Proper 15 Year A 8/20/2023
Isaiah 56:1,6-8; Psalm 67; Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15:10-28
Rev. Mark A. Lafler
Our reading from the Gospel is in two parts.
The first part is an interaction Jesus had with a crowd and his disciples.
I won’t focus too much on this bit today…
However, when Jesus mentions what comes out of the heart…
When he says:
For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.
I think it should give us pause to the dominant cultural mantra:
Follow your heart.
You literally see that slogan on T-shirts, notepads, all over the place…
And it usually is proclaimed as the highest advice one can give another in movies and television shows:
Follow your heart… be true to your heart.
Jesus here says something quite different.
Something to chew on and think about.
Is it really a good thing to follow one’s heart?
I will leave that there.
What I want to focus on today is, rather, the second narrative we have.
Jesus and his companions travelled north…
Just outside of Palestine to the areas of Tyre and Sidon.
They probably went there to get away from the crowds…
To find some time for prayer, contemplation, and rest.
However, they were greeted and followed by a Canaanite woman.
A non-Jewish lady whose daughter was being tormented by a demon.
Now our narrative has a couple of challenges that we need to look at.
First, in the reading it seems as though Jesus is not interested in helping this woman in need.
And second, did Jesus call the woman a derogatory term…
did he just call this woman a dog?
Let’s look at the first obstacle.
Did Jesus want to help the woman and her child?
When the woman said:
Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David;
my daughter is tormented by a demon.
The Gospel tells us that Jesus did not answer her at all.
Then the disciples wanted her to leave… finding her to be a nuisance.
Jesus then shares that he is focused on the people of Israel saying:
I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Of course, she persists in asking for mercy for her child in need.
Now, one of the things that is going on here is the plan of God.
If you will recall earlier in Jesus’ ministry, he sends out the disciples but only to the people of Israel. (Matthew 10.5)
The plan all along was for the Jews to receive the Messiah first and then the rest of the world…
The promise of the Messiah was first to the house of Israel and then the blessing to all the peoples of the world.
You see this same plan laid out in the Great Commission that Jesus gave before His Ascension:
…you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1.8)
So, in our narrative, Jesus is working the plan.
The woman is not Jewish, she is a Canaanite.
Nevertheless, Jesus’ compassion and mercy break forth to Gentiles throughout the Gospels on various occasions…
And this is one of those encounters.
Her persistent cry for mercy caught Jesus’ attention…
He put the plan on pause, for a moment, because of her need.
The second obstacle has to do with this word dog…
Did Jesus call the woman a derogatory term?
Well, the answer may be a bit of a yes and no.
Often, first century Jews referred to Gentiles as dogs…
in the sense that they were unclean…
by Jewish Law if a Jew touched a Gentile, they would be unclean.
So, yes, from our point of view the term would seem derogatory.
However, there seems to be more to the story here.
Jesus’ response to her request for help was:
It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.
He is once again referring to the plan of God that the Messiah is first to come to Israel.
But this word dog in the Greek is not the normal word that is used for Gentiles… the roving street dog.
The Greek word here refers to a house dog… usually a puppy.
So, although playing with the term Jews used for Gentiles, it may have been more affectionate than the normal term.
And as one commentator put it:
We do not know Jesus facial expressions or body language when he said it.
And her response is even more revealing.
She uses her wit and responds:
Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.
She also used the same Greek word referring to a puppy.
With this Jesus is amazed by her faith and grants her cry for mercy.
And that is the heart of the story…
The compassion and mercy of our Lord.
Putting a pause on the plan because there was a person in need.
And breaking the cultural barriers because of the woman’s daughter.
Our God is a God of compassion and mercy.
The famous anthropologist Margaret Mead was once asked this question:
What was the earliest sign of civilization in any given culture?
The expected answer was a clay pot or perhaps a fishhook or grinding stone.
Her answer was “a healed femur.”
The femur, of course, is the leg bone above the knee.
Mead explained that no healed femurs are found where the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, reigns.
A healed femur shows that someone cared.
Someone had to do that injured person’s hunting and gathering until the leg healed.
The evidence of compassion, she said, is the first sign of civilization.
We might suggest that it is also the first sign of the work of Christ in the life of a Christian.
To follow Christ is to be a person of mercy and compassion.
Just as our Lord was and is.
Mercy was the cry of our opening line from our Psalm:
May God be merciful to us and bless us…
And it is what we see in our Lord:
Jesus response is mercy…
Jesus’ response is compassion.
And the proper response for us is the same as this Canaanite woman…
Have mercy on me, Lord
We can always ask the why question.
Why did this happen?
Why did that happen?
And there are philosophical and theological answers for the why questions of our pain and the evil in this world….
But usually, if not most of the time, academic theological and philosophical answers do not heal an emotional wound.
Bleeding hearts are not resolved in a doctor’s conference.
They are resolved with care…
With mercy…
With compassion.
And the Lord answers that call of mercy…
His response is the Incarnation, the Cross, and the Resurrection.
His response is the gift of grace that we receive through faith.
His response to pain and evil is His suffering for our sake on the cross.
And this is the heart of our worship.
This is the heart of our liturgy.
We can experience a lot of things when we come to church on a Sunday morning…
But I hope one of the main things we hear…
One of the main things we sense…
One of the main things we experience…
Is the mercy of God.
The prophet Jeremiah cries out:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3.22-23)
And this message of mercy is all throughout our liturgy.
(Rite 1)
Our thoughts are directed early in liturgical worship with the response:
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us. (BCP, 324)
In our confession we cry out in prayer:
Have mercy upon us,
Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father… (BCP, 331)
And then we hear the words of absolution:
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of his great mercy
hath promised forgiveness of sins to all those who with
hearty repentance and true faith turn unto him,
have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness,
and bring you to everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(BCP, 332)
It is from here that we soon after enter the sacred words of the Holy Eucharist.
And we hear the words of what Christ did in his sacrifice:
All glory be to thee, Almighty God, our heavenly Father, for
that thou, of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only Son Jesus
Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption…. (BCP, 334)
And once again:
And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to
accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving;
most humbly beseeching thee to grant that,
by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ,
and through faith in his blood,
we, and all thy whole Church, may obtain remission of our
sins, and all other benefits of his passion. (BCP, 335)
And just before we receive the sacrament,
we say together the prayer of humble access:
We do not presume to come to this thy Table,
O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness,
but in thy manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.
Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him,
and he in us. (BCP, 337)
And with that we continue the sacramental remembrance as we receive the body and blood of our Lord.
The whole liturgy follows the persistent cry of mercy along the path of the Canaanite woman.
Church, may we be persistent in our asking for mercy…
And may we receive His mercy through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross…
And as we gather together today…
Receive his mercy at the altar in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
May our Lord have mercy upon us.
And may we have mercy on one another.
Amen.
(Rite 2)
Our thoughts are directed early in the liturgy with a prayer and need for God’s mercy in the Collect for Purity.
Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known,
and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our
hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit… (BCP, 355)
In our confession we cry out in prayer:
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,… (BCP, 360)
And then we hear the words of absolution:
Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
strengthen you in all goodness,
and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.
(BCP, 360)
It is from here that we soon after enter the sacred words of the Holy Eucharist.
And we hear the words of what Christ did in his sacrifice:
Holy and gracious Father: In your infinite love you made us
for yourself, and, when we had fallen into sin and become
subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy,
sent Jesus Christ,
your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature,
to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you,
the God and Father of all.
He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself,
in obedience to your will,
a perfect sacrifice for the whole world. (BCP, 362)
Many of you are also familiar with the Rite 1 liturgy where the prayer of Humble Access is also prayed:
We do not presume to come to this thy Table,
O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness,
but in thy manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.
Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him,
and he in us. (BCP, 337)
And with that we continue the sacramental remembrance as we receive the body and blood of our Lord.
The whole liturgy follows the persistent cry of mercy along the path of the Canaanite woman.
Church, may we be persistent in our asking for mercy…
And may we receive His mercy through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross…
And as we gather together today…
Receive his mercy at the altar in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
May our Lord have mercy upon us.
And may we have mercy on one another.
Amen.