Theme(s): God's mercy / our faith / a simple cry for help / God saves both Jews and Gentiles
Sentence: O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Romans 11:33)
Collects:
All-seeing God,
teach us to be open with you about our needs,
to seek your support in our trials,
to admit before you our sins,
and to thank you for all your goodness. Amen.
Readings (related):
Isaiah 56:1, 6-8
Psalm 67
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28
Comments:
Isaiah 56:1, 6-8
As we come to the gospel reading today to consider a story in the mission of Jesus in which he claims that his mission is to Israel alone, we hear this reading as a reminder that God's mission was never to Israel alone, but always included in its vision the wider world.
Thus this reading forms background to the gospel story in which a Gentile woman seeks help from Jesus and leads us to wonder if Jesus was making a teasing comment about the focus of his mission rather than a definitive or absolute statement.
Psalm 67
The psalmist shares in God's global vision. The expectation of this psalm is that 'all nations' will know who God is, what God's saving power is all about, and respond with joyful worship.
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
This choice of verses is very poor on the part of the lectionary compilers! By stopping the first part with the words 'God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew' the sense is given that 'Israel is fine (fullstop)' when, in fact, the next few verses (2b-5) go on to make the point that God not rejecting Israel is exemplified by the recurring presence of a 'remnant' (5). It is not exemplified by a 'get out of judgment' card for all Israel.
In the second part of the reading, it is just as unfortunate that the choice of verses does not front up to the confrontational verse 28, 'As regards the gospel they are enemies of God fo your sake; but as regards election they are beloved, for the sake of their ancestors;'. Only with this verse does verse 29 make any kind of sense!
What is Paul saying in these latter verses? He is saying something he expresses throughout the chapter (see verses 11 and 12) that in some way, Israel being disobedient to God has opened up the way for God to expand his covenant of love to include those outside Israel, the Gentiles. Their loss (of obedience) is Gentiles' gain (of blessing). But verse 31 suggests a kind of virtuous circle: as the blessing of God moves on from disobedient Israel to the Gentiles, so it will move on again, move back to Israel that it might also be shown mercy.
This likely seems odd to our way of thinking, especially those of us who are Gentile Christians, steeped in a strong sense of the inclusive, wide-ranging love of God. We need to think about what a revolution had been going on in Paul's life: an Israelite nationalist and Jewish zealot, his view of the sphere of God's operation was extremely limited. Israel alone! Now, his tiny worldview shattered by his conversional encounter with the risen Christ, he is setting out an understanding of what his new worldview looks like, in relation to his previous one.
But there are more difficulties in Romans 11 and the lectionary choice generously drives us past them, leaving them unattended on the side of the exegetical road! What, for example, does Paul mean when he says, 'And so all Israel will be saved' (26a)?
Whatever he means, it is difficult, taking the chapter as a whole, the three chapters, 9-11, and the whole letter to the Romans, to get past the fact that, in the end, Paul is committed to an understanding of salvation in which our belief - our faith response to Christ - determines where we stand in relation to God.Thus we read in verse 23,
'And even those of Israel, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.'
Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28
15:10-20:- It is likely too much to preach a moderate length sermon on the whole of 15:10-28! But 10-20 serve as background to 21-28 for there Jesus converses with a Canaanite, a defiled person, so to speak and thus verses 10-20, about what actually defiles a person is of direct relevance. The summary of 10-20 'But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles' (18). By verse 28 we will find that what comes out of the Canaanite woman are words of faith: she is no longer 'defiled'. Jesus has prepared the way for her to be included in the 'new Israel' or kingdom of God because in verses 10-20 he has upended the role of the law in guarding the boundaries of Judaism. If what defiles a person are not external actions (hand washing, which foods go into the mouth) but internal attitudes and intentions, then the basis of distinction between Jew and Gentile is radically undermined.
15:21-28:- Matthew tells this story with some variations from Mark's version (Mark 7:24-30). In Mark's version her Gentileness is spelled out as 'a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth' (7:26) but Matthew summarises this to 'Canaanite' (22). Either way, this woman is a Gentile, someone who does not belong to Israel, a point made with particular intensity by Jesus (24).
Matthew's Gospel has a high gearing towards a Jewish Christian readership (note, for example, the beginning via an 'Israelite' geneaology, the repeated invocation of prophetic texts being fulfilled in Jesus and the engagement with the relationship between Jesus' teaching and Old Testament law in 5:17-20). But at several points Matthew communicates to his readers that Jesus' mission long-term was not to be confined to Israel. This story is one of those points. Here is a Gentile woman seeking help from Jesus (15:25); here is Jesus claiming that he 'was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel' (24). But the woman gets the help she seeks and the conversation between her and Jesus draws out that Gentiles are encompassed by the scope of Jesus' mission: 'even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table' (27).
For many centuries this story has been read as a fascinating story in which Jesus and an unnamed Gentile woman engage in a bit of clever repartee for which the woman is commended as yet another person, indeed another Gentile (see Matthew 8:5-13) who has faith (28).
But recent years, especially through feminist critical lens, this story has received quite a 'going over'. Special concerns raised include:
- the attitude of Jesus towards the woman (harsh? unyielding until she gets the better of him?)
- the use of the word 'dogs' to describe the position of the Gentile woman (26)
- yet again Matthew presents a woman, two woman, in fact, the mother and the daughter, without names.
The observation is also pressed by some scholars that the story seems to show Jesus as needing to be taught a lesson by the woman, 'even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table' (27), before he succumbs to her entreaty for help.
In sum: the story has become a centre of scholarly controversy, both in respect of Jesus' attitude to women, to outsiders and in respect of christological reflection as to 'who' the Jesus of this story is.
Can we add a thought or two at this point?
If we compare this story with the comparable (re Gentiles) story in Matthew 8:5-13 we see that there is equal treatment of the centurion and his servant re names, both are unnamed. We also see that the centurion takes a position of extreme humility in relation to Jesus whereas in today's story Matthew (so to speak) permits the woman to be a 'strong woman' with humility ('she came and knelt before him', 24) but not extreme humility (since she refuses to take 'No' for an answer).
In each story Jesus commends the Gentile for his or her 'faith' and healing occurs at a distance (in each case the ill person is not present to Jesus).
Each supplicant demonstrates their great faith in Jesus by a 'smart' verbal exchange: the centurion demonstrates his awareness of the authority of Jesus in relation to the authority of God, the Canaanite woman demonstrates her awareness of the mercy of Jesus in relation to the mercy of God (which has been demonstrated through the centuries to non-Israelites, e.g. to Naomi & Ruth, to Naaman).
On the matter of 'dogs' we should acknowledge that while it is 'a reading' of the verbal exchange to calculate that 'dogs' comes into the story as a deprecatory term for Gentiles, it is also a reasonable term for those outside of the immediate covenant of God which is with Israel as God's 'children' and thus others, outside of Israel, are those outside of God's covenant, those who are not lost children but household pets who are nearby but not full members of the lineage of the family. A further point that could be made is that Jesus words in 15:26 can be read as a form of teasing which open up the possibility of the woman's clever reply which (positively) manipulates the conversation to a point where Jesus has no further reply save to offer 'the crumbs' she seeks (27).
While at this point (and on this point) we could say that Jesus learns a lesson, even is challenged to expand his narrow mission horizon, it is equally possible to say that Jesus himself is manipulating the situation to draw out the faith he senses in the woman, a faith which has brought her to the point of recognising a non-Canaanite as having access to the healing power of God.
Finally, in respect of the christology of the story, Matthew can scarcely be charged with presenting Jesus as some kind of limited human being with a narrow outlook, inconsistent with being divine in status. The woman addresses Jesus as 'Lord' on three occasions (22, 25, 27) and on the first of those occasions connects 'Lord' with the messianic address, 'Son of David.' Does this 'Lord' need to be taught through another human being that God's purposes for the world are greater than his understanding? It is preferable to consider that this Lord is able on his own to work out the global extent of God's plan and thus the comment in verse 24 is a teasing comment rather than a statement of Jesus' then self-understanding with all its implied limitation.
For ourselves, we might read our participation in God's plan via our own needs for assistance, expressed in the simple prayer,
'Lord, help me' (25).
Our confidence in God's help then works its way out from this story as we consider the mercy of God available even to us who may feel far from the centre of God's purpose,
'even the crumbs that fall from their master's table' (27).
Postscript:
(We might also note, at this present juncture in which terrible conflict between Israel and Gaza has arisen, that this story presents an 'Israel' which treats local peoples (such as the Canaanites) as 'dogs' whose general position in life relative to 'Israel' is as dogs eager to eat the crumbs under their master's table, a position which only too well describes the economic situation of Gaza relative to Israel as a 'master' able to impose economic sanctions on Gaza. Whatever else the story does in respect of who Jesus is, it reflects local cultural, racial and political dynamics in Jesus' day. I suggest, by the way, that one can reflect in this way on the uncanny parallels to today's situation without 'taking sides' about the rights and wrongs of the conflict between Israel and Gaza. It is a fact that Israel is economically stronger than Gaza and is able to exert power over Gaza.)
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