Matthew 15: 21-28
Tyre and Sidon. 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.” 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.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
Today’s lessons are about the never ending debate we humans seem to insist upon having over who is “in” and who is “out”. The lesson from Isaiah was one side of this argument when the people of Israel returned home after exile. Isaiah advocated for including anyone who did justice and treated others rightly. For him, following Torah was about how you lived, not where you were born. The Nehemiah faction, on the other hand, insisted that only Jews who married other Jews and who were born to pure Jewish parents could be included.
The Gospel is the same debate just 500 years later. Like the Nehemiah faction, the Pharisees were certain that only people born to two Jewish parents and were exacting followers of the letter of the Law could be “in” and that made this Canaanite woman in the story “out” before she was even born with no chance of ever being “in”!
Jesus had tried other, less dramatic ways to change the Pharisees' minds but none had worked. I suspect he chose this encounter with the Canaanite woman to try to shock them into a new way of thinking. He pretended to treat the woman like the Pharisees would, “this woman is a dog!” That was the bait. I think he was hoping the Pharisees would say, “Oh, look Jesus is coming around to our way of thinking.” But then Jesus set the hook and in a micro second went from “Woman, you're a dog” to "Woman great is your faith!” Jesus had hoped, I think, to give the Pharisees a theological whiplash so big that it would change their minds and hearts. That, unfortunately, didn’t work either and as we all know very well, that same argument about “who’s in and who’s out” continues all around us even today.
Last Sunday it was Kelly’s “at home” weekend. Hanna came up… Maggie and Isaac came down and we did what all families do when they get together… we went to a Drag Brunch with friends! But even there… at a drag brunch in the Berkshires… that same argument over who is “in” and who is “out” played out right there in front of us. It turned out that one of the drag queens was not a man, crossdressing as a woman doing drag, but a woman, dressed as a woman, doing drag. I didn’t know that was a thing. It turns out that’s a thing! But was that right? Was it fair? Was the woman who was doing a gay, male, art form practicing cultural appropriation? What is drag? What counts as drag? Should she be counted as “in” or was she to be counted as “out” in the drag world?
Different centuries, different millennia even, different peoples, different religions, different rationales… Same old argument. Who is in and who is out? Isaiah didn’t settle it. Jesus didn’t settle it. You and I… I hate to tell you... we’re not going to settle it for the world either. So what do we do?
I think, as followers of Jesus, we do what Jesus did. First, whenever he encountered people who wanted to count people “out” he didn’t ignore it. He tried different ways to confront it, including shocking them into a new way of thinking and that’s where we are called to start as well. When we encounter people looking to draw people outside of a circle, we too are called to confront it. Jesus didn’t use violence, and that’s not for us either, but apparently trying logic, stories, and getting creatively shocking is all on the table. In this story that tactic didn’t work, but we need to remember that Nicodemus was a Pharisee on which it did! So it is possible and worth trying.
Second, if it doesn’t work. If you can’t convince the other to draw the circle around the “other” whoever that “other” might be, then we are called to do what Jesus did and draw that person into our circle anyway. It is very annoying that we can’t “make” people be inclusive. None of us and not even Isaiah or Jesus can “make” people be inclusive. That is out of our control. What IS in our control, however, is drawing those who are excluded into our circle of love, compassion, kindness, and joy regardless of the cost.
You’ve probably heard these last two quotes but they pretty much sum up this whole lesson. Come to think of it, I should have just read them both and then sat down! Anyway the first is by Edwin Markham.
“He drew a circle that shut me out - Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him in.”
The second is by Rabbi Tarfon which says: “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it”
The world continues to draw circles that shut people out for being heretics, rebels, and an endless list of other reasons. But you and I are not to be daunted by the enormity of that painful reality. Instead, we are to do what is within our control in each moment. Doing justly, now. Loving mercy, now. Walking humbly, now because while we are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are we free to abandon it.” Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment