Steadfast, not Inflexible

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 17, 2008, the 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time.

Genesis 45:1-15
Psalm 133
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15:21-28

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

A recent Harris poll[1] asked Americans to name their favorite book. Number one on that list was “The Holy Bible.” This is what the article had to say about scripture:

The most popular and best-selling book of all time is The Holy Bible. No book has had more influence on the world. Its pages tell the story of the creation, fall, and redemption of mankind. Relive the story of creation and the fall of man in Genesis. Cross the wilderness with Moses in Exodus. Welcome the coming of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. The Holy Bible contains epic stories of history, heroism, and hope.

Somehow, I don’t think today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel was the first story that came to the minds of readers who picked The Holy Bible as their favorite book.

There are a lot of things that are troublesome with this reading. Jesus keeps on while a woman begs and pleads for mercy. After the disciples try to shoo her away, she pleads directly to the Rabbi who tells her he tells he was not sent for her or her people. Then in a none too subtle allusion, he calls her and her entire people dogs. I know I get cranky when dinner gets interrupted; still, my activities aren’t read and interpreted in worship. Thank God.

Troublesome is one way to describe Jesus’ behavior. How can we as the disciples of Jesus rationalize this abominable behavior? It isn’t up to us to sugar coat any of it, but it is up to us to try to understand it a little better.

To understand this, we need a little bit of history. As I have said before, the book of Matthew was written by Jewish followers of Jesus for Jewish followers of Jesus. It wasn’t even written as a way to bring new Jewish believers into the community.[2] It was written to instruct the Jewish Christian community in their own faith and clarify it so there would be fewer misunderstandings.

So if we want to say that this reading in particular or the gospel of Matthew in general confuses us; that’s all right because it wasn’t meant for us. Furthermore, our Christian reading set 2,000 years later is a recipe for misunderstanding.

I bring this up to draw your attention to verse 24 as Jesus responds to the Canaanite woman saying, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Given the first audience of this gospel, this verse was an important endorsement of the covenant between the Lord and Abram.
Genesis 17 begins:

The LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous. This is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.”[3]

Now this is a promise Abraham and those who follow him could sink their teeth into. The Lord would be their God and they would be God’s people. This is the promise which the Jews of Matthew’s day had been waiting to have fulfilled for generations. The kingdom that was foretold here becomes realized first in the Kingdom of David. Jesus as the Son of David brings the Kingdom into the days of Matthew.

This is the promise that was saved when Pharaoh’s right hand man, Zaphenath-paneah saves, the family of Jacob from a seven year drought through Canaan and Egypt. This Egyptian name means “the god speaks and the one who bears the name lives,”[4] and it is a fitting name for a child of the covenant, the great grandson of Abraham, Joseph.

As Joseph meets his brothers in our reading from Genesis, revealing his identity to them, he tells them not to be grieved or angry with themselves. Joseph tells his brothers that God sent him before them to preserve life for the children of Abraham in Egypt. Joseph’s place in Egypt was the work of the Lord God saving the covenant from devastation, not the work of jealous brothers.

In the past I have told you that I am not comfortable with such a fatalistic cause-and-effect outlook on life. I find the Lord too utterly different to ascribe what I think are God’s motivations to earthly actions. I just don’t have the mind of God. My capacities are far too limited compared to the mind of God.

But just because this is my take, it doesn’t mean it was the opinion of those who wrote and edited and copied the wonderful five books of Moses. In fact, their world view and mind set were perfectly able to make those connections without my modern concern. It was a part of the ancient Hebrew view of creation, so this sort of cause and effect was common in the first five books of the Old Testament.

In the same way, the view of Matthew’s community of Jewish Christians knew the truth that the Son of David was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. Matthew’s audience knew this to be true.

Paul’s letter to the Romans reminded the church of Jesus Christ and the nation of Israel of the same thing as he said, “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.”

But this is where the view of Matthew’s community of Jewish Christians became challenged by their Messiah. Jesus challenges his people to remember not just God’s covenant with Abram, but also Abram’s call from Genesis 12, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing… and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”[5] Yes, Jesus was their savior, sent only to the lost sheep of Israel, but the Lord’s steadfast love was always a promise that extends beyond his first people and on to all of creation.

Paul’s letter to the Romans reminded the church of Jesus Christ and the nation of Israel of the same thing as he said, “for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”

As Jesus told the woman of his people, the children of Abraham, she spoke to his full call, to be a blessing by whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Jesus knew his first love, the people of Israel. He also knew the grand scope of his vocation and his mission, to be a blessing to all the families of the earth, spoken by the most unlikely of people.

A woman who has no standing; of the people of Canaan which has no standing; for a little girl who is demon possessed whose youth, gender, race, and ailment cause her to have no standing four times; it is she whose faith overwhelms her place in society to call upon the Lord.

Her faith was demonstrated when she argued with Jesus in the same way one Rabbi argues with another. Her faith was called great when she said “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Her faith was called great when she showed that she knew the call of the people of Abraham and the Son of David was called to be a blessing to all the earth.

Oh yes, she had a lot of gumption to come to the Lord. Her bravery, the bravery of a she-bear protecting her cub, took her to the Lord. But it was not her bravery that caused Jesus to, if you’ll pardon the modern cliché, cause him to stop in his tracks, it was her faith. And by her faith, the Lord showed that his love for all creation was steadfast, but not inflexible.

There is always a chicken-and-egg question that pops up here. Did Jesus respond to the woman because she bested him in a debate or did Jesus respond to the woman when she gave the answer he knew to be correct all along? I say this question, as provocative as it is, lacks real importance. It is her faith which Jesus rewards; not her William Jennings Bryant quality oratory skills, not her fine rabbinical debate style, not even a system of didactic reward and punishment. It is by her faith that Jesus responds faithfully.

This is the promise to all the earth. This is promise given in the call to Abram. This is the promise Paul reminds the world in Romans. The people of Abram, the children of the covenant, the children of the Son of David will be a blessing to all the earth. By our faith we participate in this gift. By our faith we receive the steadfast love of the glorious eternal triune God.

Mogopa, a village to the west of Johannesburg, was to be demolished and its inhabitants forcibly removed at gunpoint to a homeland in apartheid’s forced population-removal schemes. On the eve of their departure, a vigil with church leaders from all over South Africa was held in Mogopa. The village clinics, shops, schools and churches had already been demolished. At about midnight, an elder of the doomed village got up to pray, and he prayed, “God, thank you for loving us so much.” Several years later, apartheid died and the people of Mogopa have returned to their village, which they are rebuilding.[6]

It is by faith that in the demolition and pending forced relocation of a city, a people can give thanks to God for the Lord’s steadfast love. It would be all too tempting to believe God is unfaithful or at least silent during such a horrible time, in such a horrible situation. Yet still, while their village is about to be scattered to the four winds by the practitioners of apartheid, one village elder remembered to be faithful because in steadfast love, God is faithful first.

God is steadfast, but God is not inflexible. Our Lord Jesus knew his first place was with the people of Israel. And he knew that by Israel being blessed, Israel would be a blessing to the world. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; we are now all children of the covenant. Even in the times when the village is to be scattered, even when the crumbs from the master’s table don’t seem to be enough to fuel our faith, we are still the children of God.

By God’s steadfast love we are saved; saved by grace through faith. Christ’s church was founded on his steadfast love, not bound by our sinfully human views of who is loved by God. Our love can only be partial, but our faith must be not in our love, but in the hope of Jesus Christ. In steadfast hope we can look beyond all partial achievement to the final triumph of God.

[1] “10 Books to Read Before You Die.” Based on the results of a Harris Poll that asked 2,413 U.S. adults to name their favorite books, http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2008/07/08/10-books-to-read-before-you-die/, retrieved August 16, 2008.
[2] The New Interpreters’ Bible. Vol. VIII. Leander Keck, General Editor, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 100
[3] This reading from the New Revised Standard Version has deleted Abram’s responses to the Lord.
[4] Zaphenath-paneah, Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible
[5] Genesis 12:2, 3, NRSV
[6] A Mogopa elder, quoted by Desmond Tutu, “An African Prayer Book.” New York: Doubleday, 1995, page 66. Found at Homiletics.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1218, retrieved August 16, 2008.