nation. All good and worthy causes. And you know what’s going to probably happen? All of it will go into the trash.
Ditto with all the requests that come by email. Delete. And the phone calls I don’t answer because I can see from caller ID that it’s one more request from yet another worthy cause.
Maybe you know what I’m talking about.
“A Canaanite woman came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me Lord,’ but he did not answer her at all.”
And I will admit, when a worthy cause has managed to get me on the phone or catch me in person, I have responded with something like, “Oh, I only give through my church” or “I only give to local causes,” or some other statement that says, “You’re not my concern.” As preacher and author Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “You have to draw the line somewhere. You have to decide what you can do and what you cannot do, whom you can help and whom you cannot help, or you will be eaten alive. You will be swallowed whole… because everything you have is not enough to feed the hunger of the world... and we decide to draw the line around our own families and friends, around our own churches and communities and concerns.”[i]
And we understand exactly what she is saying.
But the Canaanite woman is insistent. She won’t take no for an answer.
Sometimes, the images are so heartbreaking, the calls for help are so insistent, the need is so great that something in our hearts cause us to pause, to look, to respond.
On page 4 of your music insert are some pictures of people suffering from the drought in Africa, and there is a separate insert with a more detailed summary of relief efforts there. You know, it would be easy to ignore these faces, to put them out of our minds, to let someone else help. Afterall, they are in another country, another continent, far away from our concerns. They are of a different culture, a different faith tradition, a different nationality. Different, different, different. And every one of these reasons is another brick in the wall we build up between their desperate need and our ability to help. And knowing we can’t do everything, we end up doing nothing.
“And Jesus answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.’”
And we read the first seven verses of this story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman, and we can almost justify our inaction by pointing to the way he responded – or, more correctly, didn’t respond – to her need. We may even begin to wonder, where exactly is God in this story?
I suggest that God’s voice is in the insistent, persistent, relentless words of the woman. She knows Jesus can help her, and she will not yield, she will not give up, until he does.
I can hear the voice of God in her, just as I see myself in Jesus’ excuses and explanations and inaction. It’s a role reversal. And an insistent, persistent, relentless God keeps dogging me, upsetting my orderly world, upending my pragmatic decisions about whom I can help and how much money my budget will allow me to give away. I hear Christ telling me, reminding me again, that I am part of his body; I am his hands and his feet in this world, and so are you; we are brothers and sisters and caretakers of one another, here and across the world; we are all children of God, and we are to take care of one another in this human family.
Maybe you know what I’m talking about.
In the very last verse of this story, Jesus does a “180.” He changes his mind, he stops and pays attention to the Canaanite woman, he hears her need, he responds with compassion, and he heals her daughter.
How about us? Will we allow our hearts to be moved? Will we stop making excuses and building walls, closing our hearts to the cries of the poor and hungry and needy, saying they are not our concern. Will we too do a “180,” and respond to the needs of this hurting world in the name of Christ, serving as his hands and feet and body here on earth? We can begin today with a donation to African famine relief.
And may every bite we eat, every sip we drink, become a prayer for the healing of this hurting world. Amen.
[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), p. 64.
