Proper 15 year A RCL

August 17, 2008

 Jesus left Gennesaret and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. In the name of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

 In Jesus’ day Jews held Canaanites in high contempt. They were the indigenous people of Palestine that God had told Joshua to wipe out 1400 years before Jesus was born. But Joshua did not accomplish his mission for various different reasons and the Canaanites still lived in parts of Israel. The Jews regarded them as unclean and took great care to avoid the Canaanites.

 The main character in this story is looked down upon for being Canaanite, but even worse is the fact that she is a Canaanite woman. Jewish men treated even Jewish women poorly. So a woman that was a Canaanite was just that much worse. The woman in this story was a non-person, not to be acknowledged.

 Considering that she knew how all Jewish men felt about who she was, she took quite a risk approaching Jesus and asking him to heal her daughter. She risked not just being ignored (which she was), but being outright rejected and chased away by Jesus (which she was as well).

 It is interesting that Jesus ignored her. But it is more interesting that she persisted. Then Jesus does something that is completely out of my image of who Jesus is—he rejects her plea (I have come for the lost sheep of Israel, not you). In fact, he rejects her twice (you are a dog and not worthy of my attention). In my mind Jesus isn’t supposed to reject people that call upon him regardless of what city they were born in. Jesus must have been using this encounter as a teaching moment. The lesson here must be to expand our understanding of faith. I think that we usually equate faith with belief. The Canaanite woman believed that Jesus could heal her daughter right from the start of the story. The belief type of faith did not impress Jesus. Jesus wants us to go beyond faith as passive belief. I think that the lesson that he wanted to teach in this encounter is that faith requires risk. Had Jesus not rejected her initial pleas, we would not have taken notice of the huge risk that the woman took.

 She risked a confrontation with a Jewish man that she believed to be the Son of David, the Messiah, and the direct link to God. She argued with Jesus. She pleaded with him and also reasoned with him. In the end she won out. Jesus admired her faith and gave her what she had asked for, healing her daughter.

 This faith that Jesus admired was rooted in her willingness to risk being ignored and to risk outright rejection. Faith requires the risk of failure. Otherwise it isn’t really faith at all.

 I started forming this sermon last Sunday on our return trip home after Paige and I had dropped off Jennifer at camp. We had stopped in Florence at a 7-11 where I had gotten a Slurpee. The thing about Slurpees is that you usually have 6 choices. The safe choice might be Coca Cola flavor, but all of the other flavors are like Fanta Banana, Slurpurita Pomegranate, Radiation Rush, Peach Mango Fusion, or Gridiron Ice. I’m scared to get a Banana flavored one because I always get the biggest size (twenty cents more for twice as much) and if I get a flavor that I don’t like after I’ve only drank that first ¼ of the Slurpee, then I’ve wasted my Slurpee experience. So, you can see that there is a lot of risk for me to pick one of the 5 weird flavors. I decided to be daring and picked the orange colored flavor, Gridiron Ice. It was OK, but I didn’t finish it. I took a chance and it didn’t work out. If I would have picked the Coca Cola flavor, I’d’ve drank down the whole thing guaranteed.

 That left me thinking that the biggest risk I ever take lately is getting a crazy Slurpee. So I braced myself for a bigger risk. I called a high school friend that I haven’t spoken to since a brief conversation at our last reunion three years ago and hadn’t spoken to before that for over ten years. I got his number from his mother, called, left a message, and got no response. I was ignored.

 This wasn’t even the outright rejection that the Canaanite woman got. But it has made me feel terrible ever since Wednesday. Will I call again? Will I persist like the Canaanite woman did? Probably not. She had a better motive than I.

 Even still, when do we ever take a risk anymore? When do we ever push ourselves outside of our comfort zone? Risk and faith are intertwined. To take small risks or large risks, either way, exercises our faith muscle. Because faith isn’t right believing, like memorizing the correct doctrines and convincing ourselves that they must be true. Faith is trust—trust that it will all work out in the end. Faith is trust that, even if we fail, Jesus will give us the strength to try again next time when we ask for his help.

 The purpose of the story of the Canaanite woman is to expand our understanding of what it means to have faith. Faith isn’t about right belief. Faith is trust. And faith requires risk of failure.

 ==AMEN==