Turning Point

Scriptures:     Genesis 45:1-15                     Psalm 133

Romans 11:1-2, 29-32           Matthew 15:1-28

Do you remember a time in your life when you did something, or something happened to you, that changed the course of your life from that point on?  I think we all have those moments.  For many, it may be the day you meet your spouse or partner….and somehow you know, this is the one.   Or maybe you don’t know, but you like the person well enough to see him or her again….and again….and matters take their course.  Either way, whether it’s love at first sight or love at 50^th date, you come out on the other side a different person than you were before.    Or we may encounter a problem for the first time – perhaps we’re ill, or we’re trying to advocate for a relative to get them to see a doctor, or trying to connect a friend or acquaintance to social services for the first time, and we realize that other people are struggling with the same situation and how broken the system is.  As the saying goes, “once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it.”  We may look back and realize that we’ve been living in a bubble all this time, and now this situation has burst our bubble and we’re seeing things clearly – or at least more clearly – for the first time.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus has such an encounter – not with a future spouse, not with an uncooperative social service agency, but with a woman who for whatever reason really pushed all his buttons, every single one.  We see a portrait of a very human Jesus who resisted a desperate plea for help, but whose eyes and heart were eventually opened in ways that set the course not only for his own ministry, but perhaps for his early followers and the generations that follow.

This encounter happened, ironically enough, when Jesus was trying to lead others to re-examine their own cultural blinders.  Jesus and his followers had been accosted by religious leaders – Pharisees and scribes – who questioned why the disciples of Jesus did not follow the ritual of handwashing prescribed by the Pharisees and scribes.  And before I go any further – let me say that washing our hands before eating is a very good and healthy practice.  Especially if you work in food service, you should carefully wash your hands before preparing food for others.  But for these religious leaders, handwashing was not only a healthy practice, but a religious obligation, a way of honoring God – perhaps they took the idea that cleanliness is next to godliness, and ran a bit too far with it.   Jesus came right back at them, reminding them that their tradition was just that – tradition – and not the word of God handed down from on high.  He pointed at a place in which their tradition violated one of the ten commandments, the commandment to honor our parents, by saying that a person could give their money to the Temple and get out of giving financial support to their parents – we might think of someone who sends all their money to Creflo Dollar or some other huckstering televangelist, while letting their parents eat cat food.   Jesus then leaves the crowd with a sort of riddle:  it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth.  Alone with his disciples, he explains his words:  food just goes into the mouth, through the digestive system, and out the other end, and has no effect on a person’s character. Mark’s version of this story adds the words, “Thus Jesus declared all foods clean” i.e. declared kosher laws null and void for his followers.  But Jesus also said that what comes out of a person’s mouth – lying or offensive words motivated by bad motives – does defile a person.  Perhaps we might think of encountering a person who attracts us…until they start to talk and we realize they have a potty mouth, and the attraction disappears.

Jesus may have, as Mark said, declared all foods clean, but he wasn’t quite ready yet to say the same for all people.  Up to this point,  most of Jesus’ ministry had been among his own Jewish community.  Earlier in Matthew’s gospel, he had healed a centurion’s servant, but that was an outlier.  When he sent his disciples on their first mission, he told them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  And despite the occasional outlier, this phrase – “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” – defined the focus of Jesus’ ministry to this point.

We’re told that Jesus, with his disciples, went to the district of Tyre and Sidon – Gentile territory.  Mark’s gospel tells us that he did not want anyone to know he was there – he had just been through an exhausting time of teaching, healing, then feeding the five thousand, then rescuing the disciples on the lake, and then an encounter with the Pharisees – and perhaps Jesus just wanted some down time, in an area where the people were unlikely to recognize him.  After all, it wasn’t like he walked around with a visible halo or big neon sign over his head saying “This is Jesus”. 

But a woman found him – a Gentile woman.  Matthew’s gospel refers to this woman as a Canaanite woman – remember that in the Old Testament, when Joshua led the children of Israel across the Jordan into the promised land, the people who lived there – and who the Israelites had tried to wipe out – were the Canaanites.  So under normal circumstances, this woman would have likely tried to avoid Jesus, because he was a Jew, a descendent of those who had tried to wipe her people out.  But the woman was desperate – her daughter, we’re told, was tormented by a demon – and by reputation she had learned that Jesus was a healer.  So she started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David” – even though she’s Canaanite, she addressed Jesus as the Jewish messiah.  And Jesus did something that seems very strange to us – though it’s probably exactly how the woman would have expected a Jew, even a Jewish messiah, to respond = Jesus ignored her, not saying a word.  “Hey lady, talk to the hand.”   Most of us have probably done the same thing at one time or another when panhandlers have come our way.  But it’s not how we expect Jesus to act.

Jesus’ disciples – all Jews as well – act no better.  “She’s a pest; send her away,” they say.   So Jesus told the woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” – unspoken, of course, was the implication “and that doesn’t include you, lady.”  The woman throws herself at Jesus feet, pleading “Lord, help me.”  Then Jesus becomes obnoxious, saying to her “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  So Jesus called the woman a dog.   Charming.  But the woman came right back at him, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  Ok, Jesus, if you’re going to call me a dog, then at least give me the consideration you’d give a dog.  And then Jesus said, in effect, “You win!”   He told the woman, “Great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”

What are we to make of this story, and especially Jesus’ seemingly mean-spirited behavior.  As Christians we believe that Jesus is fully divine and fully human.  Fully human….meaning that he grew up in a specific culture – the Jewish culture of his time – which came with specific Jewish cultural customs and boundaries.  .  Jesus was questioning some of those customs – remember that before encountering the woman, Jesus had just set aside kosher food regulations for his followers.  But he was still struggling with his culture’s boundaries around dealing with Gentiles – and those cultural boundaries basically told Jesus “avoid Gentiles if at all possible”.  And initially, when Jesus encountered this woman, he acted according to those boundaries. Jesus’ initial response to the woman would have been very typical for a Jewish male of his day.   But the woman wouldn’t take no for an answer, and his eyes were opened to see not just her ethnicity, but her humanity, and especially her faith.  It’s striking that Jesus’ recognition of the woman’s great faith comes shortly after Jesus’ chastisement of Peter and the other disciples for their little faith.  As often happened in Jesus’ life, it was the outsiders that responded most strongly to his message.

This was a turning point for Jesus.  Up to this point, Jesus saw himself as being sent to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”   After this encounter, his sense of mission expanded to include Gentiles – remember that at the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus sends his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations.  Had Jesus stayed with his original mission plan, we would not be sitting here today.  His teachings might have been the basis for a minor sect within the Judaism of his day, such as the Essenes.  Or they might have followed the course of the disciples of Jesus’ mentor John the Baptist, who formed their own separatist community, known to this day as the Mandeans, comprising maybe 60 - 70,000 people worldwide, mostly in Iran and Iraq.    To most of the world, their religious practices are little more than a relic, a sort of living historical artifact, a blast from the ancient past.  Had Jesus turned the woman away, his community could have become something similar – a small separatist group destined for obscurity.   And had the woman meekly gone away without challenging Jesus, the same thing may have happened.  So for this turning point to have an impact on Jesus, two things needed to happen:  the woman needed to persist in making her case, and Jesus had to become open to her words.

At the time Matthew’s gospel was being written – likely after AD 70, the first and second generations of Jesus’ disciples were having similar encounters and discussions.  The first followers of Jesus were Jewish.  As Gentiles were drawn to the community, especially through Paul’s mission to the Gentiles, there were intense discussions over what to do with these new arrivals.  Some said that only Jews could follow Jesus.  Some said that Gentiles could be part of the community, but they had to first convert to Judaism, including circumcision.  Others said they didn’t have to be circumcised, but they did have to follow all the kosher guidelines and such.  And some, such as Paul, said that these new arrivals should be accepted without having to conform to Jewish practice – and Paul’s argument eventually won the day.  The story of the encounter between Jesus and this Canaanite woman likely led the church in the direction of inclusion.

We, too, can learn from this encounter about dealing with people of differing beliefs.  Our values are often a reflection of our life experience, and may change over time.  While I’ve been a Christian all my life, the ways I live out my faith now are very different from the ways I lived out my faith 30 years ago – and while I sometimes feel regrets that I only started pastoring in my late 40’s, with my life more than half over, I’m very glad I didn’t try to pastor a church with the mindset I held in my 20’s.   I grew up out in rural Berks County, town of Hamburg, population 3,100, including chickens and cows. My neighbors were almost entirely Pennsylvania Dutch.  From that perspective, I saw cities as places to be avoided at all costs.   The only encounters with Philly I had growing up were when my parents would drive down to the shore, and we’d go through Center City – this was before the Vine Street Expressway, and we still had to stop at various traffic lights to get to the Ben Franklin Bridge.   In those days the city was often blanketed by thick smog.  At traffic lights, homeless people would lurch like zombies out of the fog up to the car windows with their hands out.  Those experiences left me terrified of the city.  And now I’m pastor of a city church, and routinely tool around K&A making pickups for Sunday worship.   I’ve gone through lots of turning points, lots of learning moments, to get from where I was to where I am, and expect to go through many more before I go on to my reward.

We need to give each other space for those learning moments. All of us have blind spots, and just don’t see some things unless others point them out to us – and often the things we’re most blind to are our own fears and prejudices.  People need time to process new information, to learn and grow.   At the same time, we need to be willing to take the time and effort to speak our truth and challenge others, even when our words seemingly fall on deaf ears.  Those who don’t understand us may not change their minds on the spot, as Jesus did.  But our words may be seeds that bear fruit in the lives of others over time.  It’s these encounters that have opened the church over time first to Gentiles, to people of color, to expanded leadership roles for women, and some denominations, including our own, to the inclusion of LGBT persons.   It’s still an ongoing process.  Yesterday I was at a meeting of the executive committee of the Philadelphia Association of the UCC, the group that credentials pastors and coordinates activities for the 26 UCC congregations in the Philadelphia area.  And the question came up: what becomes of our seminarians after they go through the credentialing process and are ordained.  Most of our Philadelphia-area seminarians seeking ordination are African American women.  Outside Philadelphia, most UCC churches in southeastern Pennsylvania are predominantly white, many blindingly white. The question came up – will these African-American women be able to find a call to pastor a church?   After all, we only have I think five predominantly African American congregations in Philadelphia, and two of those congregations are on life support.  How many of our Philadelphia-area congregations would accept an African-American woman as pastor.  Or an African American man?  Or a female pastor regardless of race?  Or a gay or lesbian pastor?   Realistically, given that the person was otherwise qualified, probably about half of our Philly-area UCC congregations would accept any of the above, while some would accept some but not others – and there are still a small number that will only accept a white heterosexual male pastor.  And the UCC is among the most socially progressive denominations in the country, and the Philadelphia Association is the most welcoming group of UCC churches in our region. And yet there’s still learning that needs to happen, still work to be done.

Of course, our country has had debates about inclusion – who’s welcome, who’s not – from our founding.  In the colonial era, Germans – as in the folks who founded our congregation, though our church’s founders came during a later wave of German immigration a century later - were seen as dark-skinned, ignorant foreigners who refused to learn English…not unlike the way Hispanic people are seen by some today.  No less a personage than Benjamin Franklin despaired over the question of whether Germans would ever assimilate.  Irish, Asians, Eastern Europeans - each wave of immigration encountered resistance.  And it goes without saying that the descendants of the African Americans who were brought here as slaves are still not fully welcomed, and the American Indians who greeted the first colonists have been pushed off onto reservations….and now as minerals have been discovered, even those reservation lands are threatened. Events such as Charlottesville tell us how much we still need to learn.   As Christians, readings such as today’s Gospel should lead us on the path toward greater openness, toward building bridges, not walls.

 

“Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish!”  Though Jesus first focused on the woman’s ethnicity, he came to see her humanity and her faith.  May we likewise see the humanity of our neighbors – all of our neighbors.  May we be open to the turning points God places in our lives.  And where God leads, may we follow. Amen.