One of Us?

 

Texts: Isaiah 56:1, 6-8; Romans 11:1-2a, 39-32; Matthew 15:21-28

When my Father was particularly exasperated about something he would cast his eyes to the ceiling (what one of my sisters called "doing a splat"), shake his head, and mutter, "For crying out loud!"  Well, we've had rather a lot of crying out loud in our Scriptures recently.   For Lois' service of commissioning we had the beggar at the roadside crying out loud as Jesus was passing by; last week we had poor old Peter crying out loud as he was sinking into Lake Galilee; and now this week we have this Syro-Phoenician (Lebanese) woman crying out loud again. 

In each case, the person concerned was crying out loud to Jesus.  They all wanted something from him.  Bartimaeus wanted the restoration of his sight; Peter wanted to be saved from drowning; this woman this morning wants her daughter healed.  There is, we would have thought, a pattern here: three parallel cases, three people in need, three urgent requests to Jesus, three people crying out for help.  And that being so we might have expected three similar responses from Jesus.

But here's the problem.  Jesus does not respond in the same manner in each case, although the differences between the first two cases are not large.  When Bartimaeus cries out to him, there is a formal process to go through.  Jesus has the man brought to him, and then asks him what he wants.  Only when Bartimaeus specifies what he wants does Jesus heal him.  Things were a little more urgent in Peter's case: if Jesus had insisted on following the same procedure in that case Peter may have drowned before it was completed!  Besides, as Corporal Wipiata said recently, "when it's your mate in trouble, you don't hesitate – you do what it takes."  Peter, for all his bumbling ways, was one of Jesus' closest mates.  Jesus did what it took.

But now we come to this strange episode with this woman.  She's not one of Jesus' mates; as far as we know she is a complete stranger to Jesus; the only clues we are given about her identity concern her gender (she's a woman), her ethnic identity (she's Syro-Phoenician), and her family status (she's a mother). And there is no getting away from the fact that, as Matthew presents the story to us this morning, Jesus treats her badly.  He ignores her, and then he insults her.  There is none of the generosity of spirit he shows towards Bartimaeus, and none of the instant help he gives to Peter.  Why?  Because she's a woman?  Because she's a foreigner?  Because she's a mother?

In the space of this short narrative Jesus is asked to do something four times, before he grants her request.  She calls out to him, using almost exactly the same words that Bartimaeus uses to him, and he completely ignores her.  So the disciples come to him and ask him to send her on her way because she iss getting on their nerves; and we're reminded of their response when Bartimaeus cried out.  They told him to shut up.

But there is some difference of opinion between commentators on this passage about what the disciples wanted Jesus to do on this occasion.  If they just wanted to get rid of her, why didn't they shoo her away themselves, particularly when it appeared that Jesus did not want anything to do with her?  And why did Jesus answer (them), "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel"?  Because of these difficulties in the traditional interpretation some scholars have suggested that the disciples thought the quickest way for Jesus to get rid of this woman was to grant her request.  So perhaps they said to Jesus, "Oh, give her what she wants, then we can all get some peace!"

Be that as it may, the woman persists.  She comes before Jesus, kneels at his feet, and cries out again, "Lord, help me."  This time her words are almost exactly the same as Peter's.  This time Jesus is rude to her; he insults her: "it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs".  Translation: it is not right to take what belongs to the Jews and give it to you Gentiles.  When we reflect on this we feel uncomfortable, to say the very least, don't we?  And we're not alone in that.  Over the centuries all sort of attempts have been made to soften Jesus' words and actions in this case.

Some have suggested that Jesus was testing the woman to see how strong her faith in him was.  Others have gone the opposite way: they have seen this as a turning-point – or, perhaps, a learning-point – in Jesus' own understanding of his mission.  They say that Jesus was a Jew of his time, and saw his mission entirely in terms of restoring Israel.  This woman, in challenging that understanding, helped him to see that his mission was to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.  A third possibility is that the whole story is to be understood as an allegory of God's unfolding plan: salvation is for the Jews first and, through them, to the Gentiles also, which is pretty close to St Paul's argument in chapters 9-11 of Romans.

Perhaps all the above have a certain element of truth in them.  But one guide to St Matthew's Gospel, in particular, that I have always found helpful is to look at the structure of each passage, reading the bit before and the bit that comes afterwards.  When we look at chapter 15 as a whole, we can see that it has three broad pieces.  It opens with a long tedious argument about the Jewish purity laws, in particular, those relating to ceremonial hand-washing before eating.  One of the chief effects of these and similar laws, of course, was to separate Jews from Gentiles.  So the issue on the table, as it were, is the separation of Jews and Gentiles, at least in the context of sharing food.

The chapter closes with the Feeding of the Four Thousand; not as famous as the Feeding of the Five Thousand, perhaps, but quite possibly of far greater significance.  The trick here is to note where it is taking place – on the other side of the Lake, that is, in Gentile country.  So most of the 4,000 fed that day were Gentiles, but not all of them.  And, it seems, nobody raised any objection about "mixed" eating.

So what Matthew has chosen to do in this chapter is to give us this strange story in between an intellectual debate about Jewish law and a public picnic open to all-comers, Jew or Gentile.  Could it be, therefore, that in this story we are to understand Jesus taking this opportunity to show his disciples that the consequences of separating Jews and Gentiles at the table is that he would have to withdraw his ministry of healing from the Gentiles, and even his teaching?  But if they thought that was going too far, then they could have no difficulty with open feasts of the kind we see at the conclusion of this chapter.

I want to close this morning by suggesting that this is a very good story to ponder on in election year.  We don't, of course, argue for barriers between people on grounds of religion, but we do nevertheless take it for granted that there are other barriers.  The obvious one is nationalism.  We take it for granted that we our entitled to put our own national interests first.  Think what would happen to a party that advocated open immigration to New Zealand, for example; or suggested that our overseas aid budget should be equal to the amount we spend on health, education and welfare in this country.  I don't think such a party would do too well.  We may be shocked at the way Jesus dealt with this Lebanese woman this morning, but no matter how loudly the people of Lebanon cry out to us today for assistance, we are more likely to ignore them, or tell them to go away, than we are to insist that our Government should do whatever it takes.

And we have far more subtle barriers within our own country.  As the campaign gets under way listen for the barriers our politicians will try to get us to erect in our minds.  While the Olympics games are on we're all Kiwis, aren't we?  And if one of OUR team wins a gold medal – even if it's in a sport we know nothing about – we will celebrate and feel great about it because he or she is one of us, a Kiwi.  And you can bet every politician will be looking for a photo-op with the winner.

But what we won't be hearing during the campaign is any reference to coming down hard on Kiwis who commit crimes, or Kiwis in gangs, or Kiwis bludging on the social welfare system.  In political dialog Kiwis are people like us – they don't commit crimes, they don't join gangs and they don't bludge – only criminals, mongrels and solo mothers do those things and we Kiwis want them sent away so we can all get some peace.

Maybe we are so shocked by Jesus' behaviour this morning because it is too much like our own.  He should have known better.