“From Ugliness a Beauty Emerges: Greater Love”

© The Rev. Brian R. Paulson, D.Min.

Psalm 137 1-7; Matthew 15:21-39

November 13, 2016

Friends, I am not above asking for a little self-serving sympathy.  It has been a week of high emotion and great significance for all of us in many ways. And because of this, even though every week in the pulpit is a labor of love, this has been a particularly challenging week in which to prepare a sermon.

So, before I begin our today, I want to ask, “Will you please pray with me a silent prayer for discernment?”

Let us pray: “O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight. O God, our Rock and Redeemer.”

One challenge, on the weekend after Veterans Day, is the book we have been using to read through scripture this year (“We Make the Road by Walking” by Brian McLaren). In chapter 11, it contrasts Joshua’s military conquest of Canaanites with Jesus’ peaceful compassion toward the Canaanites. The reading asks us to confront the question of violence and conquest.

So, that is one challenge to address.  I will spend more time on that and other scriptures of the past month in my “Bible with Brian” class after worship.

But the greater challenge is to gather on the first Sunday after the election and find a text that challenges us to consider how we are to live with people whom we find difficult, different, and whom even Jesus describes as dogs.

I’d say we have a few challenges to tackle this morning!

Well, as I was preparing this sermon, I remembered the voice of a friend who always used to say that if there isn’t something good in a message, it really isn’t the Good News of the Gospel. 

Indeed I believe there always is a good word to proclaim.

Even if it tastes like stiff medicine.

Even if sometimes, before we arrive at the good, we find some things have gone from bad, to worse.

Today I want to focus primarily on the message on the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman.

But it is worth taking a short detour through the psalm that we have read today.

It is a psalm of dislocation. It is a psalm of lament written during the period when the people of Israel were captives in a land of foreigners, in the Babylonian empire. We read the touching song of lament in these verses, “By the waters of Babylon, we lay down and wept.”  “How can we sing” the songs of our homeland, when we are taunted and maligned in this strange place? When they say, Go ahead, “sing us” your quaint little songs.

Friends. Let us not taunt each other. America is split right down the middle in our politics.

And today there are members of this congregation who are in a place of deep pain and even fear. Bear with me because I have a pastoral word to share with those who feel this way. I have seen the tears and listened to this pain – in person and not just in the overheated emotional world of social media. So if you don’t feel this way, please bear compassionately with your neighbors.

Because there is a place for lament in the vocabulary of faith.  It is in the psalms and it has a place in this church as well.

This is a safe place for all of God’s children. It is safe for you and for me – even when we disagree.

And also in our church, there are people who feel their votes and their judgement are being badly misunderstood.

So how can express our anger and dismay? We share it when we pray.

Even some of the angriest verses of scripture, verses in this very psalm, from which I have spared you today – are a demonstration that we are able to carry our deepest pain, our greatest frustrations, to God. And God, the Ruler of the universe, is strong enough to receive it and transform that pain.

We need to do that, friends. We need to pray. Because our society needs to change our speech from hate to love.  God has given us all two ears and one mouth.  We need to listen before we speak.

Think before making that comment on social media.

My prayer for the misguided soul that wrote hate on a Warren High School mirror is that person will pause and pray before ever acting on hate again.  It is my guidance for all God’s children.  It is wisdom that together we can demonstrate in our society.

Alright. Now consider the woman in our gospel lesson today.

She is a persistent woman.

The gospel refers to her as a Canaanite woman, which author Brian McLaren points out is an odd kind of slur, since no one was called a Canaanite in Jesus day. It would be like calling someone a Viking or Aztec today. The author of the gospel is at pains to point out that she is outside the covenant, one of those deplorable pagans, a foreigner who did not belong in God’s kingdom.

Still, she dares to approach Jesus.

She believes there is something more than the wretched future that lay ahead for her daughter. She refused to accept the curse of a demon afflicted life for her girl.

She shouted to Jesus. She bothered the disciples. She kept on going on and on.

She reminds me of the parable Jesus tells in the eighteenth chapter of Luke about a widow standing before a corrupt judge. That woman carries on before the judge to such an extent that she gains justice because he feared for his reputation.

This is the kind of woman that Jesus confronts.

And the scripture presents a paradox.  It is a paradox that runs throughout the Bible.

It is a paradox that wonders: How shall we be faithful to God’s call?

How can we be set apart and holy (discriminating and discerning), while at the same time serve as a welcoming blessing for people of every stripe and tradition?

Jesus responds to this woman’s request in a way that comes off, quite frankly, as offensive. He uses a cruel metaphor to divide the blessed from the excluded. He described the Hebrews as children and the others as dogs.

But she does not give in to the metaphor.

She turns it on its head. She changes the paradigm.

If he called her a dog, she transformed that into a blessing.

Alright. It has been a hard week. This is a challenging sermon. So I am inserting a dog joke here, so we can laugh, just for a moment, OK?

A Dachshund walks into a telegraph office, picks up a blank form, and writes: “Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.”

The clerk looks over the paper for a minute before telling the dog, “You know, there are only nine words here. You could add another ‘Woof’ for the same price.”

The Dachshund shakes his head at the clerk in disbelief. “But that would make no sense at all.”

I know, I have a strange sense of humor!

Now think of this woman. She changes the paradigm. She turns the story on its head.

If he called her a dog, she transformed the story. She changed it into a blessing.

She would not be denied.

Even dogs eat the scraps from the table. She says.

Her daughter was worthy of help.

And here is the challenge she puts before Jesus:

What kind of messiah would he be?

And we confront a similar question every morning in America.

What kind of people will we be?

Even more, you and I, friend. We must answer:

What kind of Christians will we be?

Jesus chose compassion – a greater love.

He transformed the nature of faith.

His healing would not be small. His mercy would be large.

So we read he goes on curing even more and feeding thousands and he does it with the smallest of resources.

All of this is a testament to faith.

“Woman,” says Jesus, “how great is your faith!”

Let that now be said of courageous Christians from coast to coast and around the world, “How great 

is your faith!”

We turn expectations on their head.

This scripture marks a turning point in the gospel.

We turn expectations on their head.

Like Jesus who brought peace to the Canaanites. The very people God ordered Joshua to conquer.

Like the veterans we honor this week. Our warriors, who know more personally than any other the true value of peace.

We turn expectations on their head.

This scripture is a story of transforming faith.

My doctoral advisor, Davidson College scholar Douglas Ottati, writes with power when describing this moment in Jesus’ life.[1]  He names Jesus’ ultimate allegiance to a comprehensive, never failing, steadfast love. 

So he describes the way Jesus walks in this life, in both his devotion and his vision, his walk – the way he walks, is enriched by his encounter with others in God’s world. Different people. People who see things from a different perspective.

Jesus’ vision. His love. His life is enriched by this encounter.

Can we learn from this? Can we learn from each other?

Let us do so with a persistent love.

Learn from this woman - whose faith is so great.

Learn from Jesus - whose compassion is so great.

Christian friends, we must carry and model good news for the world this day and for years to come.

So Live. Walk. Inspire.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. – Amen.

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[1] Douglas F. Ottati, Jesus Christ and Christian Vision, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 113.