Proper 15 A – 2005 Isaiah 56:1-7 Psalm 67 Romans 11:13-15, 29-32 Matthew 15:21-28 August 14, 2005 The Rev. J. Brian Ponder Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Faith is … Faith is… is the title of a little book I received as a gift from my mom, when I was staffing a youth retreat near the coast as a teenager. It’s this little spiral bound book, maybe you’ve seen it, that’s been printed and reprinted for well over 30 years now. Its pages are multi-colored, brilliantly colored, and the length of the pages get successively longer the further you get into it, making for this “rainbow” kind of visual effect on the cover. It looks decidedly handmade at first glance. … In fact, I was a little surprised to find an ISBN number the first time I read it—it just has a home-crafted kind of look to it. Anyway this little book—a booklet really—is chocked full of insights into just what is faith, some more insightful than others. And you can tell, that the author may have had a few sticking points along the road in writhing it, or maybe at different points in life, because some of the “Faith is… points” seem to be reiterated. Whether this is for the benefit of the reader or the author is somewhat indeterminate. … A couple of points have the feel of a personal pep-rally, and a couple seem downright cliché as is the case when we attempt to explain away the unexplainable, but then, turning a page, Faith is… hits … and hard at that! Faith is … Something God will prove genuine by testing. Faith is … Something proven genuine by testing. Dead on … almost … I’m not sure that I agree that God is trying to accomplish something by proving one’s faith genuine, but I would definitely agree that a deeper faith is grown-into by testing—strengthened through testing—something the author goes on to say is “developed through: hardship, disappointment, disillusionment, conflict, frustration, failure, loss” … something that can be “fantasy-like, unless it is made real.” This friendly looking little book, this bright and cheery, almost “all smiles” looking little tome really drives it home … keeping it real, if you will, for the reader. Today’s lessons are about “turning that page” of getting down to business, if we think about it. Our Gospel lesson, in particular, is profoundly moving in a different direction … not just by Matthew’s standards, but in ways of Biblical proportions … literally! Today’s lesson tells of an encounter Jesus and his disciples have with a Canaanite woman while traveling through the region of Tyre and Sidon. Now what we don’t get in today’s reading is what leads up to this point, the snippet that fleshes out for us just why “Jesus left that place and went away....” What’s happened is that Jesus has just had a pretty heated exchange with the scribes and Pharisees, instigated by the latter groups, dealing with issues of breaking tradition, following the letter of the law and real authority. The resulting teaching amongst members of a crowd called together by Jesus flies in the face of everything the scribes and Pharisees hold dear … their proscription and meaningless adherence to laws. There’s this image in my mind of Jesus just being absolutely fed up and leaving that place … maybe even shaking the dust off his sandals in so doing. And he heads into Tyre and Sidon. Now these cities were both condemned in Isaiah. So what’s going on in our reading today is that Jesus is entering, into a no-man’s land of sort … at least a no-man’s land as far as any Jewish teacher would be concerned. This is a place that has been given up on—a place of paganism and dis-belief, a place where he encounters this Canaanite woman who would have no reason for calling out to Jesus—a Jew, let alone the Jewish Savior—unless it was out of her most utter confusion and turmoil and desperation. She was grasping for straws here. She was gasping for air. She was trying to keep her head above the waters. And there are, I think, some extremely significant things happening in this particular moment within Jesus’ ministry for our consideration as people of faith, as people of questioning, as people journeying through this thing called life. … Jesus, as we are told, seems to ignore the pleas of the woman. He says nothing to her at her initial cries for mercy. His disciples, perhaps wearied by their journey, definitely bothered by her shouts, simply want to have her sent off, to turn a blind eye to her suffering—and that of her daughter. But then we witness it … another heated, impassioned exchange—this time not between Jesus and religious leaders in authority with varying viewpoints and agendas, but here with this Canaanite woman, who is desperate and pleading, though certainly not at her wit’s end. She one-ups him. She becomes the one who turns things on end, the one who shows Jesus a new way! And this is no small thing! The exchange allows Jesus to recognize in this woman a faithfulness, a believing-ness that surpasses even that of his own disciples; and she allows him in that moment to open a new door, to turn a new page in his ministry, broadening his tent, if you will, to see that his ministry is meant not simply for the Jews but for all. And this happens at a time of his own despondence over folks just not getting-it … his ministry, his call, his lot in life … dejected. This Canaanite woman, this person of little interest, this woman of inconsequence, this nobody—at least to the important people of the world in which she lived—it would seem, makes all the difference. She cries out, “Lord, Lord, Lord.” Three times she confesses Jesus as Lord. She, this pagan, this woman to whom Jesus did not understand himself to be called to minister. She recognizes his messiah-ship—there in the midst of those who were closest to him, those who had been with him through his teachings and their own callings, this Peter and Matthew and Thomas and the others, who had been witnessing his miracles, who had partaken in his ministry, even the feeding of the multitude and as we heard last week, his walking on water. And she, this nobody, is the one of great faith, not the disciples who doubted on the water, not even Peter who began to sink in the midst of the sea’s tempest when called out of the boat. This woman is called to be “of great faith”, and it’s the only time in Matthew’s gospel that the term is used. This is monumental. This is big. And it changes everything. I’m not going to talk about the rewards of faithfulness, because I think in this instance, “reward,” if that’s what you call it … the healing … is problematic. It’s something that I’m still trying to get my own head around. But what I think it may be pointing towards, more than anything else, is wholeness. The gospel account does report a healing, of the woman’s daughter, as a reward of faith, and this doesn’t make sense to many among us who struggle in the midst of health problems, or addictions, or any number of things from which we seek release. But there is another kind of healing, that I think is, perhaps, more central to the gospel lesson, and that’s the woman’s own healing. The Canaanite woman came to Christ seeking one thing and getting another. She was seeking healing for her daughter, but her requests and cries are for her own wholeness in the midst of that which is troubling her and her daughter. It is her assurance, her witness, her testimony that aides in her moving towards wholeness—something she knows she cannot do alone—that makes all the difference. It is her leap into faith, which makes everything new not just for herself and her daughter, but for Jesus, and surely his disciples as well. And this is the part that I think is most important … Jesus makes space for it all to happen. And if we read the lesson too quickly we might miss it, or pick up on it, maybe only in a negative way. Jesus makes space for a movement towards wholeness in the initial silence with which the woman is met. He seems to ignore her, but surely she had his attention. She of anyone had called on him as “the Son of David!” At her cries and shouts and her asking his mercy on her, Jesus remains silent until he cannot remain silent any longer. Jesus allows for this space, this tension, which frees the woman and the disciples to move in the directions that they do—the disciples in their usual shortsightedness, the woman forward in faith. There is something great and mysterious at work in this moment of unknowing; and I think it’s something that’s available to us, as people of faith, as we rest in the tensions of our various and sundry lives—something that can strengthen us if we allow room for it … as we wait for healing from what ails us; as we wait in brokenness, longing for things to be different, waiting for news of hope; waiting … maybe even as a diocese to see what new directions our bishop will lead us, out of something as strange to Episcopalians as a tent meeting; waiting, maybe as those among do, who are anxious to see what this school year will bring; waiting, maybe to see what the larger church’s next move might be in the midst of turmoil; waiting, in any number of situations and scenarios within our lives—common or not—broken, seeking wholeness, seeking something else, to see what our own faithful response will be. And this, I think, makes it all mutual—this dance of resting in unknowing and posturing—both freed towards wholeness, Jesus and this Canaanite woman, in that moment of faith—all freed towards wholeness, Jesus and you and me. Faith is … waiting sometimes. Sometimes questioning, sometimes … being tested, not by God as I see it, but by things that would convince us that we could be separated from the love of God, things that might otherwise threaten to consume us. I go back to that little book, that nice, easy-answer-looking, little book. … Faith is … “the conviction: [God] the Promiser keeps [God’s] Promises.” Faith comes through transparency—the space allowed by God, the space we allow for ourselves—to see more and more clearly into the nature of God, just as we ourselves have already been seen by God. All of this moves us closer into relationship and that day in which we see one another face to face—that day where all hindrances are removed, all obstacles overcome, all brokenness made whole. Faith holds us in the knowledge, that nothing, nothing, separates us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Faith holds us when nothing else can. Faith tells us that we are never alone. And this is our Good News. … In this we rejoice. Amen. 1. Reeve, Pamela. Faith is … Portland, OR: Multomah Press, 1970. ISBN 0-930014-05-7. 2. Ibid.