An Open Table where Love knows no borders

Be open – welcoming the ‘other’

A sermon on Matthew 15:21-28 & Genesis 45: 1-15 by Meewon Yang

As a Korean person I came from a divided nation, the result of a war, which has never really ended. We continue to long for genuine democratic freedom. The military of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on the northern side, and the United States under the flag of the United Nations Command on the southern side, are still at war. In the name of security, 10 million Koreans have for the past 50 years been prevented from knowing the fate of their family members. And only last year there were about 100 people given permission to reunite for a few hours with their family members for the first time in over 50 years. It broke many people’s hearts, some who did find their family members, and for others who are still waiting to reunite. After fifty years many of them were too old to recognise each other.

Liberation Day was celebrated last week, and North and South Korea has again organised to reunite another group of people in September. The aspiration and hope of the Korean peoples’ desire for reconciliation links to today’s reading from Genesis 45:1-15 where we read that Joseph reunites with his family after many years of separation. The weeping of Joseph with his family, especially with Benjamin connects with my homeland people whose tears speak many voices.

When I migrated from Korea 13 years ago, I was aware that I appeared as ‘strange’ and ‘other’ to Anglo-Australians. During my work as a pastor of a multicultural church, I have seriously considered whether I need to relinquish my ‘strangeness’ and give up the characteristics of my ‘otherness’ in order to be acceptable in that role. I found a welcome in Australia, but I struggled with the thought that I had to give up my own cultural heritage in order to fit into the Australian culture.

There are many gospel stories where Jesus helps his disciples to look for a deeper meaning in their lives together. But a question which intrigued me in preparing tonight’s sermon/reflection was this: ‘What if Jesus had kept a journal?’ We could ask: ‘what difference might that kind of record make to our understanding of his life?’, but I’d prefer us to try and imagine for a moment: how Jesus might have reflected on the event recorded in today’s gospel reading?. How is God at work? What might we learn about God from this passage?

It’s important to remind ourselves: Jesus was fully human and didn’t know everything in advance. He too learned through his life experiences. What was so apparent in his way of life and so amazing to us is the way he continually ‘tuned in’ to God, was so conscious of God.

For the author of Matthew’s gospel, the setting for today’s story is off the beaten track, in predominantly Gentile areas. There are many interpretations of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman, but it is apparent that Jesus understood his mission as directed to the people of Israel. The fact that this gospel was written to a predominantly Jewish audience reflects that young church’s self-understanding of how it was being challenged to share the gospel with non-Jews.

However many layers there may be to this story, by any interpretation, this is a feisty exchange between Jesus and the Gentile woman, debating the mission of the Christian Church: To what extent is it rooted in Jesus’ ministry? The mission he had embraced until now had been defined by ethnic boundaries. When Jesus refers to the Jewish people as children and Gentiles as dogs, he is using a common expression of the time. Even if we try to tone it down, this is not a positive expression. Some commentators go so far as to label it racist.

Yet this woman is not to be put off! Her daughter is in real difficulty. The connection between evil spirits and illness points us to the truth that illness is not something willed by God. The woman throws out a challenge to Jesus. She challenges Jesus reluctance to work a miracle for a Gentile with the principle of ‘mercy’. She knows that just as a woman cares for her whole household, so also divine mercy ‘knows no ethnic bias’.

The Canaanite woman is portrayed in the gospel as the ‘other’, the outsider, the stranger, the ‘dog’! Sound familiar/ yet this nameless woman has a profound impact on the direction of Jesus’ ministry. She is declared to be a person of great faith (comp. Disciples), who changes Jesus’ mission direction (10:5 go only to the ‘lost sheep of Israel’). I wonder how Jesus might have reflected on that incident. Is it possible that he might have recognised the woman as representing God’s challenge to him – a challenge to be open, to reassess the boundaries of his mission?

Openness to the other: The voice of the nameless, the outsider, the refugee and the ‘other’ is one we need to attend to. One persistent theme within multicultural ministry is the welcoming of the stranger. Multiculturalism adds to the richness of our cultures as we rediscover who and what we are. Australians have more to do in discovering and learning from the different cultural gifts within this nation. This vision of growth in relationships, through the face of others who are different is more than a passive, silent tolerance of difference. It is an idea of growing together, seen in the way Jesus allowed himself to be open and changed in his view through the stranger, the Gentile woman.

David Tracy suggests that we meet the ‘possibilities we have never dared to dream’ of when we allow God to speak to us through strangers. Just as Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman – his understanding of mission to become enlarged. He saw in a new light the understanding of ‘unbiased grace’.

In what ways can we engage with the other? Sharing stories with strangers transforms our hearts and enables us to see things differently. Offering friendship at the human level has the potential to reconnect us with God. It empowers strangers to bring forth their courage, and leads us all to mutual learning through experiences we share. In the Canaanite woman’s story, through their dialogue, the sharing of stories and perspectives led into a transformative healing experience for herself, for her child, and for Jesus.

One example of strangers within Australia today is that of asylum seekers and refugees, who are the most vulnerable among us. (terrorist, Muslim, dog???) My encounter with Mohammad, having fled from Afghanistan leaving behind his family, having spent 10 months at Woomera Detention Centre and now faces an unknown future even though he has been granted a Temporary Protection Visa. He has been raised as a Muslim but is not accepted by other Afghani immigrants due to his minority cultural differences from them. Nor do many Christians welcome him. Moreover, he grieves for his daughter who died at a refugee camp in Pakistan since he arrived in Australia. Mohammad longs for security and also to reunite with his family, remains a foreigner, an outsider, and one who doesn’t belong and limbo in Australia.

When we offer hospitality, we embrace the other. In the New Testament, the Greek word for hospitality is philoxenos, meaning ‘love of the stranger’, so the depth of our awareness of that love is our invitation to show hospitality to the stranger. Offering hospitality creates a safe and welcoming space for the other to find their own sense of humanity and worth. This offer of hospitality, with eyes open to the Spirit, welcomes strangers out of a delight in the possibility that God might be present.

Offering hospitality also contributes our wholeness. As we welcome the one who is unknown/the other, we are able to welcome what is strange/other in ourselves with more confidence. And in so doing, God draws us towards our own wholeness. In this regard, Psalm 139:11-12, reminds us that light and darkness are the same to God. Nothing is darkness with God. Darkness as the unknown, either in another cultural person or in ourselves, leads us on to venture into the darkness through our encounter with another, and it is then that we find that God is there already.

Offering hospitality to the stranger means much more than merely tolerating diversity. Rather, it implies learning from the ‘other’, the stranger and learning something more of ourselves. Our faith has the opportunity to grow, I believe, when we are confronted with different ideas, different experiences, different views and new ways of seeing God at work. Our own restraining beliefs, prejudices can be exposed and converted into new understanding may reveal for ourselves, new understanding, new experiences of God’s grace.

Are we at times preoccupied with our own particular view of the world? Might our understanding of what God is asking of us need to be challenged; do our boundaries need stretching? Might Jesus, after his encounter with the Gentile woman, have journalled about opening his eyes and widening his focus to allow God’s ‘unbiased grace’ to break through? As we enter a new week, let’s take with us the question of how God is saying to each of us, ‘Be open’. Amen.

One Comment

  1. I have reread this sermon after 20 years and I was reminded of it from the story of Ruth which we heard yesterday – November 7th 2021 . As Christians we hear thousands of sermons but few we remember but this one I remember almost all of it – I knew who preached it and the scripture that supported it from Genesis and Matthew. Also its powerful message which seems as fresh today as when I first heard it. I believe something within it change me in ways I did not know at the time. I have never thanked you for this reflection but I do now, I too was a stranger in a strange land so it spoke to my heart

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