Year A

Matthew 15: (10-20) 21-28

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Crossing Boundaries

Jesus, after feeding the 5,000 or more, walked on the Sea of Galilee in a storm to join the disciples in the boat. As the waves calmed, they landed on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee where people from all over the region brought their sick to be healed by Jesus. Just before this happens, the Pharisees and the Scribes, teachers of the law come to Jesus from Jerusalem to complain that Jesus’ disciples are breaking with the traditions of the elders by not washing their hands before eating. This rule of ritual cleanliness seems to aggravate Jesus to accuse these religious leaders of breaking the commands of God for the sake of their human traditions, a far more important issue.

This first part of the text today in the gospel of Matthew doesn’t really relate to Christians. It was aimed primarily at the Jewish listeners especially the religious leaders who followed very strict dietary laws. Most of those laws are laid down in the book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy with long lists of instructions about what and when things could be touched or eaten and these laws dominated much of the first-century Jewish religious teaching. Breaking them was seen as separating oneself from the community of faith. Jesus once again is turning expectations on their head and going against the Torah when he says, “Nothing you eat can defile you. But what comes out of your mouth absolutely will defile you. Demeaning others by word or deed, Jesus says, these are the things that defile us”. 

Matthew recalls this encounter between Jesus and the Jerusalem leaders, not just to record this memorable exchange. He was writing to the church of his day, years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, a church that was an increasing blend of Jew and Gentile, of those who were raised within the structures of Jewish written and oral tradition or law and those who were excluded on the basis of the same tradition. For Jesus, religious purity and faithful discipleship is not just about worshiping tradition or law. Ultimately, Matthew says, it is shown by how the church speaks and lives out the radical hospitality and love of Christ. The church is to take care in how it understands it life of hospitality and faithfulness.

Matthew then connects the discussion of defilement with Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman. This passage is difficult for us because we wonder how Jesus, the one whose mission was to show God’s love and hospitality which he did by bringing in the marginalized, the outcasts, and the least among the people he encountered refuse to help the Canaanite woman with the healing of her daughter. Is it a lesson in the persistence of faith? Or, is it a human moment in the life of Jesus who is both human and divine falling prey to the prejudices of his society? Or, is he seeking clarity for his mission? It could be one or all of these reasons.

This woman is considered unclean by the purity standards of the disciple’s Jewish culture she is a foreigner and a woman. Jesus and his disciples should not have had any kind of contact with her for those reasons. The language he uses to refuse this woman’s request for her daughter’s healing is insulting in his society and I would venture to say for some today also. Dogs were despised scavengers, not pets. The woman’s reply, that even the dogs are entitled to the crumbs that fall from the table, either brings Jesus to his senses or allows Jesus to use her words to demonstrate to the prejudiced disciples just how wise she is or how faithful. English theologian and author William Barclay commented that the significance of this passage is that it “foreshadows the going out of the gospel to the whole world; it shows us the beginning of the end of all those barriers.” 

Paul today, in his letter to the Romans, takes up Jesus’ work of breaking down the barriers in the world for Jews and Gentiles alike. He affirms that God has not rejected Israel and that God’s purpose is an inclusive reality for all people, Jews and Gentiles alike. Very early in the church’s history, the theological paradigm perhaps favored the Jews over the Gentiles. The first believers were all Jewish. And when Gentiles began coming to Christ, they were viewed with some skepticism. There were some in the early church that assumed a Gentile had to become a Jew in order to become a Christian based upon the Jewish purity laws. We gather that Paul and his missionary ministry were strong influences in the other direction.

We read in Romans and in his letter to the Galatians, his extended arguments about the fact that, with or without the law, human beings need the Savior. The law does not justify; it only condemns as we heard Jesus tell us in the beginning of this text and so Jew and Gentile alike are dependent upon the grace of God, received by faith. Paul’s point is that we Gentiles have been grafted into the tree that is Judaism. We are adopted Jews! This entails that their rich heritage belongs to all Christians. It also means that, despite those Jews who do not believe in Jesus as their savior, God has not given up or renounced his covenant with them. Jews are still the chosen people, not to special privileges, but only in the sense of being an example to humankind.

Isaiah today says, “Maintain justice and do what is right…serve the Lord…hold fast to my covenant. With our Jewish siblings who are under the old covenant of faith, we are now called to be beacons of love and service to everyone under a new covenant with God. It is all part of the family heritage into which the followers of Jesus now share. None of God’s followers are beyond the reach of God’s love. Those who have received the gift of grace are also to accept the call to discipleship. God no more rescinds the call than God revokes the grace or love. Paul has previously said that nothing can separate us or anyone else from the love of God. In God’s divine plan, even sin plays a role as the precursor to God’s ministry of mercy to all.

The confrontation between the disciples and the Canaanite woman reminds us of this divine mercy and that Jesus came for all of us, for those of faith and those without faith, for those following doctrine and those not following doctrine, for those with a church and faith history of tradition and those without. Jesus is present for all. We, as the hands and feet and voice and heart of Jesus in the world, are to be present with the love of God for all our neighbors as well. It’s a big task but together we can be the people Jesus calls us to be.

To close I would like to quote again from one of my favorite authors Barbara Brown Taylor. She writes “Let’s go! Step out! Look a Canaanite in the eye, knock on a strange door, ask an outsider what their life is like, trespass an old boundary, enter a new relationship, push the limit, take a risk, give up playing it safe! You have nothing to lose but your life the way it has been, and there is lots more life where that came from. And if you get scared, which you will, and if you get mad, which you probably will too, remember today’s story. With Jesus as our model-and our Lord-we are called to step over the lines we have drawn for ourselves, not because we have to, and not because we ought to, or even because we want to, but because we know that it is God’s own self who waits for us on the other side.”