Walking the Borders
Happy Father’s Day to all the dad’s and granddads here today, what a blessing it is to be a father.
I would like to begin by showing you a couple pictures of the border crossing between Israel and Jordan….but I can’t, because we were not allowed to take pictures at the border. A border can be kind of like a dance – a place of tension and uncertainty; a place where people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and views eye one another cautiously and warily wondering how they will be received or welcomed.
June 19, 2011
Matthew 15:21-28, Walking the Borders
Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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Today’s gospel is about a time when Jesus is walking near a border. Borders are fascinating places. The border between North and South Korea has been heavily defended a place of division, fear, and hostility for fifty years. No one can pass between the two nations freely. Traveling from Israel to Jordan and back last month we had to cross a border that has also been a place of division, fear, and hostility for years. Our bags were searched, we had to wait for hours, some members of our group were briefly detained and asked some questions. On the other hand, the United States and Canada share the longest undefended border in the world. The good relationship of friendly, trusting neighbors (this past week’s Stanley Cup Final won by the Bruins not withstanding) is largely due to our nations sharing common religious, ethnic, and even political ties. For the most part we speak the same language, eh? It is quite a contrast with the United States border with Mexico which is a dangerous place because of the people and drugs being smuggled north and the guns being smuggled south of the border. Mexico’s people, culture, and language may seem more different to us than Canada’s, especially living in New England, and human beings seem more fearful, distrustful, and suspicious of those who outwardly appear to be different than us. But should we?
In today’s scripture from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is leaving a place where the people share his nationality and religious tradition, yet his latest mission attempts among them have been filled with mistaken assumptions, communications breakdowns, and questionable judgments on the part of the disciples, the scribes, and the Pharisees. Listen to the Gospel:
“Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.”
Let’s look deeper at this scripture. Jesus left “that place,” the place where people from his own faith community sought to test and trap him, and he went away. I don’t blame him. He is heading to the border of Tyre and Sidon, where the people are of a different nationality and a different religion than he is. Jesus is leaving the place where we would think people would be the most receptive to his mission and going where we would not expect anyone to care about what Jesus has to offer. And Jesus walked toward the border.
Jill and I walk together a lot. Jill also walks regularly with a group of friends. You experience the world in a unique way when you’re walking than if you’re traveling much faster on bike or a motorcycle or if you’re shut in a speeding car. Walking allows you to hear the birds to feel the lay of the land with your feet. You can stop and have conversations with people that don’t happen if you’re moving quickly. If all we knew about Jesus were his walking habits, it would be significant. Jesus is a border walker. If you want to find Jesus, you will find him walking along the borders. Borders are places where people either come together or split apart, join or divide. The Apostle Paul, who knew – as we are trying to know – the spirit of Jesus, thought Jesus walked at least three borders. Paul says in Galatians 3:28, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Paul mentions several of the most significant borders that divide and separate people – ethnicity, power, economic status, and gender. These are borders where often there is division and splitting. Spiritually speaking, however, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, these dividing places can become meeting places. Communion, communication, and even friendship can replace separation, suspicion, and fear.
Jesus walks to the north, toward Tyre and Sidon and a Canaanite woman appears seemingly out of nowhere – she is the catalyst for what happens. She also is a border walker. This is a story about of one border walker meeting another. The woman came out and she’s also crying out as she is coming forward. She is noisy, assertive, and insightful. She knows who Jesus is. She initially confronts Jesus with this combination of titles, “Lord, Son of David.”
This is a complete and accurate designation for Jesus.
He is the Lord and therefore meant for everyone.
He is also the Son of David, a Jew, a particular man from a particular people with a distinctive heritage and traditions.
Jesus is universal and yet particular.
In the same way, there is a universal quality to each of us. We’re related and connected to God and to all that God sustains. We’re part of the whole circle of life. We’re also particular. We’re a gender, a unique personality, a member of specific ethnic group or groups. It is this universal-particular paradox of each person that the Canaanite woman sees in a supreme way in Jesus. She also sees that Jesus’ mission is to let the mercy of God flow freely and widely.
She comes to Jesus begging for mercy, but not for her self. She is walking still another border, the border of the sick and the well. Her daughter is tormented by a demon.
Though there are many perspectives about demon possession in the ancient world and how we might interpret those same symptoms today, one conviction remains constant. Demons twist creation in ways contrary to God’s love. In one example the demons shout out from a possessed man, “We know who you are, Jesus of Nazareth. Have you come to destroy us?” The answer to their question is, “Yes!” Jesus of Nazareth destroys demons because they attack God’s beloved creatures. Can Jesus who casts out demons refuse his mission when confronted by this Canaanite woman?
In a few short words Matthew has told us a lot about this woman. She has a clear idea who Jesus is. She knows he is a particular man from a distinctive people with a universal role. His mission is to share God’s mercy widely. She grasps that the target of this mercy is wherever demons threaten God’s good creation. And she wants this mercy to flow not for herself, but for the one she loves. Without doubt this is Jesus’ type of woman.
But it seems like Jesus is having a problem because he did not answer her at all. However we might respond to this passionate and legitimate appeal, it evokes no response at all from Jesus. He doesn’t even speak with the woman or acknowledge her presence. This is hard for many of us to understand. This doesn’t fit with our picture of a loving Savior, of a kind and gentle Jesus who always wants to help. What is going on here? Why doesn’t Jesus respond to this pleading woman who displays so many of the qualities he values? Why don’t we respond to people who approach us this way?
The way Matthew presents the disciples, their function is almost always to miss the point so that we may get it. The disciples think the woman is the problem. They think the fact that she is making a scene is what’s bothering Jesus. They think this is simply the latest episode in the centuries old dilemma: crying women and awkward, uncomfortable men. However, the problem is not with the woman. Jesus’ lack of response has nothing to do with her crying, shouting, and pleading. There is nothing wrong with this woman. The problem lies elsewhere.
The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus, at first, as perceiving his mission to be not on the border, but within the boundaries. He belongs to Israel and came to gather the members of that house who had strayed from God. Jesus in this story in Matthew’s Gospel is refusing to speak to this woman because she is not a Jew. In Matthew 10:5-6, Jesus sends out the disciples “with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Matthew presents Jesus as coming from and within Judaism to the Jewish people, however, because of the resistance he meets from some within his own tradition and the faith he is greeted with from many outside, his vision grows to include all people. This incident is a key part of opening up Jesus’ mission. This woman is not going to be easily put off. Jesus says seemingly to everyone (Matthew 15:24), “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Even Jesus’ declaration of his exclusive Jewish identity and mission didn’t keep her from coming forward. She addresses him plainly with a clear need. There is no flattery, no bargaining, no argument. Only pure vulnerability. She kneels at his feet and says simply, “Lord, help me!”
Notice very significantly that she has dropped the title “Son of David.” There is no advantage in reminding Jesus that he is a Jew. It is precisely because he is a Jew and she is not that he is ignoring her. Jesus has been stressing his Jewishness at the expense of his wider humanity. He is coming down on the side of his particularity and slighting his universality. Jesus answers, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Dogs were not allowed in a Jewish home. In order to feed dogs with “the bread of the children,” a Jewish person would have to take the bread off the table, walk to the door, open it, and throw it outside. The dogs were always outside the house. But in Gentile houses the dogs were allowed inside. If they wanted to feed the dogs with the “bread of the children,” Gentiles didn’t have to go outside the house. All they had to do was reach down with the leftovers to where the dogs were anxiously waiting.
Jesus told the Canaanite woman that in order to feed her he had to take the bread that was inside the house and throw it outside the house. She was an outsider and what he has belongs to insiders. She says, “Yes, Lord.” She agrees that the food belongs to the children, or in more theological language, that salvation comes from the Jews. But she continues her emphasis on Jesus’ universal mission by calling him, “Lord,” the one meant for everyone. When Jesus lives within that identity, she is not outside the house. She is inside the house and eager for any “food” that Jesus has to offer. She basically is saying, “Lord, I’m already in the house, just notice me.”
Think about your own experience, how have outsiders become insiders? Think about times like when you started a new grade or at a new school or a new job or a new church. Have there ever been times in your life when you’ve been able to welcome and feed people who you perceived at an earlier time in your life were not part of your house? Often our perception of other people or ourselves determines whether we respond with compassion and mercy or apathy and indifference, with forgiveness or judgment and condemnation.
Once a man couldn’t find his ax and he suspected his neighbor’s son had taken it. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief, and spoke like a thief. Then one day the man found his ax while he was digging in the valley, and the next time he saw his neighbor’s son, the boy walked, looked, and spoke like any other child.
Each of us has many identities. Some are very broad – I am a Christian – that includes over a billion people. Some are narrower. We may be glad we are whatever we are, but we have to be careful we don’t end up sounding like the Pharisee in Luke 18:11 who prays, “‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” When we cling to and define ourselves by our narrower identities we end up setting up boundaries that divide us from others and exclude other people.
This passage from Matthew is trying to teach us we have a deeper identity, a ‘Lord’ identity as the story puts it. This identity is the image of God in us that makes us brother and sister to all others who share this image. When we focus on this aspect of ourselves, we overcome the boundaries that other identities create. We become border walkers who cross boundaries and recognize the image of God in others that we share, rather than focusing on the particularities that make us different. Borders define people and accentuate differences. We need passports and visas that clearly define who we are and where we’re from to cross physical borders. Traveling we have to go through “customs” – an interesting word because it is our national “customs” that make one people different and distinct from another. Barriers of language, communication, and culture lead to separation. One sees it in the Israel and on Main Street in Hyannis in the summer. As followers of Jesus we’re called to find points of connection, to build bridges, not walls; to practice radical hospitality and to welcome the newcomer and the border walker. This takes creativity and effort and a willingness to be unselfish and uncomfortable.
Finally, this story lifts up the importance of having a persistent faith that is not easily discouraged. What would have happened if the woman just sulked away when Jesus refused to speak with her? When it comes to spiritual growth or the ways of God there is little that comes easy. Spiritual growth comes through effort, discipline, initiative and perseverance. The powers of compassion and the flow of mercy are released by great faith that is not easily defeated.
Remember the difference between how the disciples came to Jesus – “Tell her to go away and shut up.” And how the woman came to Jesus – she knelt, called him Lord, and pleaded for mercy. Which is more appealing? Which is more reflective of our experience and our tendencies? Are we close to becoming a border walker like the Canaanite woman or Jesus? Will we be instruments through which God’s mercy flows freely this week? Or will we act more like the border patrol seeking to control, contain, and stress differences?
I pray we can move to a clearer understanding of our mission to do justice and love mercy and to enhanced communication and communion with God and one another. Don’t be afraid to walk the borders. You never know who you may meet.