Let's Not Give Up.
October 14, 2007
Ralph DiBiasio-Snyder
Matthew 15:21-28

Introduction to the Reading:

Our reading this morning is a story about Jesus, his little band of followers, and especially an extraordinary woman - a mother pleading on behalf of her daughter. We know little about this woman. Only that she is a Canaanite - that is, she is of a different race and religion from Jesus - and that she has a great need - her daughter is ill - "tormented by a demon," as she describes it. (In those days they often understood illness to be caused by demons.) We also learn that this woman is very bright, and, says Jesus at the end, full of faith.

Listen carefully to the story - especially to how Jesus changes through it. I think you'll find what he says surprising.

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I remember when I was growing up there used to be a little announcement on the radio every night at 11:00 that went this way: "It's 11:00 p.m.; do you know where your children are?"

Last Sunday morning, as you were beginning your worship here, Kay Sanders, had she known, could have said, "It's 10:00; do you know where your co-pastors are?"

For your co-pastors were not here. And they were, as luck would have it, in a very strange place for them - honestly - especially for a Sunday morning. For Carol and I - in the company of a church member whose identity I will not disclose - were this time last Sunday strolling, wide-eyed, into the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in upstate New York.

I say "wide-eyed" because neither of us - honestly - had ever been in a casino. Wide-eyed too because of what we were seeing. Now, I'm sure that you too are as ignorant of casinos as Carol and I are. So let me enlighten you. They're huge, luxurious, gaudy, smoky and loud. And even on a Sunday morning, they draw a pretty fair-sized congregation. These cathedrals of our time are filled with busloads of folks happy to empty their pockets for some not-so-cheap thrills.

I should say that under the skilled tutelage of the aforementioned and still anonymous church member, the three of us doubled our money in fifteen minutes! $5 (which was the minimum amount you could gamble) was turned into $10 at the Sea Monkeys nickel slot machine - which, I found out, doesn't really have slots any more, or handles to pull either.

It is a strange time in which we live. I wish I could say that as we walked among the miles of machines I was asking the large questions they raise: What is it that lures so many to lose so much at such places? Just what is the attraction? What needs are being met at such a cost for the grandmother, the grandfather who can spend a whole day, alone, and a whole lot mindlessly tapping the Next Play button? No, such meaningful questions didn't last long in my mind.

No, I was too busy judging the clientele. That is, I was too busy categorizing, classifying, and mostly looking down on the total strangers I was seeing. I was imagining them - people I knew nothing about, except that they (like me!) were in a casino on a Sunday morning - I was imagining the worst about them. I was pre-judging them - something I do a great deal of, and I foolishly think I can do a good job of it too.

It seems to be a universal human trait - a human right, almost - that we pre-judge one another. We think that we know what that other person is doing, and why they are doing it. We think that we know - without any good reason whatsoever - the motives behind every action. Thus armed with no facts at all, we place that person in their category - in their ?place' - and leave them there.

They're just lazy . . . they don't care . . . they're wacky . . . their family is that way . . . their race is that way . . . their gender is that way . . . they're not like me, and so they're something less than me . . . .

We're especially good at prejudice when it comes to people of another race, another religion, another economic class. The racism that has historically been so much a part of American society - prejudice institutionalized against African Americans by our slave-holding forebears - surfaced once again these past few weeks in Jena, Louisiana.

There is not time to tell all that has gone into that situation, and still less to propose any judgement as to who was at fault, whose rights have been denied. But the mere fact that when two black students dared sit under a tree that was known to be a "white tree," and that the next day nooses were found hanging in that tree - that shows that in 2007, almost 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and 43 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, racism is still alive and well. And we all know that racist attitudes is not confined to Jena, Louisiana.

It is a long-practiced means of defense and oppression, and a deeply held belief, this business of racial and religious prejudice. Tough to overcome - even, it seems, for Jesus himself!

For the story Paula read for us shows that even Jesus struggled to overcome the prejudices that he had acquired growing up in his culture. Let's look at that story again.

Jesus is traveling through a non-Jewish part of Palestine, and a Canaanite woman ? one of the locals ? comes to him, seeking help. She is not Jewish. She does not share Jesus' religion. But she is a human being, and she is in need.

And so she is shouting, Have mercy on me , Lord . . . my daughter is tormented. It is a mother's desperate cry for help. She will do anything to help her little girl. Maybe, she thinks, this compassionate miracle-worker she has heard of, even if he is a Jew, will help. And what was Jesus' reaction to her cry? He has three reactions, and none of them good.

The first one is silence. "He did not answer her at all," says the text. He ignores her; maybe he hopes she'll go away. That's what I would be thinking; she is, after all, one of them. But isn't Jesus all-compassionate, all-loving, eager to heal? "He did not answer her at all."

But she keeps crying out for help, and the disciples ? ever the astute ones in these matters ? tell Jesus to send her away. She is becoming a nuisance, and bother, an embarrassment. Ignoring her isn't getting rid of her. And then comes his second response - not to the woman, but to the disciples, almost as if he is justifying himself, explaining his silence: "I was sent only to the house of Israel," he says. Not my job -- again, sounds like something I'd say! Maybe you too . . . .

But this brave and clever mother overhears this, and will not be put off by job descriptions. Once more she appeals to Jesus, kneeling this time, with the simplest prayer in the world: "Lord, help me." And then we hear the most disturbing response from Jesus when he finally talks directly to her: "It's not fair to take the children's food, and throw it to the dogs." To the dogs? Did he just call her a dog? Again, it sounds like something I would be thinking, but probably not saying out loud. To the dogs . . . . Is that what you would expect from the Jesus you know?

It is a problem, this little story. At least it is if you think that Jesus was perfect in knowledge and character from the start. Many people take that view. They say that Jesus, as the Son of God, was fully mature in mind and spirit at birth. And so they look at this story and say that a perfect Jesus surely must have been testing the woman, gently teasing her to see how she would react. He had a twinkle in his eye, they say, when he used the word dogs and besides, they say, the word in the Greek here is really puppies, as though that helps. In other words, in order to preserve Jesus' perfect nature they soften his words, imagining a tone of voice that is not in the text itself. That's one way of handling a difficult text.

But let's begin at a different place. Let's begin assuming that sharing the full humanity that we all share, Jesus himself had to grow in the knowledge of God, in understanding God's will. He had to grow in character, just as we do. Beginning from that place, what does this story tell us?

It tells us that racial bigotry is a powerful, pervasive force within us. So powerful that it took even Jesus time to overcome it in himself. Even Jesus had to unlearn what his culture had taught him. This story is part of his own journey toward seeing all people, even despised Canaanites, as God's people, worthy of respect, of love, and healing.

In most of the gospel stories it is Jesus who is the teacher. Usually it is he who uses his sharp and quick wit, his profound knowledge of God and Scripture, to correct wrong attitudes. We see that especially as he spars verbally with the religious leaders. But here, as I read the story, he is the learner. And who is the teacher? This very clever, very quick, bravely persistent unnamed Canaanite woman. Refusing to be ignored, refusing to just go away, even refusing to be offended when her people are called dogs, she uses her mind and her heart to be a teacher to the Great Teacher, Jesus himself.

Jesus is amazed at her wit, and her faith. And so his last response to her is, "Woman, great is your faith!" She went home, her daughter healed. And I believe that Jesus went on from there his mind opened to an inclusive knowledge of the love and grace of God that embraces all people.

And so the lesson of this passage is both simple and challenging: If Jesus had to learn to overcome prejudice, how much more do we need to? Our propensity to place people different from us into categories always below us; our lightning-speed ability to pre-judge whole races and religions and classes - these are deeply imbedded, and take a lifetime to overcome. It's hard. But we must not give up. For the cost we pay for not overcoming it is devastating - to individuals surely, and to our culture and our world.

We saw a great bumper sticker on our trip - NOT at the casino. It said, Don't believe everything you think. Don't believe the foolish, petty prejudices that are so much a part of us. Instead, let us, like Jesus himself, learn what is true, and believe what we learn. Let us open ourselves that we can understand, respect, include, and embrace not just those who are like us, but all people. Only then can we be the open, welcoming community of faith we long to be. Only then is there hope for our world. Amen.