Mathew 15:21–28

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

All right, I know I’m just back from vacation, but pop quiz time. Let’s see how well you all know your Bible. How many Gospels are there? Four. Easy one, right?

Sometimes the most obvious things are staring at us right in the face, and we’re so used to them that we take them for granted. How many Gospels do we have? Four. Not one—four.

I think this says something really important and significant about our faith. Presumably, those who put the Bible together, deciding which books were in and which were out, could have chosen just one of those Gospels. But they didn’t. Or they could have combined those four Gospels and made one super-Gospel. But they didn’t. They let the four Gospels be and put them side by side.

Now, to be clear, we know that other Gospels were out there that didn’t make the cut. Perhaps those who were putting the Bible together didn’t know about those other Gospels at the time, or maybe they did know about them and thought they were more fringe. But what we know is that the four that are there are there at least partly because they were already widely read among communities of faith.

Still—and this is important—they do not always agree on important details. Where was Jesus born? Where did he start his ministry? Who were his first disciples? What are the names of the women who accompanied him on his journeys?

Sometimes those differences are telling. For example, in Mark’s Gospel, we are told that the woman who asked Jesus to have mercy on her and heal her daughter is a Syrophoenician woman. Syrophoenician is a mixture of Syrian and Phoenician. They were both neighboring countries to Israel—not really allies, but not really enemies. Just neighbors. So it’s kind of a neutral term.

In the context of the story, it means that Jesus doesn’t have to care about this woman because she’s not from the house of Israel. He doesn’t have to care about her, right? Which is kind of what comes into question.

But we didn’t read Mark’s version, did we? We read Matthew’s version. In Matthew’s version, the woman is not Syrophoenician. She is Canaanite.

Now, Canaanites were also from a neighboring region to Israel, but not so neutral. They were the historical and sworn enemies of Israel. When Matthew tells us that the woman is Canaanite, not Syrophoenician, he’s kicking Mark’s version up a bit. It’s not just your neighbor whom you don’t have to care about. This is your enemy whom you’re not supposed to care about.

So, what does this all mean?

It’s widely believed that Mark’s Gospel was the first one written. It’s the earliest. When Matthew sat down to write his Gospel, he was reading Mark. He knew Mark. He knew the stories that were in Mark.

That means the Gospel writer Matthew made an intentional decision to change this woman from being just a neighbor whom Jesus doesn’t have to care about into an enemy—someone who would make everybody reading the story think, “Yeah, Jesus, she’s a dog.”

If you’re like me—even if you’re not—you may be wondering when you read or hear this story: What is going on with Jesus?

We are conditioned to expect him to respond with kindness and compassion to all people. Never be mean. We don’t expect Jesus to be mean. Never short-tempered. Never biased, certainly.

So it’s shocking to read about him not only ignoring this woman who so badly needs him, but also calling her a derogatory name. This is not the Jesus whom we know or expect. So what’s wrong? Is he hangry? Does Jesus need a Snickers? Does he need a nap?

I think more is going on here than that.

We need to remember that when we read the Gospels, we’re not reading an unedited, unbiased account. That’s the brilliance of having four Gospels. That’s the wisdom of our forefathers and foremothers, who thankfully kept four Gospels and did not leave us with just one.

It tells us that we have to engage our brains. We have to engage our intellect. We have to engage our hearts. It’s a two-way street with the text. We have to engage it and wrestle with it.

We are acknowledging that these authors are biased, too. They’re all telling us their version of Jesus—which is something we all do, right? We all have our own version of Jesus.

What we have here with Matthew is that he’s taking a story about not ignoring a neighbor, which is significant in and of itself, and making it into one that threatens to stretch our ideas about who is in and who is out. It forces us to admit that God really does love everyone.

That means not only those whom we love, or even just those we don’t care about very much and are fine ignoring, but also the people we despise.

Now, I’m going to admit something here. This is not the sermon I originally thought I was going to preach today when I was planning this at the beginning of the summer.

I thought I would be preaching to you about this remarkable woman and her persistent faith: how she stood up to Jesus, but did so kindly and respectfully; how she called him out on his bias; and how such a give-and-take is part of our ongoing relationship and dialogue with God.

We need to be persistent in our faith. We shouldn’t be afraid of the questions, the doubt or the struggles. That’s a good sermon. I would have been happy to preach that sermon today.

But something happened this week, and the sermon I thought I was going to preach changed. Maybe it’s because of the summer I’ve had.

In many ways, it’s been a really good summer. I’ve had a good bit of vacation. I’ve gone to some of my favorite places. I’ve spent time with loved ones. I’ve been able to relax—all the wonderful things we want in summer.

But in other ways, it’s been a challenging summer for me. I’m reaching middle age, so these are all normal things, okay? I don’t want anybody to worry. I’m fine, I promise you. I’m fine, okay? Everybody got that? I’m fine. I’m good.

But it’s been challenging. There have been family health challenges. I’m at that stage in life where I’m ushering my children into adulthood, and it’s not easy. Last week, as many of you know—and you’ve been very kind to follow up with me and be compassionate toward me—I dropped my son off at school almost a thousand miles away.

These are all normal things at this stage of life. But as many of you know, they make you think. They make you ponder. They give you a new perspective. You reflect sometimes a little more deeply on things, and maybe your perspective begins to shift a little bit.

I will admit that in this process—and again, I think this is normal; this is nothing to worry about; we all go through it—I’ve had a few dark nights of the soul this summer when I’ve really wrestled with my faith. I’ve really wondered about my place.

Everybody needs a break and a vacation now and again. What I’ve found is that I have truly missed being with you all this summer. I’ve missed worshiping God in community.

That’s a weird thing pastors do. We don’t always go to worship when we’re on vacation. Some do. Some of the really pious pastors, maybe. I occasionally do, but mainly I take a break.

But as I’ve been wrestling with all of these life things, I’ve been struggling because I haven’t been here with you all, discussing these things that matter.

It has all led me to wonder about my image of God and all the things I put on God that are mine and not God’s.

Anne Lamott famously said, “When it turns out your version of God hates all of the same people you do, it’s safe to assume that you have created God in your own image.”

We all create God in our own image, and a big part of faith is deconstructing the God we have created and encountering the true, free, triune God.

I think that’s why Matthew tells the story the way he does—why he changes the woman from Syrophoenician to Canaanite. Matthew knows that we all do it. He knows that, when reading or hearing the story, his audience will be drawn into Jesus’ contempt for this woman. Their own contempt for her will bleed out as well.

They will be pleased that Jesus seemingly has the same enemies they do. Isn’t that nice? He doesn’t like the Canaanites either.

Except it turns out that Jesus was wrong. And so are we when we do the same.

So instead of a sermon about this woman’s persistent faith—and again, there’s nothing wrong with that sermon; it’s a good one—if that’s what you need today, go out and be persistent.

But it turns out that this sermon, which I need to hear today, and maybe you do too, is really about God’s persistent love for us.

Simply put, God never stops loving us. Ever. Not even at our worst.

God not only refuses to be boxed in by our projections and biases; God refuses to let us be confined by those barriers we make for ourselves. And we do it all the time.

Some of you may remember me saying: Every time we draw a line in the sand, the one thing we can be sure of is that Jesus is on the other side of it.

Every time we draw a line, every time we put up a wall or a barrier, every time we exclude somebody, Jesus isn’t with us. He’s with them. He’s on the other side of the line, the other side of the wall, the other side of the barrier, the other side of our prejudice.

That’s how persistently God loves us. God will not leave us to our own devices. God will continually challenge us in love, through love, and for love.

As we near the end of this series about disputing with God, there are many legitimate reasons we’ve come across to have disputes with God—to question God, to wrestle. That’s okay. That permission is important.

But today’s sermon in this series is kind of a caveat to that. It’s a warning that the God we might be arguing with is not the true God, but the God we have made up for ourselves. The God we may be arguing with is one of our own creation.

I have a pastor friend who, when he tells somebody he’s a pastor and they say, “Oh, I don’t believe in God,” responds, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in.”

When they start saying, “Well, I don’t believe that God would do this or do that,” he says, “I don’t believe that either.” He finally tries to get to the point where he says, “Well, let me tell you about the God I do believe in.”

We all have to sort that out. Who’s the God we believe in? Who’s the God we don’t believe in? Who’s the God we’ve made up for ourselves? And who’s the God who challenges us—the God who doesn’t always say yes, the God who doesn’t allow us simply to wallow in the mess we have made for ourselves?

Thomas Merton uses this analogy. He says many of us will spend our whole lives climbing the ladder, only to find at the end, when we get to the top, that the ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall the whole time.

Thanks be to God that we don’t have to have it all figured out—that part of our journey is the struggle and the wrestling and, yes, even the dark nights of the soul. And the truth of the matter is that when we feel most alone, when we feel most afraid, the God who awaits us is the God who never, ever stops persistently pursuing us in love.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The post Disputing with God: Persistence appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.