August 16, 2020 | Scripture, Sermon, & Prayers

How did the Word sit with you on this already hot morning?  If you’re feeling perturbed a bit by this morning’s Gospel reading, it’s okay. I found myself trying to gauge whether it was the extra hot weather all week that had me so fussy about the text for this week, or if it’s just the text itself that doesn’t seem to sit well. Unlike other stories of Jesus explaining a parable and then performing a miracle, this one feels off. Did you feel that way, too?

            First, Jesus starts by saying “Look, it’s not what you put in your mouth that defiles, it’s what comes out of your mouth.” I like this, as a former crash dieter who has always had food hang-ups. This first bit is okay. I can use this. It’s also a snappy comeback to pick out and use whenever I want. Unfortunately, we know that scripture can’t just be the good little bumper-sticker slogans, but has to be taken as a whole to be fully understood. So on we go, let’s get uncomfortable.

After Jesus says this, the Pharisees are up in arms about it. If there was Twitter in the first century, I can imagine all the Pharisees tweeting about how what Jesus has said is an attack on their religion (because, well, it kinda was a low blow, aimed at the Jewish purity laws) and how very mad they were about it, ignoring that if only good, helpful, loving things came out of their mouths then whatever went in wouldn’t be up for discussion. Jesus was Jewish himself, he followed many of the same rules when it came to what to eat, he was saying, “Just pay attention to what comes out of your mouth,” but instead, the pharisees were upset with the way he worded it. Jesus wasn’t on Twitter, he was probably an Instagram guy. Or maybe LinkedIn—All the connections in the world, and not owned by Facebook. Either way, the disciples, who had multiple Social Media accounts, let Jesus know that the pharisees were tweeting about him.

So Jesus says the first thing that makes me incredibly uncomfortable in this morning’s reading: “Let them alone, they are blind guides of the blind.” Oof. We’ll come back to why this makes me uncomfortable in a minute, but for now we’ll finish walking through this story.

Peter wants the parable explained. Maybe it’s for the benefit of the pharisees who are still probably in a heightened state, waiting for more ammunition so they can get upset at Jesus again, or maybe Peter truly didn’t get “Don’t be a holy jerk.” when he first heard the parable. Jesus questions this,  “Really, Pete? You still don’t get it?” And he responds with potty humor. He talks about the digestive process, everything ending up in the sewer, which, as the mom of kids in the tween-teen ages, I appreciate, and then he says that it’s when evil intentions come from the heart that we can really truly become worse than an unserviced port-a-potty in 111 degree heat. Defiled.

Jesus also says that unwashed hands do not defile. That’s what this whole thing was about, just before our reading started, the Pharisees had asked Jesus why they start eating without washing their hands, thus starting this whole teachable moment. However, please, if you pluck one bit of wisdom from today’s Gospel, do not hold too tightly to this bit about unwashed hands. Jesus wasn’t giving this chat during a pandemic. Wash your hands, please. What he is saying is that all the clean-eating, raw, keto, vegan diets in the world won’t matter if you’ve got garbage in your heart. Being open to God’s love, sharing this love with others, is above all other rules. Even if it means eating a gmo carb. Following the law is important (Remember,Jesus says he isn’t here to take down the Law, but to uphold it) but if you can’t multitask and follow the law while being a good human at the same time, then being a good human takes priority.

So then, we start the second half of this morning’s story. The part where things get really uncomfortable.

Jesus and company come to the district of Tyre and Sidon, and as they’re approaching a woman comes to him. In Mark 7, where we find the writer of Mark’s version of this event, Jesus is in someone’s private residence, hoping to go unnoticed. That detail didn’t make it into Matthew’s story, but to my mind, it sounds like Jesus is, once again, tired. Maybe irritable. He was hoping no one would find him. In Matthew, we don’t get this backstory for the events that unfold. We are simply told that on the way there, a Canaanite woman approaches him, shouting.

Quick refresher on the Canaanites before this interaction takes place: they were the indigenous peoples of what became Israel, and were at this point in history a displaced people. Hold that in your mind as we get to these next parts.

The Canaanite woman is yelling and shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon!” As a Canaanite, she is a Gentile. She is an outsider to him. Her ancestors have been displaced from their land by his, yet she comes to him, recognizing him as not only Lord, but also as someone from royal Jewish lineage. Keeping track of where the power lies in any given situation is important, because it gives more insight to the interaction.

Her daughter is possessed by demons. We can often read into what it meant to be possessed by demons at this time. We can infer mental or physical illness into many of these situations, though we need to be careful when we do so to make sure that it isn’t just being done to fit our own narrative. What we do know for sure is that someone with a child who is possessed is a) used to advocating on her child’s behalf, b) most certainly an outcast, which means that as a gentile in a jewish area, this woman is pushed even farther to the margins, and c) she’s probably exhausted and looking for help from the most unlikely places. So she makes the desperate decision to plead to Jesus for assistance.

And Jesus straight up ignores her. Just keeps walking. Where is the bereft, but not too grief stricken to heal and feed the masses Jesus from just a chapter ago? She’s at his feet and he keeps walking. His disciples ask that Jesus do something about it, she’s just so persistently yelling at us, and can’t we just get there in peace? It’s unclear whether by “send her away” they mean he should dismiss her, or if they mean “send the demons away”, which is a gentler way of reading it, but by Jesus’ responds, I think we can guess they’re wanting to be rid of the woman and her possessed daughter.

Here’s where it gets super cringey. Jesus resonds with “Not in my job description, lady. I’m here for the lost sheep of Israel.”

Yikes.

As we used to say in high school, Dissed and Dismissed. I don’t know if they still say this, but it fits here. Jesus was not being nice.

And that’s hard to hear. We tend to think of Jesus as the nice guy who is ever merciful and here we see him on an off day.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

She blocked his path, kneeling, saying “Lord, help me.”

Jesus, again, fires one back at her. “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” This is the burn of the century. No matter how you translate it, re-read it, or do mental gymnastics to soften it, jesus calls her a dog. Dogs, in the first century, were not like my spoiled little corgi who is, as I speak, laying on his back, konked out and dreaming of the delicious wet food topper I’ll put in his bowl of kibble later, before he climbs the doggy stairs we have so he can get up to the bed with us. Dogs were persistent scavengers. They were pests. He has called her a scavenging pest, he has reduced her to less than human. He has essentially called her the “B-Word.”

Our Jesus! The Prince of Peace! The “That they may all be one” guy! Except, here, he is only worried about other Jewish people. This Canaanite woman, this displaced granddaughter of indigenous peoples, is nothing but a howling animal.

But then, and here is the truly beautiful moment of this whole reading, she turns the tables on him. “Yes, Lord, yet even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

In that, she challenges what he has said. She challenges him to reconsider how he sees her, because how, in all of his anti-imperial speeches against the colonization of Rome, how can he ignore that she has just shown him to be as much the colonizer of her people as she says “Master’s Table.”? How can he ignore what he had JUST PREACHED at the beginning of this pericope, about it not mattering what goes in one’s mouth, but what comes out of it. He has been challenged to uphold his own teaching.

This is a profound learning moment.

So Jesus responds with, “Great is your faith!” and her daughter is healed on the spot.

This is a hard interaction to read because it is so uncharacteristic of the “Jesus, without sin” image we carry, but what we learn here is that it is not a sin to learn better and then do better. We witness growth, personal growth, within this short story. We see that Jesus is caught not fully practicing what he preaches, and instead of throwing a tantrum or shutting her out even further, Jesus heals the girl, and after all of the times he’s been the teacher, today he has been taught.

We can take a lot from this “Know better, do better” story. My first suggestion for us comes from the text itself. Remember how I said the blind leading the blind thing bothered me? This is one “know better, do better” that we can do immediately. Just as Jesus learned that he could go off-job description to help this woman, we can also learn to use better words when we encounter texts like this. Blind guides of the blind is ableist language that we rarely question when we encounter it, especially since it has Biblical roots. We’ve come a long way from the first century, however. We know better, we fully embrace the god-created wonder of every person, and we must do better by not using examples like blindness to illustrate our points, especially if we’re using it in a negative sense. Same thing with using the term “Blind Spot” when we really mean our growing edges.

My second suggestion is that we look back at our own stories for areas of growth, or growth potential. There’s a criteria in biblical scholarship for determining the historical accuracy of a story, and it is, would this story be an embarrassment to Jesus if he knew it was published widely? If so, then it can be assumed to have really happened. This story is a calling out in the biggest way, it pairs his teaching with him not behaving the way he just told other people to behave. It reminds me of every time I’ve been called out for my words and actions not syncing up, I wouldn’t want that published and distributed. We can assume this story is doubly accurate because it shows up two times in all it’s cringe-worthy glory. And yet, it was important enough to the writers of the Gospels Matthew and Mark that they kept it. Growth is a powerful thing, even when it’s uncomfortable and embarrassing. Even when it challenges us in the middle of the road, pointing out all of our flaws. Jesus took the challenge, he grew. He didn’t force his apostles to never mention the miracle of being called out and learning from his misstep. We can do the same. It is a Christian, biblically-supported action to examine when we behaved very poorly indeed, and do better next time. We should always be learning and doing better. I hope that if I revisit this sermon in the future I cringe at it because I’ve learned better and can deliver a better one.

As we go into this blisteringly hot week that will undoubtedly irk us and make us irritable, if we find ourselves doing something or speaking in a way that is gross, defiling, and ignoring that God’s salvation and love is for all, I pray that we learn from it, know better, and do better. In the name of Jesus Christ, who taught us all that growth is holy work, Amen.