Proper 15 -- Isaiah 56: 1 – 7; Psalm 67; Romans 11: 13 – 15, 29 – 32; Matthew 15: 21 – 28
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, August 17th, 2008
Ever meet or encounter a pest?
If you’re a parent, or have had occasion to be around children for any length of time, you have. Remember how a child can be a pest, constantly begging for something, becoming “irksome” in the process?
Children often tend to focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes, that “one thing” can become the defining reality in their lives. So, in response, they will nag a grownup in their lives until they get what they want (or are sent away for awhile).
They become “pesky”, a word the dictionary defines as “irksome” or “bothersome”, a word that’s derived from the word “pest”.
“Pesky” is a word that could describe the Canaanite woman who came to Jesus, seeking help for her daughter. “Persistant” is another word that would accurately describe her crusade to get deliverance for her daughter, for she did not take “No” for an answer, but came back again and again, even to the point of using Jesus’ response to turn the argument in her favor.
“Pesky persistence” is that unrelenting quest to ask for help from the Lord, for as long and and as often as it takes to get that help. The Canaanite woman is a testimony to faith, for she recognized Jesus’ ability to deliver her daughter from all that afflicted her.
Let’s unpack this Gospel reading just a bit.
We begin, as we often do, with the context of today’s passage: Jesus has left the area around the Sea of Galilee, and has headed north and west toward the coastal area of the Mediterranean Sea (the area of modern Lebanon). In so doing, He seems to be heading away from the traditional area of Palestine, that area in which the Jews of His day lived. He’s going into Gentile territory.
On this journey away, He encounters the Canaanite woman, a person who is descended from the inhabitants of Palestine before the ancient Israelites entered it on their way from Egypt into the Promised Land, 1,400 years before.
We would do well to pause here for a moment and set the cultural context of today’s encounter: The Canaanite woman is an outsider, on three accounts: 1. She is a Canaanite, not a Jew (and therefore, she is a Gentile), 2. She lives outside the Jewish territory, and 3. She is a woman.
Culturally, Jews would have had nothing to do with any Gentile person, if it could be avoided, and a man would not have spoken to a woman who was not a member of his family in public.
But the woman, driven by her extreme need, breaks through all the cultural barriers that separate her from Jesus and His power to heal. She initiates the conversation. Moreover, she won’t take “No” for an answer: When her entreaty to the disciples produces no response, she approaches Jesus in person. In the process, she endures what seems to be a cultural “slam” against her, for Jesus says that “It isn’t fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Jesus’ comment seems to indicate that the food God provides is intended for the children of Israel, and not for Gentiles, those “unclean” peoples who are “unclean” just as dogs were in ancient times.
The woman’s need is no childish matter….Unlike a child, who can focus on one item or idea, and can become a pest in pursuit of whatever it is that has taken hold of their imagination, the Canaanite woman’s focus and resulting “peskiness” comes from the reality of life-and-death, physically and spiritually, for her daughter.
What are we to make of this Canaanite woman’s “great faith”?
What lessons are there for us?
We can draw many lessons from her example. I offer the following:
- There are no atheists on foxholes: Many of you will recognize this old Army phrase from previous sermons. The truth of the statement stands, however….When things become a matter of life-and-death in our lives, we often remember – and turn to – God. Unfortunately, for many people, that’s the only time they remember to turn to God, only when the needs that intrude into our lives become a matter of our very welfare.
- Deep need often produces the ability to see God’s power: The Canaanite woman had obviously heard about Jesus and the miraculous healings He had done, even in the remote area (by Jewish standards, at least) in which she lived. The word had “gotten out” about Jesus and the coming of the Kingdom. Interestingly enough, the woman can see Jesus’ power and can demonstrate “great faith” at a time when many Jews had rejected Jesus and His message of the Kingdom.
- Indifference (God and ours): Many people think of God as being indifferent to the conditions in the world, and especially to the human condition. That was the classic conviction of the Deists of the 17th and 18th centuries: that God had created the world and everything in it, but then God walked away from the world he had created. Thus, it became easy for men and women to come to the conclusion that we are “pretty much alone down here” on earth. In such circumstances, people can become pretty indifferent to God, living their lives as if there was no God at all, as if there was no reality beyond themselves, their rights and wants.
A few final comments are in order…..
Far from being indifferent to our needs, God seems to be quite willing to listen to our petitions, and to even change His mind, based on the prayers of His faithful people. Consider Abraham’s bargaining with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18: 22 – 32): Abraham begins by asking if God “will sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” In the process of the back-and-forth between God and Abraham, we read that God agreed, at first, not to destroy the two cities if 50 righteous people could be found there. In the end, God agreed not to destroy them if only ten righteous could be found there. Abraham had succeeded in changing God’s mind!
Somehow, we take God’s unchanging nature and God’s all-powerful character as indications that God would not take the time to be concerned about the circumstances of our lives. But, again, the Scriptures present another picture. The proof can be seen in the sending of God’s only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to intervene in the affairs of this world. It’s important to remember that it is God’s reaching out to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ that sets Christianity apart from all other concepts of the divine in the world. The others tell us we must reach out to God, while Christianity presents the reality of God’s reaching out to us in Jesus Christ. The initiative is God’s!
So, we can risk some “pesky persistence” in our prayer life, offering to God again and again, if need be, the deepest burdens of our hearts. For our deepest needs – the “foxholes” of our lives - can be the place from which we remember that God alone can meet those needs. In the process of offering our needs to God, we are changed as our relationship with God becomes personal, just as the Canaanite woman’s did.
For God the Father is “more ready to hear than we are to pray”[1]. God our Father encourages us with His promise to respond, saying “Ask, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened to you, seek, and you will find.” (Matthew 7: 7).
AMEN.
[1] The Collect for the Day for Proper 22, Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p. 234
