Sermon 21st January 2018

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, preaches. The reading is from Matthew 15: 21-28

All are welcome 

“The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.  ‘First let the children eat all they want,’ he told her, ‘for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.’”  Mark 7:26, 27

1.              Last Sunday Simon invited us to consider the summons to Levi, the tax-collector, to follow Jesus.  He led in understanding better the visceral hatred extended to the collaborator by the Jewish community – and therefore the immense shock at Jesus’ invitation to, and then his identification with, these quislings, these “sinners” – by getting in touch with our own feelings.  You acted out the handing over of hard earned money to someone you deeply disliked.  And so we learned the lesson that the objects of our distaste, the people that we “good people” go out of our way to avoid, are the target of Jesus’ search for members of the Kingdom of God.

                  I retell last week’s message since to a very great extent it allows me to puncture any sense of drama or mystery this week by revealing at the outset that last week’s punchline provides pretty much the answer to the question in this week’s title, “Are all welcome?”.  For the avoidance of doubt (as we lawyers say) the answer is: yes, all do appear to be welcome;  certainly, it seems hard to construct any qualification which will debar anyone from the possibility of faith in Jesus.

2.              Well, with the question answered, what shall we talk about?

                  In truth, as I started to study this passage I thought I might welcome the opportunity to talk about anything else and so side-step what, on any first reading, is not an easy passage of scripture.  Look at it again: 

·       we are used to the disciples’ callous attitude towards those who crowd Jesus – “his disciples came to him and urged him, ‘Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.’”  - this much echoes their attitude to the parents who brought their children for a blessing

·       and familiar too is the misery of the mother -  ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is …  suffering terribly.’  We recognise the cries of  other desperate petitioners – among them Jairus pleading for his dying daughter and the Roman centurion in Capernaum, seeking healing of his slave

·       but it is the responses of Jesus that jar:  first to the mother – “Jesus did not answer a word”;  then to his disciples - ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.’;  and then in answer to the woman’s cry for help - ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.’

Noting first that Jesus’ last reported words were, ‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted’ , nonetheless,  given my claim that the answer to today’s question is “all are welcome to enter the Kingdom of God, our passage needs some unpacking and on the way perhaps we may learn some other things of value about the nature of faith.

3.              First some context to the passage.  The story is also told by Mark in chapter 7 of his gospel.  Where Matthew tells us only that “Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon”.  Mark’s account adds some colour to that word “withdrew”.  He says:  “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret”.

                  Tyre and Sidon are the ancient coastal cities on the Mediterranean now in Lebanon just north of the borders of present day Israel .  Even in Jesus’ time the area was beyond the borders of the Jewish homeland.  And this event is the only occasion when Jesus left Israel.  His only trip abroad.  And it is pretty clear he was intending to find time away from public life:  until now his ministry had been a whirl of public acclamation, teaching to vast crowds, miracles and arguments with the religious leaders.  It seems that only by leaving Israel could he avoid the glare of publicity.  But even here it seems that his reputation had gone on ahead and a mother at the end of her wits, believed he had come to minister to her.

4.              Not only was Jesus outside Israel, but also the woman was a gentile;  not only a gentile (as were many including the occupying forces of the empire in Israel) but moreover one from Canaan.  The Canaanites had been the traditional enemies of the Jewish nation;  with competing claims to the very soil of Israel.  Last week’s study of the position of Matthew, the tax collector, touched on the attitude of religious Jews to people like him.  But Matthew was at a Jew – however compromised.  This woman was not only a woman, not only a foreigner but also a Canaanite.  All very good reasons why a Jew should avoid contact with her.

                  I love the fact that she was clever woman.  She had a quick and ready answer to Jesus’ objection.  It was not her cleverness, her wit, that marked her out for Jesus’ attention;  that was her faith.  But I love the way that Matthew has to record her intelligence.  Matthew famously writes his gospel to convert Jews.  Perhaps as a result he is not great at handling the female characters in the story.  For example, reading the Christmas story a few weeks ago I was struck by how, when dealing with the miraculous pregnancy of Mary, Luke devotes a considerable chunk of writing to give us the experience from Mary’s perspective;  none of that from Matthew – he gives us Joseph’s experience in a  few short verses! 

But here, even Matthew must put down her answer to Jesus defence of his mission to the lost sheep of Israel:  put it down, even though the words of a woman;  even though the words of a Canaanite.

5.              In that context what then might we understand in those surprising words of Jesus?  I offer the following two thoughts:

·       First we should not be surprised that Jesus saw his mission being aimed first at witnessing to the nation which was awaiting its Messiah, the nation whose faith and witness had been focused on God His Father for centuries.  Already, when sending out the disciples for a practice run at being missionaries, they were told:

Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans.  Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. (Matthew 10.5)

                             Indeed possibly against that background, we might better gauge Jesus’ responses to the few non-Jews he met – this woman and, earlier, the Roman centurion (“I have not foun such great faith even in Israel!”) – as an even greater stronger indication of his mercy and love.  While working to a plan, their needs brought from him a natural response of love.  And we know that Jesus always planned the offer of the Kingdom of God being extended to all nations and peoples.  This was what the prophets had seen would be the case and Jesus also speaks of the day when all will be invited to the great banquet;  and final commission is to make disciples of all nations.

·       Second we may read too much into the words themselves:  I accept that is a slippery slope for Biblical interpretation but given everything else we know about the character of Jesus, I tend to the view that either the way he said the words communicated their purpose (the emphasis of his calling) in as loving a way as possible;  perhaps he was adopting a common turn of phrase.  The commentators emphasise that the language here does not refer to the common curs of the street but to pets around the house. Whatever:  certainly we can see that it allowed its hearer to hit it back with a degree of topspin.

6.             To end I want to say something about the woman’s faith.  ‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.’

                  Her situation, her desperation and her persistence might suggest that this is the same “faith” as attracted so much publicity this week when Tearfund reported a survey that found almost a quarter of non-believers prayed “as a last resort”.  However we might describe our faith, I am sure that all of us has at some time or another, prayed that sort of prayer to the great Insurer in the sky?

                  Certainly her faith was not – and could never be - the sort of faith which was bound up in a myriad of rules and regulations, or what was clean and unclean – the sort of faith that Jesus argued against endlessly in his debates with the Jewish authorities.

                  To attract Jesus description of “great faith” it must have been the faith of the nature for which he argued:  the sort of faith that Matthew showed when he left his tax booth and his livelihood and followed;  the sort of faith (just to look back a chapter or so from our passage) which is willing to believe God can use you to serve 5000 people from 5 loaves and 2 fish;  faith which, faced with the impossible, can step out of the boat and walk;  and faith which is free from fixation over ritual because it understands that what is important is our hearts are repentant.

                  The story of the Canaanite woman is actually a remarkable story of faith:  it shows that someone, not just outside the pale of acceptability by observers, but outside the swim of (what we might term) “the society of faith” – in other words a complete outsider – culd have faith of this nature.

                  Glad I preached on it after all!