THE MONTH OF COMPASSION
God of the foreigner and the outcast, no one is excluded from your embrace: inspire us so to love the world, that all will live in the dignity and security of belonging in God’s family; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Genesis 45:1-15
45 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, ‘Send everyone away from me.’ So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. 3 Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?’ But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.
4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come closer to me.’ And they came closer. He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest. 7 God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. 9 Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, “Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. 10 You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. 11 I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.” 12 And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. 13 You must tell my father how greatly I am honoured in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.’ 14 Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. 15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.
Psalm 133
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Paul writes: 11 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew… 29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. 32 For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.
Matthew 15: 21-28
21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ 24 He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ 26 He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 27 She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ 28 Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.
May I speak….
Our theme for August is compassion, and God has gifted us an interesting gospel passage!
The passage begins with Jesus withdrawing far up the coast, to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Why? Jesus must have been specifically going to this Canaanite area, to meet this Canaanite woman – this was surely not a chance meeting!
When Jesus reaches the district of Tyre and Sidon, a Canaanite woman comes out and starts shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’
Jesus’ response is interesting – initially, he doesn’t answer her ...
And his disciples urge Jesus to ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’
Jesus finally answers her, saying ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’
I love her response - she comes and kneels before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ and then ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table’ after Jesus says ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’
After challenging her in this way, Jesus responds compassionately, saying ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter is healed instantly.
Interestingly, the text gives the impression that Jesus was not willing to answer her request because she was a Canaanite - there is obviously something powerful at work in the ethnic dimension of the conversation.
What is clear is that the woman was not going to give up, she kept pleading, so that Jesus recognizes her great faith.
The contrast is truly striking: in Israel, Jesus was trying to convince people He was the Messiah, and He was being challenged to prove it with a sign. But here in Gentile territory, He meets a woman convinced He is the Messiah and He could not discourage her efforts.
His apparent attempt to put her off is surely a test, and her great faith must have been gratifying to Jesus.
To understand the imagery of “dogs” used in the conversation, one needs to research the ethnic controversy and the Hebraic Scripture’s background of conflict between the kings of Israel and the Canaanites.
But that is not the core message – this passage is really about the persistent faith of this Canaanite woman.
In the Gospel of Mark [7:24-30], we are told Jesus came to the region and entered into a house and did not want anyone to know it. The woman heard about it and came looking for him. Mark explains that she was Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. This would be typical of the northern country, for it was ruled by Greeks for the period immediately before the time of Jesus. People in the region would be of mixed nationalities.
Mark does not include the disciples’ suggestion to send her away, or Jesus’ statement that he was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel. Scholars have suggested that that statement was added later to Matthew, as guidance to Matthew’s Jewish church in its relation to Gentiles, but that makes no sense. Besides, we do not know much of Matthew’s church. The story is better interpreted as part of the development of redemptive history, moving from the late OT concepts to the full Christian idea of Gentiles and Jews in the kingdom.
The Gospel of Matthew had already included such a statement in Matthew 10:6, and Matthew’s Jewish audience would have been interested to know that Jesus did a miracle for a Canaanite woman, in Gentile land.
Mark was writing to a different audience than Matthew, a Gentile audience, and that statement would need a lot of explanation to them. Jesus had healed Gentiles before, but always in Jewish territory.
Tyre and Sidon were the two main Phoenician cities just north of Mount Carmel on the coast. In the Hebraic Scripture times, this was all the region of the Phoenicians, better known as Canaanite tribes.
The Canaanite empire provided a formidable military challenge for Joshua and then the Judges. The Canaanites were (from the Hebrew perspective), thoroughly pagan and corrupt and a strong threat to the Israelite’s religion. So there is a long history of spiritual and military conflict between the Israelites and the Canaanites.
But why did Jesus go to the region? He withdrew from the conflict with the Pharisees and elders as He was trying to control the timing of things –
He did not want people to make Him king, and He did not want the confrontation with His enemies to come to a head too soon. So He withdrew frequently, or told people not to say anything about His miracles. It appears that Jesus withdrew for a time, both to let the conflict settle a bit, and to turn attention to Gentiles. The timing is most significant--the Jewish leaders were rejecting Him, and the Gentile woman who hardly knew Him was seeking mercy.
The point of the Conversation, surely, is Jesus drawing the declaration of faith out of the Canaanite woman.
The way that Jesus deals with this woman has been given some very strange interpretations. One scholar suggested that Jesus had been a racist and this woman converted him from that narrow view. That is just silly. If He had been a Jewish racist, He would not have come to Tyre and Sidon.
No, what Jesus is doing is typical of the way He dealt with people--He would put stumbling-blocks, as it were, in their way to see if they had faith to step over them.
For example, when someone called Him “good,” He said, “Why are you calling me good, there is no one good but God.” How they responded to that would show what they thought of Him (He was not denying that He was good, or God).
The woman came crying out to Jesus, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Her words are significant, given Matthew’s description of her as a Canaanite.
She is well aware of the ancient rivalry between the Jews and the Canaanites. She believes He is the promised Messiah; but if that is true, then He is to her a Jewish king, “Son of David.” As such, He is sovereign over her and her land, and all she can do is cry for mercy. Her words open the old wounds. But she was desperate for her daughter, and so would cry out for mercy from the visiting Jewish king.
It is the setting and her words that prompt the disciples, and then Jesus, to respond the way they do.
At first Jesus was silent, no doubt to see if she would persevere--and she did, following Him down the street crying out.
The disciples said “Send her away.”
Now this could mean a couple of different things.
They could mean, “Send her away because she is a nuisance”, or they could mean, “Send her away by healing her because she won’t go away.”
The second interpretation makes more sense, because Jesus’ answer speaks to it. In other words, Jesus saying “I am only sent to the lost sheep of Israel” would explain why he was not healing her.
Jesus’ answer focuses on His primary mission in the world, as reflected by Matthew. Jesus is the promised Jewish Messiah who came to His own, but when His own reject Him, He turns to the Gentiles.
Jesus’ own mission was primarily to Israel; the mission of the Gentiles will be to go into all the world. But events like this show the disciples that Jesus intention is the salvation of all.
Surely the primary point of this passage is that Jesus wants the disciples, and the woman to fully understand the role of the Son of David, the Messiah, was bigger and more inclusive than their understanding that the Hebraic Scriptures’ exclude Gentiles (like the Canaanite woman) from the covenant made with the Jews.
As I’m sure Jesus expected, this woman would not be put off, and she knelt before Him and begged, “Lord, help me.” Jesus challenged her a little further, reminding her of the historic distinction between the cursed Canaanites and the blessed Israelites. In the short saying, the Jews are the “children” and the Gentiles are the “dogs.” The children get fed first.
But the woman’s answer is marvellous: even the “dogs” eat the crumbs that the children drop. She accepts the role of a “dog” in relation to Israel (she knows the Messiah came to Israel first); acknowledging that she may not deserve to sit down at the Messiah’s table and eat with the “children,” but that she should be allowed to pick up some of the crumbs they drop. She wants some of the uncovenanted mercy of God, God’s general saving grace to all.
The word for dogs here refers to small dogs, perhaps children’s pets who are harmless and somewhat helpless. She accepts Israel’s historical privilege over the Gentiles, especially the powerful Canaanites; but she is no threat to that in her request for the grace to be freely given to the Gentiles.
She is saying she will take what the Jews do not want.
And that attitude played out again and again in Paul’s missionary journey when he turned to Gentiles because while many Jews did not want their Messiah, many Gentiles did.
The Conclusion of our passage describes Jesus rewarding her faith by healing her daughter.
Jesus honours the faith that seeks mercy. She had no resentment, no anger about her situation; she only knew that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah who came to heal people, and for some reason He was in her town. She sought mercy from Him.
And Jesus now responds with emotion (“O woman” has emotional force). Her faith was rewarded. And she became one of the early Gentiles to enter the kingdom.
The basic theme of the passage is that Christ went into Gentile territory and performed this miracle for a Gentile woman who had greater faith than those Jews who were rejecting and challenging Jesus’ claims. This demonstrates Jesus’ teaching of the first being the last, and the last being the first.
This passage also demonstrates the compassion and grace of our God, which is freely given to those who seek, whether (from the human perspective) they ‘deserve’ compassion and grace or not.
This passage is also about the faith of people who are in need, and about the coming advance of the kingdom to the Gentiles who will be sent into all the world.
So Jesus is not playing cruel, racist games with the woman - He did not go all the way to her region to avoid her, but to heal her and to make it clear that the compassion and grace of God will be given to all who ask, even though His mission called for Him to present Himself to Israel as the Son of David.
Jesus wanted to heal her daughter (He came all the way to her region to do exactly this), but He also wanted her to express her faith in spite of whatever racial tensions there were. And since she knew that He was the Lord, the Messiah, she asked for mercy, and, filled with compassion, He healed her daughter. Jesus extends compassion and mercy to all who ask it of Him.
And so the instruction is for us as well, that we too take the message of God’s compassion and mercy to the world, one person and one creature at a time, as we freely extend the compassion and mercy we have freely received. Amen!
Rev Gavin Smith
No comments:
Post a Comment