(Another thought-provoking sermon from a liberal Episcopalian. Rowland).

Matthew 15: 21-28

By Harry T. Cook

If we remember that all four gospels we find in the New Testament were assembled no earlier than 70 C.E., and that much of their content reflects the life of the communities out of which they came, it will be easier to take the unflattering portrait of Jesus painted by the author of the passage at hand and its infamous line: It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. Matthew credits Jesus with speaking that line to the Canaanite woman who came to him in desperation (and, some would say, in faith) to seek his help with her mentally deranged child. The adjective “Caananite” pretty much tells the story. The Canaanite woman in this story is like the Good Samaritan in Luke’s compelling story. Both represented “them” as opposed to “us.” After considerable research and consulting that of others on such texts as this, my hypothesis is that much of the tension in Matthew is traceable to communities that were astride the line between traditional Judaism and the innovative Jesus Movement, which was probably as “them-and-us” a situation as you could imagine.

A lot was at stake: the whole messiah concept, the iconoclasm that is so much on display in the Gospel of Mark and the Jewish fear of supersession and eclipse. On what would become the Christian side, the fear may have been an early discrediting of the new way based on the radical ethic of Jesus. That, I think, is a fair representation of what lay behind the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman – she not being a Jew in any ordinary sense that Matthew’s communities might have been able to appreciate. Her comeuppance was short-lived however, as Matthew, astride, just like his congregations, that divide between past and future, depicted Jesus as backing down. Jesus laid it off on the woman’s faith. Great is your faith! If such an event actually happened, I’ll bet Jesus would have said something life, “Woman! Your persistence is amazing. You’re not one of us, but I’ll do what I can for you.” I think here Matthew may have been hinting at a de-icing of the relationship between synagogue and church, and maybe even of Jesus as a bridge that might connect the two. Alas, that bridge was never built or never allowed to be built. And so Judaism and Christianity moved into an uneasy relationship that would come to be characterized by such literary figures as Shylock and other anti-heroes dreamt up by other anti-Semites – all of which came to a Wagnerian kind of climax in the Holocaust. It all may have started as early as the Gospel of John in which the writer referred to Jesus’ detractors as “the Jews,” while earlier gospels singled out Pharisees and Sadducees. I would hope that few Christians today would tolerate open or even covert anti-Semitism.

Even such (in)famous Christian as John Hagee and Morris Cerullo embrace Israel, if not necessarily their Jewish neighbors, because the evangelical fundamentalist pre-millenial dispensationalist (whew!) theologians believe that their salvation must proceed not only from the Father and the Son but from godly uproar in the Holy Land. But the Reverends Hagee and Cerullo and far too many like them have a “them.” And it’s “us.” It is we who persist in taking the gospel as a call to universal inclusion and tolerance, as a mandate for economic and social justice, as support for our anti-war/pro-peace stands and as a guide for choices and decisions we must make, say, in our role as voters. We are their “them.” And they have strange company. One whom the television evangelists would otherwise deride recently joined in the “them-and-us” business. I speak of the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who singled out a “them” in the person of Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Bishop Robinson is a “them” to His Grace of Canterbury because Robinson is an openly gay man living in a permanent, loving relationship with another man. Thus was Gene Robinson invited not to attend the recent Lambeth Conference. Yet the Archbishop did not, in the end, back down from his it-is-not-fair-to take- the-children’s-food-and-throw-it-to-the-dogs stance and welcome Gene Robinson. In Matthew’s eyes it became acceptable for Jesus the Galilean Jew to deal with the Canaanite woman in which exchange the effect of the “them-and-us” thing was softened by Jesus’ relenting. Archbishop Williams failed to take the hint from that.

Lambeth is, mercifully, over with for this decade. Maybe by 2018 when the pageant is re-enacted, the great courage of men and women like Gene Robinson will be recognized for what it is, and all will be welcomed to share the children’s food. Meanwhile, we have a church to straighten out and our own p’s and q’s to mind while we’re at it. Waiting for us to take to heart is that broad hint laid out in today’s gospel. Let us take it, then, and live it, and insist it be taken up through the ranks of our church until the likes of Gene Robinson or any other minority are no longer outcasts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

© Copyright 2008, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.