The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 17

Transformed? by Grace
Proper 15
Matthew 15:21-28

In the collect appointed for today, one of prayers is that Jesus may be for us an example of godly life. And then, in an odd twist of timing, we have the Gospel reading appointed for this morning. Not only do Jesus’ words to the Canaanite woman seem ungodly, they are downright ugly. Essentially, Jesus says to her: “I did not come for such as you… you, who are less-than-human.”

Pretty much every commentary I looked at this week said we have two choices in interpreting Jesus’ words in this incident. In the first choice, it is a test. Jesus is testing the Canaanite woman. One writer called this the Jesus as drill sergeant scenario. Jesus breaks her down in order to build her up. If this is a test, ultimately she passes. And in this interpretation she serves as an example to us of persistence in faith. But it seems so unlike Jesus to cause so much hurt before he bestows a blessing.

In the second interpretation of Jesus’ words, we are seeing a glimpse of the human Jesus still growing in his understanding of his purpose and ministry and as a human being unavoidably shaped by the conditions and social prejudices of his day. In this interpretation, the Canaanite woman teaches Jesus something. She teaches him that even people perceived as less than human can have remarkable faith. Surely that is a good lesson for anyone to learn, but do we really think of Jesus as someone who needed to be taught that?

Personally, I have a preference for interpretation number 2, but there are significant problems with both. Which one of these interpretations you favor probably depends upon the pre-existing Christology you bring to your interpretation. And, whether or not you know it, you do have a preexisting Christology. You either think of Jesus as primarily divine and perfect who sees every situation with total omniscience and acts accordingly… testing the Canaanite woman for her own good. Or you see Jesus as primarily a wholly holy human being, who under God’s guidance grows into his understanding and power of who he is and what he is called to do. Orthodox theology, of course, says Jesus is both, but that’s hard to wrap your head around and most of us lean one way or the other. As I said, I lean towards the holy human Jesus. But, in the end, I don’t think there’s any way we can know for sure what was in Jesus’ mind or what his motives were when he spoke to the Canaanite woman.

One of the pieces I read offered to me, at least, another way to enter into this story. Another way to explore what this piece of sacred Scripture might be saying to us. Just put the whole issue of Jesus’ intent aside, and ask instead: What was it like for the disciples? What did the disciples experience in this event?

For quite a while before this they’ve been in the region of Galilee, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” That allusion either clicks with you or it doesn’t, but what it’s meant to illustrate is that Galilee is their hometown. For the disciples in Galilee, everything is familiar. They know who lives on every corner; they are related to someone in every town. It’s familiar territory among their own people. And they’ve watched and participated as Jesus has done wonderful things in Galilee, healing and feeding their neighbors, preaching the kingdom to the people of Israel.

So the disciples must have been puzzled at best when Jesus chose to travel some 30 miles as the crow flies (many more as the sandal trudges) to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon lie along the Mediterranean coast in present day Lebanon. In Jesus’ day the people there were foreigners, Gentiles.

One commentator writes: "The story is set in a geographical area where good Jewish people would not usually go. The Pharisees avoided the area, because they worried that just being there would make them unclean. The disciples must have been uncomfortable about being there, and sure enough, in this troubling place, trouble found them. A Canaanite person, a woman, no less, who should have known that women don’t go up and talk to strange Jewish men, came running to them, shouting at the top of her voice" (Dawn M. Mayes; http://www.goodpreacher.com/shareit/readreviews.php?cat=50; retrieved 8/16/14).

It seems the disciples must have felt uncomfortable, possibly threatened and frightened. Almost certainly saying to themselves… why on earth are we here, wasting time among these dogs, these useless people? And then Jesus says out loud what they had been thinking.

The same writer suggests the disciples would have been shamed and shocked to hear their prejudice given voice by another, especially Jesus. But I think that’s a modern response and that’s why this story troubles us so deeply. We hear our prejudices being given voice by another, by Jesus! And Jesus’ words hold a mirror up to our faces reminding us of how we still see others who are different as subhuman, worth only being dismissed or cast aside. We are forced to face the contemporary reality of our society and our human nature that is easier for a good person to shoot another person, when that other person is different. It is easi-er for a good person to shoot another person when that other person is different. Whether it is in the Middle East or Missouri.

Going back to the Gospel story, at least in my imagination, the disciples’ more likely response to Jesus words would have been relief and maybe a sense of self-affirmation. As though they were getting their bearings or feeling a bit more secure in the midst of the uncertainty and discomfort they were feeling. Jesus feels the same way I do! Whew! So now let’s move on…

But Jesus doesn’t move on. He stops…

Jesus stops and continues his engagement with the Canaanite woman.

And then…. And then God’s grace breaks the whole world open. God’s grace flows from the woman to Jesus. God’s grace flows from Jesus to the woman. It enfolds and overcomes the disciples. God’s grace floods the hearts and minds of everyone there. I think for a moment God’s grace, God’s love and purpose, was visible and tangible to the disciples without any doubt. The disciples experienced God’s love and purpose in the healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter.

They were in a land where they felt very out of place. With a person whom they dismissed as subhuman. Together representing two vastly different peoples and perspectives. And all were filled with and radiating God’s grace.

Then that moment passed. That world changing, potentially life-changing, moment was over. And we are left to wonder, to speculate, whether the disciples’ lives were changed by their experience. Matthew’s focus is not on the disciples. He moves on to another event in Jesus’ ministry. Were the disciples transformed by what they experienced?

Did the experience fade in their memories? Especially as they returned with Jesus returned to the familiar territory of Galilee?

Did a few of them perhaps remember and privately nurture that brief moment when Jesus appeared to affirm their prejudice? Clinging to and replaying just that sound bite over and over again?

Or were they transformed? Did they grow in their understanding of God and God’s purpose and of their role in God’s mission? Were they transformed by their experience of God’s grace?