The Persistence

Text: Matthew 15:21-28
Theme: “M9: The Persistence” (9th in a Series)
9th Sunday after Pentecost
August 14, 2011
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

IN THE NAME OF JESUS

21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

The billboard – large, lighted, and on a busy central Indiana highway – featured a quotation from someone. It said, in big block letters, “I love Jesus”. Directly below the “I love Jesus”, in smaller but still readable letters, was this: “It’s His people I can’t stand.” The billboard was for a new congregation that had sprung up, and it invited passersby to check out “a new church with new people.”

In a not-so-subtle way, this billboard suggested that the reader might be attending an old church with old people, and that he or she would be better off going to a new church with new people. The implication is that you’ll like the people at the new church so much better than all the folks at the old church who are probably people you can’t stand.

Here in this church or any church for that matter, we may not particularly care for Joe or Jane or Bob or Betty sitting a few pews over. Yet, here in the quiet and comfortable confines of Sunday worship, we all claim to love Jesus.

Today’s Gospel, unfortunately, might throw a monkey wrench into all this pious talk about loving Jesus. In fact, if all that we had was this text then Jesus might become just another person that rubs us the wrong way and might be even numbered among the people we don’t like to be around for very long – the people we can’t stand, quite frankly. I mean, ladies and gentlemen, Jesus sounds positively sinister in this reading.

If you take what Jesus said to the Canaanite woman in today’s reading at only face value, then you can’t help but conclude that Jesus Christ is a racist and a bigot by today’s standards. You might even argue, quite plausibly, that Jesus engaged in hate speech.

Speaking of people who could rub others the wrong way, the Canaanite woman would certainly qualify in Jesus’ day. First of all, she was a Canaanite and not a Hebrew. She wasn’t part of the chosen race. There’s strike one. Secondly, she was a woman. When Jesus was on this earth, the society of which He was a part of was patriarchal; it was male-dominated. Simply put, women were sort of second-class citizens. Strike two. Third, this woman had a daughter with a serious problem. The daughter suffered terribly from demon possession. Strike three. To sum things up, this woman was the kind of individual that you would avoid like the plague.

Now our Lord, who we all claim to love, did just that. The woman had a “Come to Jesus” moment. She didn’t whisper something in His ear. Instead, she cried out: “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Jesus, we are told, didn’t say a word. There was no empathy, no compassion, no sympathy, no “Oh, ma’am, I’m so sorry.” He didn’t shake her hand. In fact, His demeanor almost suggested “talk to the hand; I have nothing to say to you.”

Strike three! This woman is out. But now, as if to add insult to injury, Jesus adds a strike four! If I were this woman with all these cards stacked against me, with my gender and race and family problems now known to all, I don’t know what I would have done. Rejection by Jesus would constitute the last straw. I could easily see myself storming off in a fit of rage peppered with very bad language.

But there was something about this woman! She didn’t storm off in a fit of rage accentuated with vile language or something appropriate like that. No, she persisted; she kept at it; she would not be denied; the squeaky wheel would get the grease. She gave an earful of her problems to the disciples of Jesus. And then they turn around and start whining to Jesus Himself. It says they urged him with “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

Jesus says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” – in other words: “She’s not my problem; she’s not a Hebrew; she’s not one of us.” Do you understand how racist and bigoted that sounds to modern ears? In this day when “inclusiveness” is what it’s all about, Jesus is being exclusive. He seems to exclude her.

Now she did manage to get Jesus to talk about her with his disciples, but it ends up that she’s now excluded by the entire group of Jesus and His disciples. If anything, she would understand the language of the popular song by Daniel Powter:

Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride.

I doubt this woman could even work at a smile. But again, something made her persist.

Now she kneels Jesus’ feet. That was the posture of reverence, worship. She said, “Lord, help me.”

Finally, Jesus, who we all claim to love, says something to her: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” If we could think of a reason to get whopping mad at Jesus, who we claim to love, then this would be it.
“It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

I have a hunch that when we get to heaven there’s going to be a long line of people coming forward to Jesus to get some questions answered. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be pushing and shoving to get to the head of the line because I’m an impatient person to begin with. But most of all, I have some serious questions that I need answers to. One question I have to ask Jesus is this: “Jesus, were you smiling when you said what you said to that Canaanite woman? Did you really mean what you said, or were you giving her an opportunity to show how really brilliant her faith in you was?” I don’t know, but I have a hunch what the answer might be.
What I do know is what the woman said in reply: “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

As we’ve observed, it took a great deal of persistence. But in the end, the woman caught Jesus in His own words. And Jesus just loves that! He says: “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” St. Matthew reports that “…her daughter was healed from that very hour.”

My friends, one of the huge needs of the church today is the kind of faith this Canaanite woman embodies. The mission of the church, of which we are all a part, would do well to carefully consider how persistent that faith was.

All the cards were stacked against her, but she was not to be deterred. Her faith would stop at nothing to link need with the help and resources that only God can give. Throwing in the towel was never an option.

We may have our opinions about churches, about their oldness or newness. We may have our opinions about church people – about whether we like them or can’t stand them. All of that is irrelevant. The church that takes its cue from the faith of the Canaanite woman is the church that persists in mission, and it will not be denied. God grant that we be that kind of church this day and every day.

Amen.