Advent Lutheran Church

"Crossing the Line (Pentecost 9)"

            Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus.  Amen.

            Sometimes, outsiders can see things that insiders simply cannot.

            Zann Holmes is a professor at the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, and he remembers the time that his eyes were opened by a 6-year-old.  It was Thanksgiving, and his family had gathered at the family home in Victoria, Texas, from all over the United States.  Holmes had just bought a new camera to record the highlights of the day, and he had been busy taking pictures of the various groups of relatives – uncles in one frame, aunts in another, cousins in yet another, and so on.  This was in the pre-digital era, so he had a relatively limited number of shots.  Finally, he was down to his last frame.  He announced to everyone, “OK, now I want everybody in this one.”

            Holmes’ 6-year-old nephew, Jack, heard that; he perked right up, jumped up from his place at the table and ran out of the house.  He started running up and down the sidewalk, yelling to all the neighbors, “Hey everybody, come over to my house!  Uncle Zann’s taking a picture, and he wants you in it!”  Uncle Zann caught up with Jack, knelt down and said, “Uh, Jack, I know that I said everybody, but what I meant was everybody in the family.”  But Jack didn’t understand; he thought that everybody meant … EVERYBODY!

            Sometimes, we insiders need outsiders to give us a greater vision.

            We are troubled by this story that we receive from Matthew’s gospel, troubled because of the portrait that it paints of Jesus.  Jesus and the disciples have been engaged in a teaching and preaching ministry in their home region of Galilee.  It was familiar territory, populated primarily by Jews, like themselves.  It had been a successful ministry, so now they head to the northwest, to the Mediterranean coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.  This was definitely not friendly territory, because it was populated by non-Jews.  As they enter the region, a woman who is native to that area approaches and cries out to Jesus for help.  She’s not Jewish, but she seems to know the language of Jewish worship because she uses some of that language when she appeals to Jesus.  “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David,” she says, “my daughter is tormented by a demon.”  

            What’s remarkable here is that Jesus does not even acknowledge this person who is obviously so desperately in need.  When she pesters him enough that he does finally respond, he seems to talk right past her, saying that he has a very focused, specific ministry, and it’s to the Jews, both the Jews who live in Palestine and those who might have migrated out, perhaps to the region of Tyre and Sidon.  It most certainly is not to non-Jews.

            But this woman won’t be put off.  She comes before Jesus and kneels down in a gesture of worship.  “Lord,” she begs, “help me.”  And that’s when Jesus gets downright offensive.  “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

            Over the years, preachers and Bible commentators have tried to clean up this story, to help Jesus out, protect him from his own bad publicity.  Some of the explanations have gone like this: “He was tired.  It had been a long day.  His temper was short.  He didn’t really mean it.”  That explanation doesn’t work on any level.  Another is this: “He was just testing her faith.  When she demonstrated that she had enough faith, he gave her what she wanted.”  Not only is that explanation not supported anywhere else in Scripture, it has caused great pain over the generations, pain to people who have heard in those words a condemnation of their own faith.  “If you had just had enough faith, your spouse, partner, brother, child would not have died.”  That is patently unbiblical, and cruel.  Another explanation goes like this: The word that Jesus used to describe this woman, “dog,” really translates as “little puppy.”  But do you really think that softens the blow?

No, the Bible doesn’t clean up this story.  The only explanation we have comes to us from traditional, orthodox Christian theology: Jesus Christ was both fully divine and fully human at the same time.  We’re fine with the fully divine part; we just wish that he wasn’t quite so human.  However, if we had been there – if we had been traveling with Jesus and been part of that era in history – we wouldn’t have been surprised or shocked by his words.  In fact, we would have been surprised if he had referred to her in any other way.

Jesus, a Jew, calls this woman, a Canaanite, a dog.  Anyone from Jewish Palestine at that time would have done the same.  Canaanites and Jews both traced their ancestry back to the same towering figure at the beginning of the history of Israel, back to Father Abraham.  But the Canaanites were descended from Ishmael, Abraham’s illegitimate son; Jews were descended from Isaac, the son whom God had promised to Abraham.  So there was legitimate and illegitimate, insider and outsider.  And this woman was clearly a member of the outsider group.

“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  There are a lot of ways you can respond to a remark like that.  How would you have responded?  You could endure it; hang your head in shame and slink away.  You can refute it: “No, sir; I am not a dog.”  You can do what we often do; you can return it: “Oh, so I’m a dog, am I?  Oh yeah?  Well, you’re nothing but a _____.”  We can escalate, turning words into fists into rocks into guns into bombs into wars, it happens all the time.

Or, we can, like this woman did, find a new way.  Like this:

“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

“Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”  This woman may well have been aware of an event that had happened just a few days before.  Then, on a hillside in his native Galilee, Jesus fed more than 5,000 people.  When the feast was over, his disciples picked up the leftovers.  There were 12 baskets filled with those leftovers; 12 baskets, 12 tribes of Israel.  As a matter of fact, the children have been fed!  Surely, there is enough leftover, enough of God’s grace and mercy and compassion, enough left over for just one more!?  And that’s when Jesus says, “Woman, great is your faith!  Let it be done for you as you wish.”

It may be that this woman – this outsider, this one who didn’t belong – awakened Jesus to a more expanded, expansive vision of his own ministry, one that was not restricted but was intended for all of humanity.  It certainly wouldn’t be the first time for a divine change of mind.  Several times in the Old Testament we see examples where God changes God’s mind, changes course, decides on a revised plan of action that was different from God’s original intent.  But it’s worth nothing that whenever God changes God’s mind it’s never in the direction of greater condemnation, harsher judgment, more-severe punishment. When God changes God’s mind it’s always toward greater forgiveness, more abundant mercy, more lavish grace.

And that raises an interesting question for us: If Jesus can be changed, can we?

It seems as if every generation sees some people – individuals or groups – that it classifies as “other,” people we would just rather keep under the table.  Each one of us could probably come up with a list of people we see as different, whether in race or social status or politics or religion.  Judging from the results of the 2010 Census, that list is liable to grow. 

It’s clear from the census that we are in the midst of sweeping change in the United States.  That change is reflected in a story on the census in USA Today, which began with this: “The U.S. is bigger, older, more Hispanic and Asian and less wedded to marriage and traditional families than it was in 1990. It also is less enamored of kids, more embracing of several generations living under one roof, more inclusive of same-sex couples, more cognizant of multiracial identities, more suburban, less rural and leaning more to the South and West.  The end of the first decade of the 21st century marks a turning point in the nation's social, cultural, geographic, racial and ethnic fabric.  It's a shift so profound that it reveals an America that seemed unlikely a mere 20 years ago.”

No wonder we see reactions like the elderly woman at one of the town hall meetings on health care who said, with tears in her eyes, “I want my America back!”  I assume she was referring to the America of her youth, an America in which she felt comfortable, an America that was familiar to her, an America that she knew before she experienced it being taken from her by those she would classify as “the other,” or “them.”

These are angry, tense times in our country.  Recent polling tells the story: Half of us disapprove of the way our president is doing his job; over three-fourths of us disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job; nearly three-fourths think our country is headed in the wrong direction; consumer confidence is at a 30-year low.  We are anxious about the future.  Some of us are angry at our elected leaders for being too intolerant; some of us are angry at them for not being intolerant enough.  The average citizen is caught up in a whirlwind that we can’t control, and it leaves us frustrated, feeling powerless.

It is precisely at times like these when it is extremely easy to draw a line between “us” and “them,” whoever “they” might be – and it’s exactly that line that Jesus crossed.  It’s worth remembering that whenever we draw that line, Jesus is always on the other side.  He crosses it all the time; he crosses it now just as he crossed it with this Canaanite woman – so that he might be a carrier of God’s grace and mercy.

“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 

“Yes, Lord, but even the dogs are grateful for the crumbs that fall from your table, because even the crumbs bring healing and wholeness and new life.”

I like to think that Jesus remembered his encounter with this Canaanite woman; that he remembered it especially on that evening when he gathered with his disciples for what would be their last supper together.  I like to think that he remembered her words to him as he picked up the bread, so that when he broke it for them, he broke it with a special love and a special joy, broke it so that the crumbs flew everywhere, so that everyone would be sure to be fed!

And so it comes down to us.  From that first breaking of the bread, 2,000 years ago, the crumbs continue to fall.  And those crumbs are enough; enough to sustain you when you are flat-out afraid because of the economy, disappointed in your elected officials, uneasy about the future.  May the presence of Christ in the crumbs remind you of the only thing in this life that really endures – the love of God, which comes to you as complete gift, and begs to be shared.  Cross the line, and join with Christ.  Amen.