Sunday: 14th Sunday after Pentecost A
Reading: Matthew 15:21-28
Preacher: S. James Steen

I wonder if you are aware of how you approach another person - say a partner, a spouse, a close friend or a co-worker - when you want to get her or him to do something, or to view something your way. And I wonder if you can recall how you respond when a person approaches you with the intention of convincing you of something. Practitioners of Family Systems Theory observe that what we often do in these situations is to become dead serious, maybe leading to a will struggle. They refer to such behavior as reptilian. Think about it. Have you ever seen a reptile be anything but serious? By contrast, the family systems approach emphasizes the importance of being playful and using a light touch when we're trying to make a point with someone. This defuses the situation and gives people space to act freely, rather than feeling coerced.

Approaching the same dynamic from another discipline, I once took a course in which organizational change consultants attempted to teach leaders of highly diverse organizations how to respond to bigoted remarks and jokes aimed at minorities. Their approach was the opposite of what you might expect. It seems the least effective thing we can do when challenging such behavior is to confront the person in a harsh, judgmental fashion. This actually tends to harden the attitude behind such behavior. Rather, we were taught that, without just going along with such remarks or jokes, it's most effective to engage the speaker gently, perhaps beginning with a non-threatening question or statement, like "How do you think we form ideas about different groups." My own gut inclination is just the opposite. Go for the jugular! But I know the teachers were wiser than I.

Today Matthew presents us with a gem of a narrative in the encounter between Jesus and the Canaanite woman who is desperate to find healing for her daughter, whom she describes as having a demon. We don't know precisely what this refers to, perhaps epilepsy; but, whatever it was, it must have been terrible. Is there a parent in this world who can not understand how she feels? I think of a time when my son, Jeremy, was four years old, he was very sick. One night his doctor came to his hospital room and told me that he had to have a bone marrow test right away and that I would have to hold him. I was so undone at the thought of seeing Jeremy suffer such pain that I literally didn't know how I was going to do it. Thanks God, the test was cancelled, literally at the last minute.

The scene Matthew describes also appears in Mark. It's notable that in Mark's version the mother approaches Jesus in a humble fashion, appropriate for a woman of that time. She bows down at his feet. But I suspect that Matthew had a better understanding of the woman's sense of desperation. Maybe he had children; for in Matthew we are told that, far from being demure, she "came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.""

Her aggressive behavior hardly gets her what she's after. Jesus doesn't even answer the woman. He ignores her. It was unimaginable that a woman in that place and time would approach a man in such a way. And his disciples are so annoyed by her shouting that they urge him to send her away. At this point, becoming desperate, the woman does kneel before him, begging him to help her. Influenced as we are by our culture, it's easy for us to domesticate a passage like this and imagine a renaissance painting of a women beautifully clad and coiffed, kneeling graciously at the feet of Jesus. But my guess is that it was nothing like that. More likely, the woman was now at her wits end, truly desperate, begging with every fiber of her being, "Lord, help me."

I wonder if, at this point, Jesus isn't beginning to lose his resolve; for what he says next may betray the kind of grit that comes from utter determination not to weaken one's resolve in the midst of a struggle. He tells her that it isn't fair to take the food meant for the children - that is the children of Israel - and throw it to dogs - that is Canaanite, Gentile dogs - like this woman and her daughter. His response is so insulting, so insensitive, so un-Jesus-like, that it's hard to imagine. But either in spite of or because of how outrageous his remark is, somehow the woman finds an opening and becomes free enough that she makes what can only be a playful response: "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." And, finally, no longer able to resist her, Jesus accedes to her plea. I wonder if the two of them, now done with sparring, breathe a huge sigh of relief and enjoy a good laugh.

Surely, this is one of the great moments in all the Gospels; and it is filled with reversals: Jesus comes to this territory of the unclean, heretical Gentiles as the superior teacher of the pure faith; but, while there, he becomes the student of an impure Gentile woman. Who would have believed it?

He has recently been rejected by the Pharisees, the pure Jews, whom he scandalized by being lax with the purity laws. Yet he begins his encounter with this woman by playing the Pharisee with her, calling her a dog. She, however, turns the tables on him by out-Jesusing Jesus, and with utter determination and disarming playfulness she opens the eyes of the one who was all about opening the eyes of others.

Amazingly, her task, at which she succeeds beyond all expectation, is to radicalize the radical. He came to Canaan with the vision of a God of limited compassion, and he leaves proclaiming a God whose mercy knows no boundaries. It's a profound reversal; and that even Jesus is subject to the power of conversion serves as a reminder that all of us stand in constant need of the gift of conversion and re-conversion. And lastly, this grace-filled encounter serves as a reminder that just as not one of us, no matter how evolved, is above being taught, we never know from whom our next lesson will come. We should expect to be surprised.

Amen