Being Rhetorically Goaded to Faith

12 Pentecost, A p15, August 20, 2023
Isaiah 56:1,6-8  Psalm 67   
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

Lectionary Link

Reading the Gospels we are reading the word screens of writers in the Jesus Movement who lived decades after Jesus using a language that was meant for a much larger audience than Jesus had access to when he walked this earth.

The Gospels are spiritual word art presenting Jesus as exemplary in word and deed but who is the cover story for understanding the Risen Christ active within the communities of the Jesus Movement decades after Jesus lived.

What would be the message of today's appointed Gospel for the Gentile reader?  There may be something of a challenge for the Gentile reader?  Are you really sure that you want to be involved with this Jesus and the community of people who follow his teachings?

The Jesus Movement is a mixed-community challenging historic human divisiveness.  Or as St. Paul wrote, "In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek."  Does anyone really believe this?  Does anyone really practice this?  Can I, as a Gentile really believe that I am invited to a faith fellowship which overcomes the long ethnic divisions?  And is this faith fellowship good for my daughter, my family as well as for me?

For the Jews who were a part of the Jesus Movement, this Gospel story presented Jesus as one who gave the salvation of health to an outsider.  Even as Naaman, the foreign general had been cured of his leprosy by Elisha the prophet, so too Jesus represented the universality of health and salvation.  Are we as inheritors of the tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures ready to regard the invitation to salvation as universal?

The Story:  A Canaanite woman comes to Jesus beseeching him for the health of her daughter.  The rhetoric of Jesus plays upon the ethnic divide of their communities.  "Don't you know about the historic rift between us?  It would be like taking bread from one's family and giving it to scavenging dogs.  With such a pronounced rift, are you sure that you know what you are asking?"

The Canaanite woman has a very clever reply: "But don't the dogs even get to clean up the crumbs under the table?"  The implication is that even a little bread crumb is so superb and substantial that it would be enough for me a foreigner.

The Canaanite represented the situation of every Gentile in the Jesus Movement.  They had to give up and leave religious and social situations to join in a very minority movement of people.  The goading questions of Jesus were a challenge, "Are you sure you want this and do you know what you are getting into?"

Indeed, many Gentiles had experienced the small taste of the salvation of the Risen Christ and it involved a faith which overcame the ethnic and cultural barriers between Jews and Gentiles.  This story is about the faith of the Gentiles.

But this story is also about the faith of the Jews who embraced the Jesus Movement.  They came to understand and present Jesus as the one who offered health and salvation to those who were not born into the tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures.  The faith of Jesus for Jewish members of the Jesus Movement, was a sacrificing faith, one which allowed them to give up important community markers so that the greater audience of the Roman Empire might be welcome to this new fellowship of people.

This is still the Gospel for us in our faith communities today.  For those of us who have familiarity with our faith practices, we need to be aware that our exclusive practices are not perceived as welcoming to others.  We need to be attentive to the winsome goodness of the Gospel of love and justice which we have to offer to all.

And we need to remember that for those who are not familiar to us and our faith communities, there are significant barriers for them to overcome to allow them to come to acceptance within a new setting.

Let us accept the goading words of Jesus today as a challenge for us to practice a winsome welcoming faith accessible for everyone.  And let the persistence shown in the words of the Canaanite woman be an encouragement for those who need to challenge the barriers to the salvation of Christ which is offered to all.  Amen