The Rev. Dan Rondeau
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-25 | Psalm 34:15-22 | Ephesians 5:21-33 | John 6:60-69
Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts Collect of the Day
What was she thinking? What she did was wrong, it should never have happened. Those who were following Jesus, pretending to be his friends, pretending to be his disciples, (but who were neither), were handed a beautiful example to support what they already knew: this Jesus of Nazareth, a carpenter, was no Rabbi, this Jesus of Nazareth surely could not be the Messiah, the Anointed One. These false disciples must have been beside themselves with eagerness to get word back to the "real teachers," the "true teachers," the keepers of the law in Jerusalem.
Jesus should have been insulted, more than depicted in today’s story, by the boldness of this Syrophoenician woman. Not only did she not respect his wish to be alone and unnoticed but a proper woman would never initiate a conversation with a man. If addressed by a man, then the woman could respond—that was the rule, the custom of the day. What was this woman thinking?
The woman was a Gentile. Didn’t she know that Jesus was a Jew? Didn’t she know that Jews and Gentiles don’t speak to each other, unless they really must, for commerce perhaps, but never for something like this, "heal my daughter"? For the false friends of Jesus here was another example proving him a false teacher, a false Messiah—he should have known better even if she didn’t.
Perhaps his false friends were a bit put off, a bit confused by his response, the response they would have expected a good Jewish Messiah to make. The response initially shows promise and must have discouraged his false friends who wanted to trap him and prove him to be a fraud. Listen again:
[Jesus] said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs." Now, that is putting her in her place. But wait, did he say "let the children be fed first?" This isn’t nearly as insulting as it should be, the false friends must have realized. Jesus is suggesting that after the children, Abraham’s children, the Jews, are fed then the Gentiles, "the dogs" are going to be fed. This isn’t right. So, in the thinking of the righteous, pretend friends of Jesus, what seemed to be an insult really isn’t all that insulting; "gotcha Jesus."
Was the woman, emboldened by the Holy Spirit perhaps, aware of the opening Jesus had just given her? Her response is simple, elegant, and trusting "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs." Using Jesus’ own image the woman has now placed the Gentile "dogs" in the same house, at the same table as the children of Abraham, she is not "out there" but "in here" with the children of Abraham—eager to be fed the same food as the children of Abraham. And Jesus doesn’t correct or challenge her.
And now, the response that would feed his enemies and delight them even more than the fact that he provided only a weak insult to this woman was delivered. Jesus said to the woman "For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter." And so the little girl, the daughter of the woman, was healed with a word spoken some distance from her. Jesus healed the daughter of a Gentile woman when so many of Abraham’s "real children" needed healing. The enemies of Jesus, some even pretending to be his followers, had yet another proof to use against him.
Fast forward several years. As the church was being born after Pentecost, as the church was being established outside of Jerusalem, this story was remembered and told and finally written down for sharing with generations to come.
Jesus came to share God’s love, God’s healing, God’s grace, not with a single people but with the whole world. No one, not even a Gentile woman and her daughter, would be left out by Jesus; the Father had sent him to save the whole world. No one would be excluded. Of course, this didn’t sit well with those who were used to powerfully defining God’s likes and dislikes. This didn’t sit well with those who were used to speaking with authority about God’s heart and mind as revealed in the Law. How dare this Jesus of Nazareth pass himself off as a teacher, and, worse, as the Messiah. No proper Messiah would speak to or include heathens and Gentiles in salvation—God just wouldn’t permit it.
My guess is that the true disciples, those who had come to believe that Jesus was sent by God, (even the true disciples) were a bit uncomfortable with the direction Jesus was going. But they had given him their trust. They had given Jesus their hearts. The rules they had grown up with, the rules that shaped their everyday life, were being bent and broken and reshaped. The choice before them was to continue in trust, following their heart, or to turn away for the comfort of the rules that were familiar, the rules they had grown up with.
In every age faithful men and women have had to struggle with the same decisions. In our day the ever present media has helped (if you can call it that) magnify the questioning and decision-making and provided numerous talking-heads to tell us what to think and what to do. The internet abounds with opinions some spoken with hatred and contempt and some spoken with love and compassion.
As a church we who are Episcopalians are trying to stay engaged with each other to talk about God’s love and God’s inspiration in our day to day living out of our Baptismal Covenant. Our conversation wants to get stuck at who is in and who is out of the church. Who can God love, and who will God spurn. Who must change and who can remain unchanged. Into the middle of the conversation, or the heated debate, comes this story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman.
It gives me pause. When I find myself ready to draw the boundaries about who God can love, and who God couldn’t possibly love, I remember this story. When I am ready to find comfort in "the rules" I have grown up with, when I am ready to impose those rules as being right now and forever, I remember this story.
When I am feeling righteous and ready to bludgeon another with my righteousness (oh yes, this happens), I remember this story. And I remember my prayers spoken with you my fellow travelers: "We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy."
The Syrophoenician woman is the one I want to imitate. She is the one, who shows how to live out what we prayed in the Opening Collect "Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts." She points the way—go to Jesus, follow your heart to Jesus, humble your (righteous) self before Jesus, trust Jesus to speak the word of mercy, of love, of healing, that you need. Let no one stop you on your way to Jesus who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
This story of healing combined with the healing of the deaf man can inspire our prayer this day and this week:
Lord Jesus, we come to you in trust and humility. Touch our eyes that we might see each other as you see us; touch our ears that we might listen and hear each other as you hear us; touch our hearts that we might love each other as you have loved us. Then, may you be glorified in all we say and do. Amen.
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