GREAT FAITH
Isaiah 56:1, 6-8; Matthew 15:10-28
12th Sunday After Pentecost, August 20, 2023
Pastor Ritva H Williams
A group of really religious people is assemble in the waiting room outside the pearly gates. They wait and wait. Folks begin to shift and murmur. Then someone notices that people they knew back on earth as “sinners” are also entering the waiting room: The homeless woman jailed many times for shoplifting. The businessman who performed as a drag queen on Saturday nights. The woman who sold drugs to feed her opioid addiction. The clerk who embezzled company funds to pay her son’s gambling debts. And so forth.
With each of these arrivals, the feeling of hostility increases among the really religious people. They glare at the growing crowd of “sinners." They grumble among themselves. Someone confronts the crowd of sinners, "What makes you think you're going to get in with that evil, sinful life you lived on earth?”
The sinners shuffle their feet, look at one another. The businessman-drag queen steps us and says, ”We are relying on the mercy and grace of God. What makes you so sure you're going to get in?”
"Our good lives, of course." They turned their backs to the “sinners.”
Finally, St Peter ambles into the waiting room. The really religious people start clamoring: “We want judgment. We want justice. After all the sacrifices we’ve made it won’t be fair if those sinners get into heaven too.”
St Peter says, “Let me tell you a story. It’s actually a story you already know. My friend, Matthew wrote down in his gospel. It’s a story about a time when we thought like you.”
It all started when some really religious folk in Jerusalem sent out an investigative team to fact check a rumor about Jesus not enforcing the traditions about defilement — a code word for things that made a person unfit for fellowship with God and God’s worshipping people. It was a complicated issue. Physical contact with vital bodily fluids defiled a person temporarily, hence the need to wash the hands. Eating the wrong foods, worshipping idols, or engaging in violence resulted in a long lasting defilement. Jesus’ ministry was directed to the poor and hungry who couldn’t afford to be picky about what food they ate and most often didn’t have access to clean water for washing up. Like the time he fed 5000 men, together with their women and children in the wilderness.
Jesus taught us that it is not what goes into a person’s mouth that defiles but what comes out. The words we speak reveal the evil intentions and desires of our hearts: murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness and slander. Jesus wanted to change the way we talked to each other and about each other, but even more than that Jesus was concerned about what was going on in our hearts and minds and souls.
Like when that Canaanite woman came running after us, screaming eleison me kyrie — “Have mercy on me Lord, son of David. My daughter is tormented by a demon.” At first Jesus just ignored her, just like any proper rabbi. Among the really religious, rabbis did not even speak to female members of their own families in public. Jesus wasn’t so strict about that, but seriously, this woman wasn’t one of us at all. She was an idol worshipping, pork eating Canaanite, out of control, crying and running after Jesus. She just wouldn’t stop. We asked Jesus, even begged him to send her away, but Jesus wouldn’t send her away. That’s when things got really weird.
Jesus just turned to us and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Yes, of course, Jesus, we already know that. He said it loud enough for the woman to hear him. All she did was rush ahead, and plant herself on the ground at Jesus’ feet, crying, “Lord, help me.” Finally Jesus looked at her and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” We all gave a sigh of relief. At last Jesus was putting this crazy woman in her place. But did that shut her up? No. She came right back with, "“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the masters’ table.” We all thought, “What is she doing now? Trying to school Jesus in how the world works. Oh, now she’s done for.”
But Jesus didn’t respond at all as we expected. Jesus didn’t respond like anyone of us would have if one of our own women tried to school us like that. No. Jesus face lit up with a huge grin. He reached out and took that Canaanite woman by the hand, raised her up and said, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” We later heard that her daughter was healed instantly.
We left shaking our heads trying to figure out what had just happened. This idol worshipping Canaanite woman is the only person who ever one-upped Jesus. This Canaanite woman whom we all thought was totally unfit for fellowship with our God and our people, is the only person to whom Jesus ever said, “Great is your faith.”
Later we came to see that Jesus’ actions and words that day reflected everything we were thinking and feeling in that moment. Ignore the indigenous woman. Tell her our mission is only for the lost sheep of Israel. Tell her we won’t take bread out of our children’s mouths and throw it to dogs. (Sidebar: in our culture, dogs were only one step ahead of pigs).
Then John confessed how uncomfortable the whole interaction had made him. How shocking it was to see and hear Jesus do and say the things we were thinking and feeling. How embarrassingly, shamefully, and gut-wrenchingly painful it was watch our biases and prejudices thrown into the face of this desperate, kneeling mother begging for her daughter’s life. Jesus smiled gently, and said softly, “God loves this world so much, God sent the Christ into the world, not to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be healed and made whole. Learn from this amazing woman what faith in action is all about.”
I think John got it before all the rest of us. But finally I think I understood too. Faith is not demonstrated by stunts like walking on water — that one showed how little faith I had. The Canaanite woman showed us her great faith in her fiercely loyalty to her daughter, boldly asking for help, staunchly persevering when ignored, remaining undaunted in the face of prejudice, fearlessly persisting, and brilliantly turning the insult into a third request for Jesus’ help.
St Peter finished his story and turned to the really religious people in heaven’s waiting room, and said, “Are you sure you want judgment?”
Please pray with me:
Good and gracious God, you declare that your house will be a house of prayer for all peoples. Help us to make it so. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
