10th Sunday after Pentecost
2014a
Trinity Lutheran Church (NALC)
Matthew 15:21-28
A man took his dog into a movie theater one
afternoon to watch a film. It was a
romantic comedy, and the dog sat in the seat right next to the man and when
there was a funny scene the dog laughed out loud, and a little later on when
there was a sad scene the dog wiped its eyes with its paw as it cried. This went on all the way through the movie:
the dog laughed and cried in all the right places.
Another man was sitting a couple of rows
back watching this, and he was just amazed.
After the movie he followed the dog and his owner out into the lobby and
he said to the owner, “I was watching you, and your dog really seemed to like
the movie! That’s truly amazing!”
And the owner said, “It certainly is,
because he really hated the book!”
Of course, dogs don’t really belong in movie
theaters unless they’re service dogs, do they?
People are people and dogs are dogs, and dogs have to keep in their
place. Unless… something makes the dog
acceptable.
When she was a child, Gail Ricciuti says
that dinner for her family followed some fairly rigid rules. Hands had to be washed before you sat down,
napkins on the lap, and never feed Farley, the family dog, from the table.
But
as time went by, Farley became a part of the family and the table rules got
bent a little. Eventually at breakfast each morning Farley got a bit of toast
with peanut butter (one of his favorite things) and at the end of dinner, Gail
handed down a bite of meat or fish from her plate. And if she waited too long
before giving it to him, suddenly she’d have this hairy chin resting on her
leg—just a reminder.
Farley lived a happy life for eight years;
that’s when the cancer came. By that time he wasn’t a dog anymore, he was part
of the family. When he lost his appetite
for the dog food, the rules became irrelevant. Mealtime became an inventory of
the refrigerator. Whatever he would eat, he could have: tuna, yogurt, steak.
When he became too tired to bend and eat from his dish on the floor, then he
got it from Gail’s hand. And when nothing else appealed any more, he got
premium baby food—strained meat—eventually fed a teaspoon at a time from a
medicine syringe as he lay on his pillow.
Looking
back on Farley, Gail says that she understands now how much he taught her about
"table rules," because Farley belonged at the table, not because of
his manners, but despite them… he had a place at the table because of something
that he had inside of himself: love for the family… love that they also had for
him.
Now why are we talking about dogs and
table manners this morning? Because in
our Gospel reading today they both appear.
In fact, Jesus uses both of them to point out just what it is that gets
us invited to God’s table.
Perhaps one
of the keys to understanding our Gospel today is to listen to the very first words
here. In the verses before today’s
reading Jesus is in Genesserat, on the eastern shore of Galilee. Now as we begin today’s passage he has passed
through the nice, safe Jewish region of Galilee, and for some reason (or maybe
some purpose) he leads his band of followers off toward the northwest: into
Tyre and Sidon… these are not Jewish areas. In fact, Tyre and Sidon was a
region that faithful Jews would normally avoid as being religiously
unclean.
But that’s
where they went: Jesus, his twelve disciples, and probably a couple of
Pharisees, because the Pharisees (we’re told) were constantly watching Jesus to
catch him up if he violated the laws of Moses.
So, they’re
walking along the dusty roads when suddenly a Canaanite woman comes running out
to them and begins yelling… wailing… following them along the street. “Have
mercy on me, Lord … a demon has ahold of my daughter!”
Now, this
reference to a “demon” can distract us if we’re not careful. In the 21st century we think of
demons as belonging in bad horror movies, not in reality. But let’s not be distracted here, because the
message is not about demons.
We don’t
know what was wrong with the daughter, whether she had a fever or whether she
had been born lame, or whether she was acting like a teenager possessed by
disobedience or behaviors that were harming her. We don’t know. What we do know is that the girl was
suffering… and her mother was so desperate that she went running after this
prophet that she’d heard so much about.
Now, to the
disciples and others walking with Jesus this woman was wrong in so many ways.
First and
foremost she was a Canaanite. The Canaanites were the original inhabitants of
Palestine, and in the eyes of the Jews, God had taken the land from them and
given it to the children of Abraham.
To the
Jews, the Canaanites were filthy squatters… the gypsies of their day, doing
incredibly horrible things over the years like ritually worshipping the pagan god
Molech who demanded child sacrifice. In the Jewish mind, the Jews were ‘in’ and
everybody who wasn’t a Jew was ‘out’… and no one was farther out than the
Canaanites. And this woman was a
Canaanite. No good Jew would even
acknowledge her.
In this
passage she calls out to Jesus three times, and each time Jesus responds
differently.
The first
time he is silent. Verse 22: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son
of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” Jesus gives her no response at all… as
if he didn’t even hear her. But he had
to have heard her. Clearly she’s being
pretty loud. A moment or two later the
disciples ask Jesus to please send her away. “Make her shut up, PLEASE, she’s giving us a headache.” “Come on, Jesus. Peter’s telling us this great fishing story
and we can’t hear the punchline because she’s caterwauling so loud. Come on, make her shut up and go away.” But Jesus… is silent. He won’t condemn the woman out of hand just
because of her ethnicity. He is just
silent. There is more to come in this
story, and He knows it…
The woman
isn’t discouraged. She calls out to
Christ again. “Lord!” This time he responds. “It is
not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
Did he
REALLY say that? Is he REALLY calling
her a dog? Certainly, that’s how the
disciples thought of her… certainly that’s how the Pharisees thought of
her. In fact, everyone in Israel and
Judea had been raised to believe that Canaanites were not a human as the
Jews. In the narrative of Noah and the
Ark at the end of that story: the Canaanites are cursed by God. To the
disciples and the Pharisees, the Jews are the purebreds… and the Canaanites are
mongrels.
But the
words that Jesus speaks here are the words of the Pharisees. Scholars indicate that this phrase about dogs
and the children’s’ bread is probably an aphorism; a well-known folk saying
among the Jews that reinforced a cultural stereotype.
It was
probably something that the Pharisees had repeated a hundred times as they
discussed how ‘those other people’ weren’t as loved by God as the Jews
were. Now they heard their own words
thrown back at them so that they can hear what it really sounds like. But
they’re not appalled, they approve:
nodding their heads as they hear Jesus recite the old saying. Now he’s put her in her place! Now she’ll hang her head and just crawl back
to whatever filthy hole she belongs in.
But Jesus
knows she won’t go away. That’s the
whole point. He knows what’s going to
happen.
So instead
of slinking away like a whipped dog, the woman humbles herself even more, and
still trusts in him. She speaks to Him a
third time.
Verse 27: “Yes, Lord, but
even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”
THIS is
what Jesus has been waiting for.
Suddenly, the cast-off becomes an example to the Jews. Suddenly the person who was only fit to be
the butt of cruel jokes becomes a model for others to follow. Suddenly, Jesus
reveals that to the Lord our God… it’s not the table manners or
self-worthiness that gains someone a seat at the table of God’s grace. It is nothing that they do on the outside;
it’s a quality that they possess on the inside.
Verse 28: “Woman!” he says, “GREAT is your faith! Let it be
done as you wish!” And instantly…
her daughter was healed.
Folks, our
Father in Heaven has arranged a banquet of mercy and grace for us. It is a table that is prepared for us even in
the presence of our enemies. God desires
us to feast on his goodness and love.
But, we
can’t earn a seat at that table. We
don’t get an invitation because of how we dress, or because of what we do… we
don’t get invited because of how we hold our hands when we pray or whether we
kneel or not or whether we avoid this sin or that sin. Those things may be important, because they
demonstrate our obedience and submission to God. But
they are the fruits of our life with God in Christ,they are not the cause of
our life in Christ.
We are
invited to God’s table of life not because of what we do, but because of what
God has given us: faith… And we are to
nurture and protect that faith, because it is faith alone that is our ticket to
the banquet.
Romans 3:28, we are “justified
by faith apart from works of the law.”
It is faith
as a gift from God that gives us a seat at the Lord’s table.
The story
is told of how back during the Napoleonic Wars, a British General once invited
an enlisted man to dine with the officers for a dinner. In those wars, after the British had managed
to blow a hole in the wall of a fortress, they would send a small group of
volunteers into the breach to test out the enemy’s defenses. The group of volunteers was called the
“Forlorn Hope”, and they almost never survived.
If the sergeant leading the group DID manage to live through it, he was
given a commission as an officer. It was
the only way for an enlisted man to become an officer in those days.
The man the
general invited to dinner was a sergeant who had survived the Forlorn
Hope. He was to be commissioned the next
day, so to celebrate the general hosted him to the dinner, and it was a
disaster. The enlisted man had no table
manners: he guzzled his wine, he belched
and he slurped his soup, and at one point he gave up trying to use his fork and
he picked up his meat in his fingers to eat it.
The other officers whispered to each other and shook their heads. One
finally leaned into the general and whispered, “That man is offensive,
sir! He has no place at this table!”
The general
laid down his fork and smiled, and in a voice that everyone heard he said, “I
did not invite the sergeant here tonight because of his table manners. Those will improve as he lives among us. He is here because of what he bears within
himself: courage, and hope, and faith that we will win this campaign. Those qualities are why he is at our table.”
Romans 3:28, we are “justified
by faith apart from works of the law.”
It is faith that is our admission ticket to the Lord’s table; faith that
comes to us as a gift from our Father in Heaven, and we are to share that faith
with others.
You see, we
live in a world of people who are spiritually starving. They seek peace, they hunger for hope and
meaning, they crave real love. These
things can only come from a relationship with God in Christ Jesus. There is no other source of hope of mercy and
forgiveness; anything else but faith in Christ that is offered as a hope of
salvation and life is a lie. 1st John 5:11-12
tells us this “And this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life, and this
life is in his Son. He who has the Son
has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
Let us give
thanks for the faith we have received from the Lord; faith which sets us free
from sin and death through Christ our Lord despite ourselves. And let us commit ourselves to share that
faith with those who are spiritually hungry.
In word and deed let us draw them unto God, so that they, too, may share
in the banquet of God’s faith; and join us in the banquet of salvation and life
that comes to us through Christ Jesus our Lord. AMEN
The Reverend M. A. Greenauer 2014
Permission is granted to reproduce this
work in whole or in part if the glory for its content is given to the Lord
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