Passage for reflection: Matthew 15: 21 - 28
When the sat nav in the car thinks you’ve gone the wrong way, it will say “when it is safe, prepare to do a u turn.” Almost saying to us “you need to think again.”
Throughout trying to manage this pandemic, the government has had to do some pretty major u turns on policy. Of course, there was one former Prime Minister who would never consider such action!
“We shall not be diverted from our course. To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the u turn, I have only one thing to say.
You turn if you want to. The lady’s NOT for turning.”
The Gospel story for this Sunday asks of us a huge question. Does Jesus get things wrong and have to do a u turn?
Jesus finds himself in foreign territory. Tyre and Sidon were cities of Phoenicia, a part of Syria. Tyre lay forty miles north west of Capernaum. Its names means the rock, so called because two huge rocks were joined by a three thousand foot long ridge, forming a natural harbour and defence. Phoenicians were famous sailors and the first to navigate by the stars. When, under Joshua, the land was divided among the tribes, this area was allocated to the tribe of Asher, but they never managed to take it over. They didn’t obey the Lord’s commands, so that is why it is Gentile territory.
Jesus was under attack from the Scribes and Pharisees, so he came here for a brief respite so that he could spend quality time with his disciples before the final showdown with the Jewish authorities.
However, as soon as he arrived there, he was accosted by a woman whose child was very ill and because she had heard about the healings that had taken place elsewhere, she begged him to heal her daughter.
“Lord, have mercy on me.”
In one of the most outrageous bits of the Gospel, Jesus tells her her problems have nothing to do with him.
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
In other words, I am here only to help Jews, not Gentiles like you. How often have we heard that in our lives out of the mouths of people? “They are not my problem because they are not my sort, or part of my world.” “I need to look after my own.”
Matthew, the Gospel writer, calls the woman a Canaanite. The Canaanites of course were Israel’s old enemies eight hundred years before. They had worshipped Baal and his female consort Asherah, and the Old Testament is full of stories of conflicts between Yahweh, Israel’s God, and Baal. So Matthew is trying to make the point that this woman is completely outside of God’s care, she’s not just any old Gentile—she’s belongs to the most worthless, most hated group of all.
Imagine you are that woman.
You hear Jesus tell you, “look I’ve got nothing to do with you.” But like any loving parent, you won’t take no for an answer. “Lord, help me,” you plead.
Now Jesus responds to you directly, but what he says is hardly reassuring.
“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
You’re not sure you believe what you are hearing!
But is quickly becomes clear. You reply, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ tables.”
Jesus calls (and those of her community) dogs.
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The woman doesn’t doesn’t bristle at the put down. Instead, she turns it back on Jesus.
“We may be dogs, Jesus, but remember, loving masters give their dogs table scraps to eat.”
Now, you’ve finally convinced him. Jesus praises your faith, and your daughter is healed instantly. Not a very pretty story is it? Jesus isn’t behaving like he’s supposed to behave, and the woman isn’t exactly a model of proper decorum, either.
This is may be one of the most troubling stories in all of the gospels. Jesus is supposed to be merciful and compassionate, he’s supposed to respond with love and care when someone asks him for help. But that’s not what he does here. It’s here (at least in Matthew’s Gospel) there comes a realisation he might have been wrong in the narrowness of his mission. After seeing the woman’s persistence and her cheeky coming back at him, there comes a divine u turn.
The u turn is caused by the woman’s faith. The disciples want her sent away. Jesus isn’t really bothered with her but he is clearly moved by how much she believes in him and needs his help.
She comes to him, trusts in his promises, stretches out her hands and holds them there until he fills them. That’s all she does – this woman who has no cultural right to be anywhere near Jesus, let alone talk with him; this woman who doesn’t even know the right stuff about God. But here she is, crying out ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon’ That’s how faith begins, doesn’t it? … by daring to come to Jesus even at the risk of being disappointed, and persevering.
She echoes Psalm 142, ‘Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need.” Sometimes, that desperation leads us to the brink of despair. But that’s precisely where we discover the merciful arms of God.
The woman is confident that even if she is not entitled to sit down as a guest at the table, Gentile dog that she is, at least she may be allowed to receive a crumb of the mercy of God.
I believe at that point Jesus cannot let her go without being a hypocrite. As Martin Luther once said “she caught Jesus in his own words.” She’d heard Jesus say he loved the hungry, the thirsty, and the poor in spirit … well here she is! She takes his words seriously, and then she waits and waits and waits and waits until he comes to take them seriously too. The divine u turn!
There is an important lesson for us from this story. We have a Jesus who is prepared to think again - even with major policy and theological understanding. We have a Jesus who has his convictions challenged.
Which means in our thoughts on who matters and who needs care, we may have to do some pretty sharp u turns ourselves especially regarding our prejudices and misconceptions.
How often have we come to our own conclusions about people because we’ve been told a story about them or because we just haven’t had them in our world?
I ministered to a town which was a few miles from another town where race riots were happening. At a coffee morning in church I found some elderly ladies shaking with fear. “Asians are coming!” they said. They’d never met anyone from Asia and their perception of Muslims was horrifying until I gave them an evening on Islam!
I ministered to a village where every problem crime wise was blamed on young people. I was told some older folk were scared to go through the shopping precinct to Waitrose because “youths are there.” I asked what “youths” were doing. They were sitting on a wall. The elderly and the younger folk never met. So all sorts of misunderstandings happened.
We still hear rubbish spoken about people of another race, or colour, or sex, or sexual orientation. When we take time to meet people and treat everyone as our equal there can be change and often the stupid stories we’ve been told we leave behind as we become friends.
This weekend we are remembering the seventy fifth anniversary of VJ Day, the end of the Second World War. I’d not really appreciated VJ Day until this weekend watching the service from the National Arboretum. For most people in Britain, peace happened in May 1945, not August, but for the forgotten army in the Far East, peace did not come until months later and there wasn’t much peace coming home, many had to live their cruel suffering in their heads the rest of their lives and it was hard to move on.
But their sacrifice and pain helped build a better world. To work for that world to last takes an investment and commitment to work for it. I remember in the 1990’s being asked to listen to a local preacher. His service was on forgiveness. We were jollying along quite nicely until he said “I can forgive everyone, but not the Japanese.”
I was horrified but I tried to understand. He’d heard the story but he’d never met a Japanese person nor did he want to accept the world might have changed. I did a youth exchange in the 1980’s with a church in Germany. When they came to Harpenden and we sat in the park, some folk moved away from us. One of the German youngsters said to me, sadly, “I think it is to do with the war.”
To make a u turn to include everyone, especially when out of a learnt story or experience we have been told that they are nothing to do with us, takes time and effort. Jesus had to learn that. He really thought he should ignore this woman!
The Methodist website reminds us of this:
“The assurance of the free grace of God was the experience of the early Methodists, which the Wesleys set in the Christian tradition of 'arminianism', emphasising within human freewill the need for holy living as an outcome of faith leading towards 'Christian perfection'.
The Calvinists (such as George Whitefield) by contrast stressed the absolute sovereignty of God and believed in predestination.
This implied that some people could never reach God, no matter what they did, as 'the elect' had already been chosen.
But Wesley and the Methodists preached that all can be saved. No one is beyond the reach of God's love.”
It’s so easy to say all matter. But let’s be honest, they don’t. We say and sing that all are welcome. But they aren’t. We don’t really want our cosy, comfortable world of like minded people challenged. We know what we believe and who is in and who should be out.
But if no one is beyond the reach of God’s love, then the u turn is urgent. Jesus made one and so should we. If someone says “have mercy on me” to us, can we really ask who they are before we decide if we will bother with them?
Let me illustrate it like this:
Dorian the cat who lives next door we are told by his owners isn’t allowed in our house. That’s the rules!
It is raining. Dorian is getting wet. He jumps through our open window. Do we let him suffer because we are told that’s what has to be?
What do you think??!!!
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