Feeding the Dogs: How to Find Your Place at God's Table

Scripture: Matthew 15:21-28

I want to start this morning with a confession: I am absolutely, 100 percent, totally addicted to the Olympics. I do not know what it is about them, but I cannot get enough of the Olympic Games. I could frankly care less gymnastics, but during the Olympics I’ll stay up after midnight to watch gymnasts twist, twirl and tumble in ways that I can only imagine. Synchronized diving isn’t really my thing. When I jump into the water, about as graceful as I get is doing a “cannonball” to see how big a splash I can make. If synchronized diving is part of the 29th Olympiad, I’ll watch it. I’ve never played water polo. I’ve ridden a horse maybe a half dozen times in my life. I haven’t played volleyball since I was in high school, but light the Olympic Torch and I’m there glued to my T.V. set.

I suppose that on some level the Olympics carry a sense of nostalgia for me. My mom was an Olympics junkie. I can remember watching what to me were obscure sports taking place in what to me were obscure places like Sarajevo, Calgary and Seoul. I also think that like so many others that the Olympics evokes a strong sense of friendly, international competition where countries come together to peacefully compete if only for a period of three weeks. I love the Olympics because they allow me to idealistic, optimistic, and hopeful.

I am also addicted to the Olympics for the human drama that they highlight: a British marathoner struggling to come back from injury just to complete the race, an Iowa gymnast who inspires her entire hometown, a beach volleyball team striving for perfection one last time before they retire to start their own families. There is one human drama that has seemed to captivate us all during this Olympics. You can hardly watch 15 minutes of the games without hearing his story mentioned.

It is the story of a boy who was raised with his two sisters by his mother after their father left the family. He was a goofy guy who didn’t fit in much of anywhere. He was diagnosed with ADHD – attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He couldn’t sit still; he couldn’t pay attention. He was frequently bored and always getting into trouble. By the time he was in kindergarten he was causing problems for his teachers. His ears stuck out noticeable from his head. His body was oddly proportioned: his legs were a little too short, his torso a little long for his height. This awkward and unfortunate boy tried playing lacrosse; he tried playing baseball. Where ever he went he never fit in. To exacerbate the situation this future Olympian was picked on and rejected by his peers.

This competitor was on the outside much like the Canaanite woman we hear about in this morning’s scripture reading from the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. We are just past the halfway point of the gospel story as Matthew tells it. Jesus, having just revealed God’s power through miraculous signs like feeding 5,000 people and walking on water, continues challenging his disciples, his skeptics, and his critics to discern his true identity as one sent by God to make God’s power known in the world. In the midst of all of this Jesus retreats to an area known a Tyre and Sidon. This is a region where Jewish people and Gentile people – Jewish and non-Jewish people – interface or overlap. Generally speaking these two groups of people tried to avoid one another. There was a long history of tension and conflict between the Jews and the Gentiles with sometimes devastating consequences.

It is this place of conflict and tension that a Canaanite woman – a Gentile – comes and cries out to Jesus seeking his healing power for her daughter. It is an amazing and daring request first because this Gentile person risks speaking to this Jewish person – her sworn enemy. Second, it is an amazing and daring request because this woman risks speaking to this man – she is the first woman to speak to Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. So this Canaanite woman risks crossing not only ethnic lines but gender lines as well. Jesus’ response is initially more than a little disappointing. First, Jesus rejects this awkward, uncomfortable woman – who is she and where is her husband, the daughter’s father, anyway? Second, as the woman persists undeterred Jesus adds insult to injury; he begins to pick on her for who she is and how she is. Jesus calls this Canaanite woman who doesn’t fit in a “female dog.” This behavior is disturbing especially when it comes from the one we call savior: this sure does not look like being saved. So what’s going on here?

I think that there are at least three ways for us to think about and understand this scripture this morning. It may be that Jesus was simply testing this Canaanite woman’s faith to see how deep her faith really was. It seems like a cruel test, but perhaps Jesus knew that as an outsider seeking to live a life of faith she would have to endure this type of cruelty at the hands of those who would persist in their belief that she had no place at God’s table. In others words maybe Jesus was trying to test her faith and prepare her for the trials to come.

When we think of this story in this way it becomes for us a reminder of the endurance that faith requires. The path before us is not always easy. We may find ourselves picked on, rejected and on the outside. The sad part is that sometimes we may find that we are snubbed, rejected, denied right here at church. When we find ourselves in these situations the faith of the Canaanite woman can be our guide. Three times she asks Jesus to heal her daughter, and each time she asks she builds her argument based on her understanding of Jesus’ teachings. These are not blind, naïve, pesterings; these are heart-felt petitions grounded in her understanding of the gospel, grounded in her study of the gospel, grounded in her reflections on the gospel. Build a persistent and resilient faith.

A second way of understanding Jesus’ negative response to the Canaanite woman is to hear this as a story of transformation. This passage is sometimes called “Jesus Second Conversion.” Jesus first conversion would be when he was baptized by John the Baptist, and Jesus hears God’s call and commission for his life. Then Jesus goes out to pray in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights to get clarity on that call, and he comes back to his people transform ready to preach and teach and heal his people. When Jesus encounters the Canaanite woman her tremendous faith forces Jesus to expand his narrow focus on his people as only the Jewish people to include all people whom God has made. This encounter transforms Jesus – converts him if you will – so that he can see the fullness of what God has in store for creation.

I know that it may be difficult to think about Jesus – whom we proclaim to be the fullness of God revealed to us on earth – as needing transformation and conversion. But while we proclaim Jesus to be fully God, the mystery of faith is that we also proclaim Jesus as being fully human. Jesus was fully human like you and me, so this passage reminds us that being fully human means ongoing transformation. We need constant conversion. Encounter with unusual people or unexpected situations that we cannot explain open us up to the full array of ways that God is working in the world.

What this says to me is that it is not enough for us to stay in our isolated, insulated cocoon known as the church where we will only encounter people who pretty much think and feel like we do. As Christians here at Pomme de Terre United Methodist Church we have the opportunity to get outside these walls, to talk to people, meet people, befriend people who are not part of the church. They have something to share with us. They may be God’s transformative power. If the church wants to have impact beyond these four walls, then we all in some sense need to be transformed.

There is a third way to think about this story. Jesus did not live in isolation. He knew his world, his community, his people. He knew they had deep seeded biases. Maybe Jesus is taking these prejudices that he know his followers have and he is highlighting them and exaggerating them so that he can then challenge them. The disciples were products of their culture and their society which told them that outsiders and women were lesser people maybe even outside of God’s grace. So, when Jesus encounters this Canaanite woman who is the epitome of being an outsider, Jesus responds as they would, drawing his disciples in.

The disciples watch Jesus and say, “Yeah! She’s a Canaanite outsider! Ignore her!”

The disciples listen to Jesus and say, “Yeah! She’s an outsider! Nothing but a female dog!”

Then the disciples follow Jesus and say, “Yeah! This woman has tremendous faith! Let’s heal her daughter!”

OOPS!!! The disciples’ cruelty is revealed. Their exclusiveness is made known. Jesus is breaking through with the power of God, a power that includes all people, a power that challenges, transforms, and heals.

We all have biases whether they are based on race or economic class or gender or citizenship or level of education or the way we dress or how we speak or whether our ears stick out too far and our bodies are oddly proportioned. The challenge is for us to see others as God see them. The challenge is for us to see others as the children of God.

At Pomme de Terre United Methodist Church our challenge is to see everyone in our community as a child of God – to overcome our prejudices and our assumptions. The challenge is before us to make sure that we are our in our community working in the name of God. The challenge is before us to make certain that the second people set foot on church property, they know that they are children or God loved and welcomed here. The challenge is before us to practice radical hospitality that says it is not enough to just shake your hand and give you a bulletin on Sunday morning; we want you to know every day of the week that God loves you because we are people who know God loves us.

That goofy kid who had weird ears and a funky body, who did not fit in at school, who wasn’t very good at lacrosse or baseball, who had ADHD, who caused trouble for his teachers, who was ignored, who was bullied, who was beat up, who was called names – that goofy kid last night won his eighth gold medal of the 2008 Olympics and became the most decorated Olympian in history. All of that happened because a swimming coach saw that goofy kid, and accepted him as he was, and loved him for who he was, and trained him to develop his skills, and challenged him to be all he could be. No rejection. No ridicule. Look at what greatness love and acceptance yielded.

What if instead of a swimming pool that was the church? What if that was Pomme de Terre United Methodist Church?