The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints, Boise
August 20, 2023
Proper 15A
Over the summer, we had a Wednesday midday class on the Psalms. We made our way through all the Psalms, both the beloved classics and the more uncomfortable ones, the Psalms that call for violence and cry out in angered anguish and disbelief.
Those were hard Psalms to read. We often equate spirituality with certain happy, peaceful feelings. Those are spiritual, we tell ourselves. But the Psalms don’t let us off the hook; the Psalms confront us with the full range of human emotions, and human emotions include anger, sadness, despair. And the Psalms confront us with the real experiences of a human community that lived and breathed in Israel, a community that was at the crossroads of many empires who were more than happy to invade that little strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea. The Psalms refuse to give in to our modern inclination to “toxic positivity”, what psychologists call “spiritual bypassing.”
But it’s not just the Psalms that can be uncomfortable. The rest of the Bible can do that for us – even the Gospels.
For us, the first part of the Gospel might not have given us much discomfort. We don’t think certain foods or drinks are off-limits, or that we need to wash our hands before we eat lest we incur a ritual impurity (but really, at least wash your hands after using the bathroom, please, please, please). The bigger question is the motivation, the impulse, the desire that comes from what we do. What our heart desires is more essential than a sense of purity.
But, don’t forget that humans are really good about inventing purity tests. We make purity tests for religion, for politics, even for people’s worth. Think about how we use purity language around people. For example, if someone uses illicit drugs, they’re unclean and need to get clean – we are saying that they are impure. Or how purity gets applied to women’s sexuality – in that case, purity is treated as a thing that can be lost forever. But that same purity standard doesn’t apply to men, and neither does purity seem to apply to greed, cruelty, false witness, stealing, and plenty of other things. Hm. I think Jesus might want us to take a long look at the purity tests we invent, because we surely aren’t measuring purity the way that Jesus seems to – plus how many times does Jesus tell us to look at our own hearts first before we even think of looking at someone else’s?
And then comes the second part of the Gospel reading that absolutely did make us uncomfortable. Jesus tells the Canaanite woman that he was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel, and she’s a Canaanite, the ancient enemy of the Israelites. The woman and her daughter are none of his concern. The Canaanite woman begs: please! And then Jesus gets mean: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
If you did not wince a little inside hearing that, you might consider whether you were listening! Why would Jesus say something like that?
Just like we did with the Psalms, let’s allow this passage make us uncomfortable. Not rush to minimize it and to make sure that Jesus still looks good. Not rush to defend or explain it away. Let’s sit with the discomfort.
I want us to sit with it. Sit with it like the Gospel’s original audience would have. The audience for Matthew’s Gospel was, scholars assume, predominantly Jewish. The way that Matthew weaves Scripture together, how he portrays Jesus as a kind of “New Moses”, an authoritative teacher makes sense for a predominantly Jewish community.
The first part of this Gospel is a good theological argument about the Law. Jesus stakes out his authoritative interpretation: the value that ritual purity has is vastly smaller than the immense value of that purity of heart, purity of desire, righteousness, doing what is right. I imagine the first audiences for Matthew’s Gospel might have discussed this a little bit. Maybe some would nod in agreement, and some would shake their heads. There would be discussion – was Jesus right? Was this external purity lesser than internal purity?
Maybe a consensus would emerge: Jesus is right. For one, the image he uses about the sewer is a pretty powerful image – what you eat is eventually gonna pass through you, but what you do and say is an expression of what’s really inside your heart.
And so Matthew’s Gospel continues. Jesus leaves that debate and it seems to completely shift away. They go into what is modern-day Lebanon. They leave the argument behind. Was it for a break from the disputation? But for whatever reason it is, Jesus will not get much respite. This woman shows up, begs him to heal her daughter. Jesus refuses.
At this point, Matthew’s first audience might be nodding in agreement: who does this woman, this foreigner, think she is? She doesn’t really care about Jesus’s message: she just wants healing for her daughter. She’s the wrong kind of person, anyway – she doesn’t follow our God. And so they agree with Jesus’ refusal.
But the Canaanite woman persists. “Lord, Son of David, have mercy.” The Canaanite woman knows who Jesus really is. And after Jesus’ insult: “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table.” The Canaanite woman beats Jesus at the argument game. A small healing for her daughter would be a tiny crumb from the Lord. Jesus praises her faith, and heals her daughter.
And now the first audience for Matthew’s Gospel sits quietly. The woman from the wrong side of the tracks, the foreign woman, this stand-in for impurity won the argument.
Her heart was intent on healing for her daughter. She knows who Jesus is: he can heal her. She follows him, shouting, begging, pleading, kneeling. Jesus ignores her, rejects her requests, and then finally insults her. She is undeterred. Her heart is purely intent on healing her daughter, and, in contrast, Jesus’ behavior and words look less than stellar.
By this story, Matthew’s Gospel is illustrating Jesus’ point about purity. Jesus is only saying what the disciples already think. They want Jesus to send this woman away. She’s a nuisance, she’s a foreigner, she’s unworthy of a blessing and healing. The disciples made that clear, and Jesus is simply doing what they would expect him to do.
But her words come from her heart – she wants healing for her daughter. She loves her daughter. Her daughter is being tormented and needs this healing desperately. From her heart pours forth great love and courage and tenacity. She has a purity of heart that we all should admire. Whether or not she’s from the right people, keeps the right rituals, has all the right moral behavior is not nearly as important as that purity of heart, that righteous love for her daughter. And what about us? Perhaps we might consider who we think is impure, from the wrong kind of people. What would we want Jesus to say to them, to do for them? Would we want Jesus to tell them off and send them away? Who do we think is unworthy of any blessing or help from God? That answer will tell us a lot about what is in our own hearts.