A sermon on Matthew 15:10-28 by Samara Pitt

I like today’s gospel reading from Matthew because it makes me work hard. Jesus doesn’t make it easy for me to admire him here. In fact, it would be very easy to slap some quick labels on to describe what’s going on in his encounter with the Canaanite woman, like a newspaper with a deadline might do. Is Jesus a racist? Is he prejudiced? Has he, in fact, having warned the crowd that what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, just defiled himself and everyone around him by what just came out of his own mouth?That would be an interesting garden path for Matthew to lead us down.

I went to the induction service for Reverend Ken Sumner recently – he is the new head of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Congress, the indigenous arm of the Uniting Church. He chose this story to be read and preached on at the service. For him, it is a story of hope, and challenge. He makes an automatic identification with the Canaanite woman, the one who’s been waiting for scraps to fall from the table, and who challenges Jesus to do something about it. Who do you identify with most easily in this story?

First, we hear about things that come out of the mouth to defile us. In the reading from Matthew, it is interesting to hear the first thing that comes out of the disciples’ mouths after Jesus said this: “Do you know that the Pharisees took offence when you said that?” Whisper, whisper, outrage, shocked tones, delight in spreading the bad word. “O! Did you hear what they said!!” “Guess what, the Pharisees are mad at you!” “Ooo, you’re gonna get in trouble!” When I sat with this part of the story it gave me some insight into why gossip can be a problem. It may be that the content of the gossip is damaging, but in this passage, it also prevents the disciples from listening deeply. They get distracted from what Jesus actually said, and focus instead on how the Pharisees react, and then they take that reaction back to see how Jesus would react in turn, and an important teaching starts getting lost under the possibility of an entertaining spectacle. As a result, Jesus has to explain it to them again later, because they haven’t spent time considering what he means, they’ve been stirring up a show.

Jesus pulls them up before they can go too far down that path. With some impatience – “come on guys, let’s focus here, they’re blind fools, don’t follow them anywhere” – he spells it out. They need to understand, because if they are going to challenge the power and purity practices of the Pharisees and face up to their anger, they need to know why they’re doing it, and what’s at stake. This is no time to take their eye off the ball.

After the teaching is spelled out, Matthew tells us that they head down to Tyre and Sidon, Gentile territory. And everything the disciples automatically feel about what’s clean and what’s dirty comes right up into their faces. What makes you curl up in disgust? What would you least want shoved in your face, something that would make you long for a hot shower afterwards to scrub it all away? Clean and dirty – it’s not just about the germs we know about nowadays. Sometimes people, and situations can bring that reaction up in us, and we have all sorts of cleansing rituals to rid ourselves of the contamination. I was trying to think of an example, and I came up with a situation where I might be hanging out with a person who is making racist or derogatory comments, and then someone comes by whose good opinion I crave, and I feel guilty or even dirty by association. Perhaps there might be the temptation to distance myself from the first person, or run them down, so as to purify myself.So this Gentile woman comes up. She’s not supposed to approach a Jewish male in a public place. All sorts of rules have been broken. Strike one, two and three! She should be out already. This encounter should have got no further.

She names him – she knows who he is, the Son of David, and therefore we can assume she knows the rules. She chooses to break them. Now there is some work that has to be done here for me to understand some of this. Firstly, my background and my personality make me very unhappy about breaking rules, not just laws but invisible social expectations. Some people seem to delight in it – they make me very nervous! I don’t think the Canaanite woman is in this category. Another reason to break rules is as a necessity (like stealing to eat), and yet another is as a form of protest, to highlight the injustice of the rule itself (you may or may not agree that an example of this might be the recent protest in the city where people gathered to chant swearwords in response to the introduction of on-the-spot fines for people using ‘offensive language’. The question I have is, who gets to decide what’s offensive?).

I think she’s desperate. And her desperation compels her to take action for the sake of her daughter, despite the rules. And she will not give up until she gets an answer.

Now, to my ears, Jesus not answering comes across as rude. But the disciples are urging Jesus to send her away. Perhaps not answering was less insulting than that. Has Jesus decided not to take offense here, as he was socially and legally justified to do? This question gave me pause. Do you have the experience of choosing whether to take offense of not? Or does it just happen- you are offended and no rational deciding comes into it?

I hang out with some Quakers, and many of you will know that they meet for worship in silence. Sometimes people will feel a call to speak. It was explained to me that those who listen are required not to answer what it spoken, but to let whatever reaction they have ‘rise up’ inside them, and then ebb away, and they are not to ‘react’ to that initial feeling or idea. They are seeking to listen to what God might be calling them to say, and to distinguish that from their conditioned and more immediate responses. I wonder what was rising up in Jesus when this woman was calling out to him? I wonder what he chose not to say? I wonder whether what happened next came because he waited to get past his initial reaction, and listened for what God might be calling him into?

His disciples are on at him to get rid of her. But he doesn’t. He engages her in debate. Could this actually be a sign of respect? Public debate is not so big in our culture, but the trading of arguments in front of a crowd was far more common then. He certainly throws down the gauntlet: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” What will she say now? Can you see everyone waiting? She kneels, names him as Lord and asks again.

And again Jesus comes back with: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” This is where we recoil, yes? She has been humble, and is clearly in need, and Jesus insults her, and stereotypes her in a way that places him firmly in a long Jewish tradition of antipathy towards the Canaanites. Is this his own opinion? There is one reading that says it is Jesus here who shows that he is a product of his environment, like we all are influenced by where we grow up. We might say that at this stage, he knows no better, and it is the woman who opens his eyes and enables him to change, to embrace the other through his encounter.

But there is another way of looking at what’s going on (and thanks to my mate Bryan Luff for pointing me in this direction). The woman has an opportunity here , doesn’t she? By Jesus’s responses, she is shown not as someone to be pitied, or brushed off, but someone Jesus invites to stand up and be counted. He is treating her as an equal. He gives her space to take up power and take up her voice.

And she replies: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

Can you hear the crowd? Woooh! Snap! Right back at ya! Was this a demeaning or humiliating statement from the woman about herself? We might hear it so, and yet, this kind of attitude was probably no news to her. The only shocking thing about it is that she is holding it up in front of Jesus (and the disciples) and challenging them with it. And Jesus makes a total turnaround, commends her great faith, and heals her daughter. Did Jesus himself make a turnaround at that moment? Or was he leading us, his disciples and onlookers, into a new understanding, in a way that would allow us to go on a journey of healing with him? Surely, Matthew who starts this passage by pointing out what defiles, has something he’s trying to draw our attention to, if we can get over the distraction of being shocked and outraged, and truly listen. I wonder if Jesus and this woman are sharing a sly smile together somewhere at how this encounter turned out. I wonder how much of the crowd they have brought along with them into a new understanding of what defiles, and what makes us clean and whole?