Eleventh Sunday after Trinity
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Readings: Isaiah 56: 1 and 6-8 and Matthew 15: 10-28
I’ve mentioned before, I’m sure, this book to which I occasionally refer entitled ‘The hard sayings of Jesus.’ And for all those who like to think ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ the first shock of the book, written by F.F. Bruce, one-time Professor of Biblical Criticism at Manchester University, will be that it deals with seventy sayings or teachings of Jesus which many have found difficult, both when he gave them, and now.
Today’s gospel account is well-covered in Professor Bruce’s book. So here we have Jesus appearing to be quite rude to the woman of Samaria who had approached him for help. He seems to insult the woman and all her race.
The background to the encounter is Jesus’ teaching about the food laws. Jews considered many foods unclean, and of course still do, refraining from pork, shellfish, birds of prey, and any meat mixed with dairy products. Now many people have scruples about what they eat, but in this chapter today Jesus challenged the Pharisees’ ritual taboos which he considered unimportant. He did not go along with the notion that what goes into a person in the way of food could defile anybody. Rather, food laws are less important than moral behaviour, that is, what comes out of the mouth and heart, in speech and action.
Earlier in the chapter, Jesus chides the Pharisees: “For the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God.” When the shocked disciples reprimand Jesus, telling him the Pharisees have taken offence at what he’s said, he by no means retracts his accusation, but goes further. Through this and other similar passages, we tend to get an unfavourable view of the Pharisees, but Anthony Harvey, former Canon of Westminster Abbey, notes that the ‘Pharisees were popular, humane and conscientious’ and argues that the bad press that the Pharisees get is unwarranted. They were undoubtedly traditionalists. In the understanding of the New Testament, a traditionalist is someone who hands on what he or she has received.
You could say that we are traditionalists here, anxious to preserve what is good here; what has been handed down to us, and which we will pass on. The question to all traditionalists is – how much should you change in the light of fresh understandings or deeper revelations or new knowledge which previous generations did not have. Some commentators claim that the anti-Pharisee polemic ascribed to Jesus tells us more about the feeling at the time Matthew’s gospel was first circulated than about the mind of Jesus himself.
Things aren’t always what they seem. Maybe when we hear a particular group of people, or a political party, or a race, or anybody whose way of life may not accord to ours or to what Society might favour, being denigrated, ‘dis’sed’, bad-mouthed, or ‘cancelled’ as the modern term goes, we should be very wary before adopting the same attitude, before carefully and charitably considering the evidence. What a tragedy that the former Cambridge professor Jason Arday felt so hounded by press and on-line abuse that he didn’t think life worth living any more.
So after his run-ins with the Pharisees, Jesus retreats to the coast of Tyre and Sidon, possibly for a rest with his disciples. This is the closest Jesus gets to any foreign territory. But any rest is short-lived as he is approached by the Canaanite woman – certainly not ‘a person like us.’ Her pleas for help for her sick daughter are ignored by Jesus, and his disciples urge him to send this nuisance away.
But he answers them, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” This is the ‘hard-saying’, or at least part of it. He adds, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” It does sound harsh. But although Jesus said he was for the Jews first, that was because he had to start somewhere. And those who understand the Greek text well will tell us that the original word here for ‘dogs’ refers to household pets – and young ones at that. ‘Puppies’ might be a better translation. So there are strands of affection and respect in Jesus’ first response, and it gives a cue for the woman to respond with boldness, wit and faith. She responds that even dogs are permitted to be present at meals under their master’s table; the inference being that she, as a Gentile, being excluded from the figurative table of Jesus, was worse off than the animals. Maybe the Lord was teasing her a bit, to see what her response would be. And, of course, he warms to her faith and heals her daughter. In her is a sign of the universality of God’s love as revealed in Jesus. After arguing with the Pharisees and rejecting their narrow definitions and regulations that labelled people, Jesus is faced with the logic of his own argument, and forced by this woman to take the step of including gentiles in his ministry.
Jesus is for all people, at all times and in all places. And we have an affirming message in the short reading from Isaiah this morning, dating from a time 500 years before Jesus. Chapters 56 to 66 of Isaiah concern life in Jerusalem after the return of exiles from the long period in Babylon. The emphasis in these chapters is on the importance of keeping the laws and on the triumph of God. But there is no exclusiveness here. It wasn’t just the Jewish faithful who could find acceptance in the temple when they returned after the exile. Foreigners who bound themselves to the Lord, and kept his covenant and observed the Sabbath would be accepted. ‘These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.” The prophet tells those returning from exile that they, who were themselves outcast, must now welcome other outcasts too – in his day foreigners, eunuchs, and the ones whose race, bodies, genders or identities could never fit their rules. All this has a very contemporary ring about it as modern society in places shows antagonism towards those who don’t fit in. It’s noteworthy that the Pharisees of Jesus day had regressed from the acceptance of gentiles that Isaiah was advocating.
We’ve reflected on what Jesus may or may not have been saying about the Pharisees, that traditionalist party in first-century Judaism. But let’s suppose for a moment that the Gospel, as well as talking about someone else, is talking to us. After all, that’s why we read the Gospels in church.
A prayer by Judith Dimond with this passage in mind:
Lord God of all peoples, may I be open to your truth in the voice of strangers, and search for your wisdom among the excluded and oppressed, and be willing to change my mind for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.