pesky powerless ones

 

SERMON PREACHED at St BARNABAS', WARRINGTON
20^th ORDINARY SUNDAY (August 16^th) 2020

 

 

READINGS

Genesis 45: 1-15
Psalm 133
Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15: 21-28

 

Bishop Steve, Rev’d Anne and I were in the Diocesan Office yesterday, amused that we all had to preach on this gospel reading, one of the most vexatious in the three year cycle. Will no one rid me of this troublesome woman – a variation on King Henry II’s alleged response to Thomas a’Beckett, seems to be the most common response of preachers to the task of preaching on this passage. In many preachers' Henry's  words seem to edge their way towards the lips of Jesus, at least in thought if not speech.

What do we do with her, and with this scene? Is she a stroppy, obstreperous woman, not unlike the importunate widow of one of the famous parables of Jesus? Is, as some suggest, Jesus just playing some sort of a mind game with her to “test her faith” (that obscene phrase that is a direct contradiction of all that is faith is in the New Testament). Does she by her superior intellect outwit the Messiah and open his eyes to the wider ramifications of his vocation, broaden his understanding of the gospel? Perhaps she's an angel! The bad interpretations are myriad, and they are based in an inappropriate approach to the passage.

This is not a piece of reportage. The first writers and audiences of the scriptures – Hebrew and Greek, recognized the genres of communication they were encountering and altered their expectations accordingly. They did not have our (misguided!) expectation that a factual, blow by blow account of events was being heard. In any case lawyers, literary scholars and philosophers may well point out today that there can be no such thing as absolute accurate reportage, at least without a recording device, and possibly not even with that (can a microphone record a wink or a smile?). 

Matthew, not least because he was writing thirty years after the events, is giving a nuanced and theologized account of an encounter that was no doubt widely known to have occurred. He is making a point as he sets about proclaiming the coming reign of God. Our job is to ferret as best we can, after two thousand years, his meaning. And we do so, of course, aided by that mysterious unseen presence of God’s Spirit who guided Matthew and who guides you and me.

But if not reportage, which does just seem to give us a stroppy, desperate woman, a rather offensive Jesus, and Jesus changing his mind, what then do we have?

We have what the French would call a Symboliste story, in which powerful symbols work their way through the narrative and from which we can extrapolate meaning no less than Matthew’s original audience could. The woman shows remarkable determination and remarkable faith. Do we, by comparison? In the rapidly changing, fluxing, unsettling world that 2020 is throwing at us, can we find desperate faith, born of the determination to experience God breaking in to our moments and our days, or fears and our joys? When we are confronted by what the famous hymnist called “change and decay in all around” are we willing and able to cry out “Lord, have mercy”? Do we dare to believe against all appearances that God is present in the ravages of pandemic – far more difficult of course to believe in Beirut or Brazil than in Warrington or Wakatipu (chosen for alliteration, of course, rather than any theological point: Warkworth, perhaps? Or Wellington.).

As is the case in most of the Jesus encounters, this woman is an outsider, to be feared, mocked, abhorred. She should know her place. Yet in her desperation she is dogged, determined, lacking the finesse of social conventions. Too often – despite countless Jesus-encounters like this – Christians pull down the shutters on the desperation and integrity of those outside our cozy boundaries. This is a woman who shows great faith. It is Peter, the ultimate insider, who shows little faith. If we are to be honest, how often must we admit seeing greater faith, love, compassion and justice in our atheistic or couldn't care less or Buddhist or Muslim neighbour than we find in ourselves or, sometimes it seems, anywhere in the Anglican or wider Christian community? But the stories of the gospel-tellers will always challenge us to look at ourselves, not others: we are not called to judge, or at least not to condemn, our neighbours, but to condemn that in our own lives – my  own life – which is not able to withstand the steady gaze of Christ.

God’s action will never be dependent on our theology or other interpretation. Theology is a valuable tool of the gospel, but it is not the gospel. Jesus responds because the woman has great faith, not because she has correct faith, or enough faith, or polite faith. For the “greatness” of her faith is not its ideology, but its desperation. And while not all our desperate prayers are answered as we would sometimes like, I believe they are answered, and our lives and hopes and dreams are caught up in the eternities of God, even when all seems lost to us.

The woman of our story is prepared to be brutally honest, and even argue with Jesus. While she is an outsider she is not the first in a long chain of those willing to wrestle with God. Abraham seeking to defend the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, though he doesn’t get his way, is honoured by God. Jacob wrestles with God and is honoured by God. Jesus will later plead for a way other than death to complete his mission, but surrenders to God’s will, nevertheless. Honesty and integrity go a long way in our relating to God.

This powerless outsider woman receives the answer she seeks to her desperate plea. We won’t always, but we are called to imitate her nevertheless, to throw our desires for our loved ones, for our neighbours, for our world into the heart of God. We will not always, perhaps not even often see the answers we want to our prayers, and sometimes the silence of God seems to crush us. Yet we are called to wrestle on, as individuals and as church, to throw our longings and our lives into the heart and hands of God. Integrity in faith, like that of the Syrophoenician woman, is born that way, and the Reign of God is proclaimed in integrity.