Preached at St. John’s Lancaster- 9 September, 2012
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| Jesus and the SyroPhenecian Woman |
Mark 7:24-30 / Matthew 15:21-28
“It was, indeed, a pitiful spectacle, a woman crying aloud in so great affliction, that woman a mother, entreating for a daughter, and for a daughter in such evil case.” So spake blessed John of the Golden Tongue (Homilies in Matthew lxx) of today’s Gospel lesson. Any of us who have stood by the hospital bed of our child, waiting for the doctor to arrive, can certainly begin to appreciate the pathos of the situation. It happens somewhere every day, and it is never less compelling, less heart rending, than the time before. Some things we just never quite get used to, and the suffering of a child, especially our own child, perhaps leads that list of things we can never quite bring ourselves to understand or accept.
But if we can empathize with this woman whose daughter suffered this unspeakable evil, most of us have a very difficult time understanding the initial response of our Lord to her calamity. Why would Jesus, the life giver, the health bringer, the Messiah, say something so seemingly heartless to this woman when she first approached him? “…she besought him, that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and cast it unto the dogs.” (Mark 7:26b-27) What an awful thing to say. Such a statement would surely garner low marks regarding bedside manner in Seminary or Medical School.
Allow me a digression here, because it is very important. Article XX of the Articles of Religion of the Church of England, found in the back of the Prayer Book on page 871, says clearly that the Church has no authority to “expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.” This means that if I read a passage of the Bible, this one or any other, and it seems to say something about Jesus which would confound or deny what the rest of the Bible says about him, I must be misinterpreting the passage, and I need to give it another look. We know that God is love, and that Messiah is the perfect reflection of the Father, for He and the Father are One. We know that Jesus was sinless, and that he came to bring the offer of God’s mercy and forgiveness to everyone. Therefore, we know that he would never just dismiss a person for any reason. And so we look deeper into the passage to understand these seemingly harsh words of Jesus.
The woman in today’s lesson was a Greek, that is, a non-Jew. More specifically, she was a syrophenician- a dweller in that land which had been pronounced by prophets to be cursed by God in an earlier age for their rejection and persecution of the Jews, those people who had been specially selected by God to bear the Gospel of Salvation to all the nations of the world. Blessed Origen, writing in Alexandria early in the third century, posited that this woman was chosen for this great miracle of God because her nationality was a spiritual sign to all of us. “Think of it this way: Each of us when he sins is living on the borders of Tyre or Sidon or of Pharaoh and Egypt. They are on the borders of those who are outside the inheritance of God.” (Commentary on Matthew 11:16) He says in the same passage: “The Gentiles, those who dwell on the borders, can be saved if they believe…”
There were among the people of Jesus’ time those who saw a stark distinction between the Jews, who had inherited the promises and duties of God, and everyone else, who had not. Surely they must have believed their outlook vindicated when Jesus indicated to this outsider that it would be wrong to take the provisions of God’s elect and make them available to “the dogs”, sic, those outside the Kingdom of God. Indeed, there was plenty for the Messiah to do within Israel as he attempted to gather “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” back into the safety of the sheepfold. Jesus maintained an ongoing disputation with people who believed this way, and in fact he had condemned their actions and beliefs roundly just before this encounter with this woman of whom Calvin said “Ceste femme, profane de nation,” -”that woman, a heathen as to her nation.” (Commentary On A Harmony of the Evangelists. I:269)
You see, God the Father in his infinite providential wisdom brought this woman to Jesus this day so that she might become for all the ages an example of what enduring faith looks like. Her example not only shamed those who held themselves to be the true followers of God, but it taught Christ’s disciples, then and now, a deep truth about the nature of God’s love and what an appropriate response to that love ought to look like.
We should first notice that this woman was not a trained theologian who had the answers before she started. She was from a heathen and cursed land. That, together with the fact that she was a woman, would indicate that she was unlikely to understand Jewish theology in its fulness. She was no scholar of the law. But she did know something of Jesus. According to St. Matthew’s account of this event, she “cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David…” (Matthew 15:22) Even in those times when God’s special provision was given to make Israel a nation which would bear salvation to the world, He had not forgotten the rest of humanity. Even as the rain fell on the just and the unjust, and the benefits of creation and the earth’s beauty and bounty were there for all, so snippets of understanding, imperfect and partial as they may have been, were bestowed upon all people. It was for her much as it was for each of us. We came to Jesus not in our widsom, or knowledge, or intelligence, or ability. We came to him in our need, with some instinctive but incomplete understanding that He was the one who could help us. We did not know where it might lead, but we came in hope, drawn by the Holy Spirit before we knew who the Holy
Spirit was, into the arms of the Christ (who we did not understand or fully appreciate,) and we were reconciled to God, the Father of us all. We do not get ready to approach God by preparing ourselves via some program of study or behaviour. Rather we respond to his effusive grace because he draws us. We come as we are.
Secondly, we should note the yearning persistence of this woman, a persistence born of love. Even though she was not a Jewess, she was a human being, made in the image of God. In that image, she loved deeply. She loved her daughter who suffered so greatly from the demonic forces of hell itself. With people made in God’s image through the ages, she longed for that day “when justice would roll forth like a mighty river,” and plenty and blessing would cover the earth “as waters cover the sea.” God is the God of History, and he has chosen to work within it. He took about 1400 years to prepare Israel for that “fullness of time” that St. Paul speaks of in Galatians. But throughout human history, he led people to see through a glass darkly via those yearnings which are common to us all. It should come as no surprise to us that Aztec warriors heard the prophesies of one who would come to bring salvation, or that even the cruel Vikings were not surprised to hear of a god who died for the people. I remember when I worked in the prison seeing the hardest inmates, who seemingly had no respect for God or men, brought to tears at the mention of a mother or grandmother who was kind to them. Love, you see, is a universal human language, given us as a part of God’s image at creation. As this poor woman illustrates for us today, love enables us to be persistent in persuit of good for those we love. It enables us to wait through the years, to never give up on those we love, and to believe that “all things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose,” even when our prayers seem to go unanswered and our situations seem unchanged. Even when she received the apparent rebuff of being compared to a dog, she did not walk away in anger or disgust or dejection, but persevered. In the face of this characterization of the special place of the Jews in relation to humanity at large, she patiently and humbly acknowledged that even though Israel held a special place in salvation history, she knew that God’s love went forth to all people. Surely, the persistence born of love displayed by this woman put to shame those Pharisees and scribes with whom Jesus had tangled earlier in the seventh chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel. And I must admit that sometimes her persistence to see deliverance come to one she loved puts my own faith and prayer life to shame as well. Is it any wonder that Jesus said to her in St. Matthew chapter fifteen, “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”
Finally, we should note that when Jesus applauds this woman’s faith, faith which grew from just a spark of understanding and belief, faith that refused to be turned away by disappointment, faith that was the outgrowth of love for her daughter, he also condemns the lack of faith, or the aberration of faith which was displayed by so many of the learned doctors of Israel. Unlike them, she continued to hope for that salvation promised in Messiah, even when his immediate answer to her entreaty seemed to be a resounding “No.” The Reformer John Calvin speaks well when he says, “…faith will obtain anything from the Lord: for so highly does he value it, that he is always prepared to comply with our wishes, so far as it may be for our advantage.” (Commentary of a Harmony of the Evangelists I:269)
How stands your faith today? Is it more like that of those Pharisees and scribes with whom Jesus clashed, or is it more like that of this woman who came to Jesus to beg for the healing of her daughter? Is it more about being right or about being in love? Does it demand that God do your will now and as you imagine would be best, or is it willing to play a part in his larger providential plan for all people? Does it walk with excessive confidence in your own opinions, and pride, or does it keep company with humility, and expectation, and hope in the promises of God? True faith, which issues in real godly persistence, is a gift born of love, a gift which flourishes when accompanied by that prayer of our Lord “Not my will but thine.” True faith is a gift which flows from the experience of knowing the love of God, and believing that his wish is deliverance, and healing, and salvation for all people. It is a gift born of love, issuing in love, and living in love. Might we all come to this holy altar today seeking more of this sacred gift, illuminated by this woman who came to Jesus in faith. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. AMEN.
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