August 20: "Schooled"

THE WORD IN THE GOSPEL

Matthew 15:21-28

Jesus went to the regions of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from those territories came out and shouted, “Show me mercy, Son of David. My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession.” But he didn’t respond to her at all.

His disciples came and urged him, “Send her away; she keeps shouting out after us.”

Jesus replied, “I’ve been sent only to the lost sheep, the people of Israel.”

But she knelt before him and said, “Lord, help me.”

He replied, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and toss it to dogs.”

She said, “Yes, Lord. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall off their masters’ table.”

Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith. It will be just as you wish.” And right then her daughter was healed.

THE MESSAGE  

“Being Schooled in the Kingdom”

It’s almost that time of year – back to school. Time for moans and groans from the kids and maybe some (secret) cheers from the parents.

Most of us finished our formal education a while ago. But I think we’d all agree that learning didn’t stop when we graduated from high school or college or tech school. We know that we keep learning throughout our lives. Maybe we don’t learn in the strict sense of reading books, memorizing facts, writing papers, and taking exams, but we do learn through the consequences of our choices and actions, and through the ways we interact with other people.

Of course, some people spend their entire lives seeking more knowledge about different thing, especially things they feel passionate about. For instance, I love learning about history, so when I go on vacation, I try to find historical sites that I can visit. And I really enjoy reading historical novels. Like a lot of people, I never get tired of learning about the things that I find interesting and exciting.

But, I’m afraid that when it comes to faith, too many people end their education far too early in life. I’ve known too many people who feel that they learned everything they need to know about God, or the Bible, or the Christian faith in Sunday School, or at their parents’ knees, or in confirmation classes. People like that are content to go through life thinking there’s nothing more they need to learn, and that only professional theologians or pastors or seminary professors need to know more than just the basics.

And that’s kind of sad, to think that anyone would go through life equipped with only a basic, rudimentary knowledge of the Christian faith that they learned once and for all, a long time ago. I believe that every person who follows Jesus is called to keep learning, and to always be looking for opportunities to gain new insight or new ways of understanding things about God and faith.

Why? Because Jesus set the example for us.

In our gospel reading for this week, Jesus has gone to the “region of Tyre and Sidon” in what is today called Lebanon. Back then, this was a kind of “vacation” spot along the Mediterranean, someplace to go when you wanted to “get away from it all.” Presumably, this is why Jesus went there: to have some down-time, away from the crowds that always seemed to be clamoring for his time and attention.

When Jesus gets there, a Canaanite women, whose daughter was tormented by a demon, tracked him down and shouted for Jesus to cast the demon out from her daughter. It’s hard to imagine a more emotion-laden and heart-rending experience than a mother begging for help for her child.

Now, this is a hard passage for us to read, because Jesus’ first response was to ignore her. Then the disciples tell Jesus to send her away because she was becoming a bother. Then Jesus tells her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

But she persists. She tempers her emotions and kneels at Jesus’ feet, once more begging for help.

And Jesus responds with words that challenge our ideas about Jesus. He says, “It’s not faith to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Ouch. It’s shocking for us to imagine Jesus saying such a thing to anyone, much less to a mother whose child was suffering. This Jesus, who we like to think of as gentle, loving, compassionate, and always responsive to someone in need, comes across here as a bit harsh, unkind, and maybe even narrow-minded.

This is another one of those passages that would have been full of meaning and significance for people of Jesus’ day – meaning that’s been lost to us, some 2,000 years later.

First, the woman was a Canaanite. For the Jews of Jesus’ day, that would have stirred up images of ancient idol-worshipping enemies – pagans, gentiles, unclean people.

Second, she was a woman. In Jesus’ day, a woman would not be permitted to address, much less demand something of, an unfamiliar man.

Third, the fact that her daughter suffered from some kind of demon possession would have made the women especially unclean, unacceptable, and marginalized.

So the people of Jesus’ time would have recognized this woman as inferior, an enemy, unclean, perhaps even evil. No one would have faulted Jesus for the ways he responded to her. She was far outside what would have been considered as respectable Jewish social standards.

This story can make us uncomfortable. This woman – this mother of a suffering child – is depicted as one of them – unwanted, unworthy, in some ways, less than human.

When Jesus called her a “dog,” he was simply using a name that his fellow Jews had long used to refer to the Canaanites.

But what is absolutely amazing about this story – and what also makes us uncomfortable – is that Jesus got schooled by this woman. As a result of his interaction with her, he changed his mind. Jesus was challenged by her, and she helped him learn something that, until that point in his ministry, he himself didn’t fully understand.

Jesus might have thought he knew about the work of the inbreaking kingdom of God and his role in ushering in that kingdom. He believed that he was sent to reveal the kingdom primarily for the Jewish people, and not to the gentiles.

But then this lowly, unworthy, unclean woman schools him.

Now, in our day, to “be schooled” by someone means learning something that you should have known in a humbling way.

Of course, Jesus did his own share of schooling people. He schooled the religious leaders many times, pointing out that, in spite of their belief that they were experts in religious law, they often taught and believed and did things that were definitely NOT in line with God’s ways and God’s intentions.

But in this story, it is Jesus who is being schooled. Like any teacher of his day, Jesus would have had every right to feel a little bit upset by this lowly, unclean, Canaanite woman. After all, when he dismissed her pleas for help in a somewhat insulting way, she responded to Jesus in a brilliant way. She turned his own words around to make her argument: “Yes, Lord,” she says, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall off their masters’ table.”

With these words – and through her persistence – she helped Jesus realize that perhaps he didn’t fully understand the broad, radically inclusive nature of the kingdom that he was sent to proclaim.

But instead of feeling insulted himself – who does this woman think she is, teaching ME something – instead of being angry or responding harshly, Jesus tells her, “Woman, you have great faith. It will be just as you wish.”

Some people are uncomfortable with this idea that Jesus needed to learn something from this woman – something he should have known. But for me, this passage is a wonderful example of Jesus’ humanity and his openness to the ongoing revelation of God’s truth.

I love the idea that Jesus had the humility and willingness to learn something new about God, even from someone who really had no business at all teaching him anything. I can relate to a Jesus who was honest enough and open enough to admit that even he still had things to learn.

As one Bible commentator puts it, in his interaction with this Canaanite woman, Jesus confronted his own bias against those people – people who were outsiders, and he grew beyond that bias. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus’ ministry expanded from this point forward to include Gentiles, on purpose. The next time we see Jesus, he is teaching, healing, and feeding a mixed crowd of Jewish and Gentile people alike in northern Galilee.

If we profess to follow Jesus, we need to be open to learning new things about God and our faith and our mission. And we need to be open to learning these things from – maybe especially from – people who we might consider outsiders – people who we wouldn’t think could possibly have anything worthwhile to teach us about God.

In this story, Jesus is big enough to not be ashamed or angry when he is schooled by a Gentile Canaanite woman. His faith is strong enough to absorb new wisdom and insight even from an outsider. And his sense of mission was robust enough to recognize that even ancient, time-honored biases against people who are in some way different can and must be overcome for the sake of God’s kingdom.

Today, in our country, strong, sometimes long-held biases and passionate beliefs and political loyalties have created a hostile atmosphere with clear divisions between “us” and “them.” Our challenge, as those who follow Jesus, is to believe that when we engage someone on the “other side” with the same faith and humility and openness as Jesus – we just might be “schooled” and learn something valuable about God, our faith, and our mission. And then, our ministry and love might expand and grow, and we might just become part of the healing and reconciliation that God desires for us all. May it be so. Amen.