Isaiah 56: 1, 6-8
NPMC
Psalm 67
14 Pentecost
Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32
August 17, 2008
Matthew 15: 21-28
Anita Retzlaff
Believing is the most radical thing we can do
Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. In our moment of silent prayer this morning we consider the situation that is developing in the Philippines. Mennonite Church Canada Witness workers in the Philippines are asking for our prayers as the country is descending into civil war. A peace treaty has been in the works but has recently been stalled by their court system. As a result the peace is giving way to renewed fighting and some 130,000 people have fled their homes for evacuation centres. There are reports that they have food supplies to last only a week. The Western media is not reporting on this dire situation. So we remember in prayer this morning the armed conflicts that are occurring in the Philippines, in Georgia and other places around the globe. Let us pray….. Jesus, healer and reconciler, through your spirit of shalom we pray for hardened hearts to be transformed so that peace might come in troubled places. Amen.
Believing is the most radical thing we can do! That line is taken directly from a book by Brian McLaren entitled Everything must change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. This is a book that I invite all of you to read because it is a word of hope in our world that is facing many troubles. It is a book that mirrors much of our Anabaptist hope for peace and community response.
Believing is the most radical thing we can do! This may be a bit difficult for some of us to get our heads around because for us, doing is hands on. We don’t immediately understand belief as an act or action. We know the Mennonite tradition as being a tradition of do-ers, people who try to put their faith into practice by doing acts of mercy, fundraising and relief for those who are in dire circumstances around the world. We have MCC and MEDA and MDS and other organizations into which we pour our efforts and our contributions. It causes one to stop short, at least it causes me to stop short, to consider that believing might be the most radical thing that I can do. How can believing, just believing in something, have the power to address the world’s need?
The story of the Canaanite woman may begin to help us unpack how it is that believing is the most radical thing that we can do. Jesus enters into the Gentile territory of Tyre and Sidon. We don’t know why Jesus left Jewish territory. Maybe he needed some respite from the rigors of arguing with the Pharisees and the rest of his religious establishment. Maybe he was looking for solitude and thought that he would not be bothered in foreign space. Whatever the case, Jesus leaves the office, if you will. But not for long! A woman, here identified as a Canaanite, accosts him and demands mercy, divine assistance.
Now, how many times in the New Testament do you recall hearing a gentile, a non-Jew, referred to as a Canaanite? According to Brian McLaren: never, except here. The term Canaanite is a familiar one in the exodus stories of the Old Testament but it is not found as a descriptor in New Testament times. McLaren likens the use of Canaanite to our calling a Norwegian today, a Viking. The term is outdated, anachronistic; it doesn’t belong to the time period in which the story takes place. What it does however is identify this non-Jewish woman as the enemy, the worst kind of outcast imaginable: someone beyond consideration and certainly beyond Jesus’ Jewish charity. “Canaanite” brings to mind the old hostilities and violence between the Israelites entering into the Promised Land, commissioned to destroy the evil Canaanites who inhabit the territory.
Consider the horrendous territorial conflicts that are being fought all around our world today, at this very moment, the troubles in Georgia, in the Middle East, in Zimbabwe, in Myanmar just to name a few and then imagine this centuries old reference to the trouble between Israel and Canaan. It highlights the unlikely nature of the encounter that is about to take place between Jesus and the woman. For, in fact, Jesus does not even respond to her the first time she cries out, “Have mercy on me Lord, Son of David, my daughter is tormented by a demon.” Nothing from Jesus! Nothing! Had he wanted peace and quiet? Did he think that he had no responsibilities to this foreigner? NO response! She was, after all, the enemy. Yet Jesus taught us to love our enemies. This is perplexing.
In a way, we are all back in the wilderness, wandering about, searching for home at this point in the story. The woman is in need; her daughter is ill, is demonized. And also Israel, demonized by the need to stay tightly bound to tradition – no room for the new Word of Jesus, the new way of living as people of charity, of love. Our world is caught at this point too, in dire need of peace. The western world needs to be released from its addiction to consuming ever more food, oil and air. We too are in a state of need, for today we travel paths filled with grief and loss, with stress, anxiety, with loneliness and a dependence on things and stuff that promise to entertain us and break the monotony of overly compressed living. The confrontation between Israelite and Canaanite is alive and well.
The woman however, believes that all of that can be changed! She believes that something new and unprecedented will take place and that Jesus has the power to do it. She believes in radical mercy. The word radical which is so often used to refer to the Anabaptist part of the Reformation; the Radical Reformation, is a word often only partly understood. It means root, the center, the foundation, the source, the fundamental. The woman names Jesus as “Son of David” a linkage to the past mercy and restoration of God who is radical love. She doesn’t quit. She believes that Jesus represents the God who brings all nations together, the God who has compassion for her, even if she does not belong to the Jewish fold.
A truly radical act of belief! She challenges the one who has the power to heal, demanding that the age old love of God still stands; that the tradition of the past holds even in the face of current divisions. Jesus says to her, when he finally responds, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” I have to wonder here if these were Jesus’ exact sentiments or whether the author of this particular story needed to underscore for the hearers of this gospel that, yes indeed, the ministry of Jesus has been cracked wide open to include everyone, the nations, the promises given in the scriptures of old. For whatever reason, Jesus acknowledges the expectation that it is Jews who need saving, healing.
The Canaanite will have none of it! “Lord, help me,” she pleads. Jesus explains to her that his mercy is to be shared with the Jewish children, “It is not fair,” he says, “to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” The woman fires back, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” Three times she has named Jesus as “Lord.” Three times she puts before Jesus her desire for healing, for salvation. Three times she expresses her belief that the God of Israel will enable this Son of David to break down the long held barriers of hostility, fear and sickness. She believes so profoundly that everything changes. She entertains the radical belief that the radical God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has mercy also for her.
It becomes obvious then that this story is one primarily about the power of belief because Jesus says to her, “Woman, great is your faith” and between the lines “because you believe, you are saved, your daughter is healed and there is hope for all.” What is actually recorded are words of confirmation, “’Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.”
What has this to do with us? This story cracks open our imagination. When we dare to believe in the radical and inclusive grace of God things can change dramatically. It is our work of believing that God can turn things upside down when the seemingly impossible begins to happen. Believing is power! In order to believe in the redemptive love of God we must in turn disbelieve in the message of terror and division. You can’t believe in both at the same time. We are very aware that both abusive power and terrorism exist and that compassion, diplomacy and nonviolence exist alongside. The question for us however is: which one do you believe in? Which side of the battle do you choose? What is your policy? Which has power over you: the empire that defines us as conquerors, consumers and wall-builders or the community of hope that believes good things can come out of evil, that love is a better policy than hatred and that it is better to feed the world than bomb it to pieces? Are you a believer in a counterproposal to media-fed suspicion and violence? Will you go along with any policy that builds walls and fences higher, to try to exclude those who want what we have? Do you believe that God’s mercy is for all, Canaanite or Mennonite?
Jesus fed people, invited them into communion with him. His salvation, his healing changed the world. We are the church, we feed people and invite them into communion with us and the Lord Jesus Christ and we too are in the business of healing. We too can change the world because we believe in the Lordship of Christ, not salvation by the supremacy of the state. We believe that the mercy of God has power far greater than government-induced suspicion. We watch the way world leaders accuse each other of bullying. We will not be fooled nor will we be silenced.
We will change the world, not because we are naïve about the reality of evil all around us but because we dare to challenge the underlying assumptions that protectionism, violence and bullying are the only way. We believe along with the Canaanite outsider that God’s message of healing, of salvation trumps exclusion and that love is transformative while fear is debilitating and dehumanizing.
Believing is the most radical thing we can do, each in our own little corner. Feeding on the bread of God, even the crumbs that fall from the table of bounty, receiving the salvation of Jesus, is the way to counter the terror of our time. It is the word of hope that no one can take from us. Believing is the power that God gives us. Belief, faith, is a gift. AMEN