by the Rev. Dr. Craig Lemming, Associate Rector
Preached at St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, 8:00am Holy Eucharist
Holy One of Israel, covenant-keeper, you gather in what has been rejected, restoring what is lost and healing what is wounded. Give us faith to speak out boldly, so that the outcast may be welcomed and all may be blessed. Amen.
Have you ever met an inconvenient person who completely changed your life? A person you initially made all kinds of assumptions about that unexpectedly altered your entire worldview? Can you think of anyone who made you question every stereotype you have been conditioned to believe and to perpetuate? What did it feel like to have that mind-altering change of heart?
Today’s Gospel reveals the only moment Jesus has a mind-altering change of heart. The Canaanite Woman is the only person, in all of the Gospels, who inspires Jesus, the Fully Human and Fully Divine Christ, to go through a mind-altering change of heart. Thank God for the nameless Canaanite Woman! She humanizes our Lord Jesus Christ, converts his heart, and thereby reveals God’s unconditional love for all people. The nameless Canaanite Woman catalyzes the ministry of Jesus to embrace every person unconditionally across gender, race, and class. Let’s look again at how Jesus’ mind-altering change of heart unfolded.
The Canaanite woman came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But Jesus did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” Sometimes, when you love someone, you transgress every socially acceptable norm, and you come out and you shout for mercy, you shout for dignity, you shout for help. And even when you are ignored, because you believe that you are a beloved child of God worthy of love, and the one you love who is suffering is worthy of the same, you continue to shout for the dignity of every human being.
Jesus answered her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus was not wrong. In fact, up until this encounter with the Canaanite Woman, Jesus believed he was fulfilling his mission. But the Canaanite Woman had her own mission. The sacredness of her inconvenient gender, race, and class would not and could not be tidied away. She came and knelt before Jesus, a posture of humility, reverence, and grace, saying, not shouting, but saying, “Lord, help me.” Jesus answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” I struggle with that verse. My beloved Lord Jesus calls this humble mother a dog. And yet that is the sacred moment when Holy Wisdom manifests astonishingly in and through the words of a nameless Canaanite woman. She says, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
Outcasts on the margins of acceptability often subversively choose to own the insult, the epithet, the hateful slur proudly, and make it their own. Words like Nigger, Faggot, Dyke, Queer, or Dog lose their hateful power when the human being that that word tried to dehumanize, takes the poison of that word and creates a healing antidote. Medicine that reminds the world that they will not be defined by the ignorance, fear, and suspicion behind the insult. Medicine that reminds the world that they are a beloved child of God, worthy of dignity, love, and mutual respect. The Canaanite Woman’s love of her daughter was her ultimate concern. When love is your ultimate concern, being ignored, dismissed, and insulted has no power over your belovedness. Jesus experiences a mind-altering change of heart when this nameless Canaanite Woman has the fiercely tender courage to take his insult and transform it into the wisdom of dogs: unconditional love, steadfast loyalty, devoted companionship, boundless forgiveness, and liberating joy. Love makes healing antivenom out of the poisonous slur. Love that refuses to be ignored, dismissed, or insulted, is the catalyst for a mind-altering change of heart. Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
Today’s Gospel constrains us to make a decision. Will our faith in God’s unconditional love of all people make us courageous enough to be unflappable in the face of being ignored, dismissed, and insulted? Are we loving enough to be like the Canaanite Woman who pleads for mercy and healing, so that the dignity of her child will be honored? Will we choose to create medicine out of venom?
Moments before this encounter, Jesus teaches, “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.” This defiling word “dog” that came out of Jesus’s mouth, is redeemed by the Canaanite Woman’s Wisdom, who speaks of mercy, healing, and respect from her heart. Words that alter the mind of Christ and change his heart.
These mind-altering changes of heart are what the Prophet Isaiah proclaims in today’s First Lesson. When we have the courage to speak up in the name of God’s love for people very different to us, that’s when we “maintain justice, and do what is right.” When we join foreigners who are joined to God, and minister together by loving and serving all people, that is when God makes us joyful in God’s house of prayer. For God proclaims, “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” God gathers human differences together in endless, inclusive communities of faithful, reciprocal, mutual respect and belonging. It takes the immense courage, love, and wisdom of the Canaanite Woman to heal this world, one mind-altering change of heart at a time.
Let us pray.
God of the nations, all are invited to your table, for in your family no one is a stranger. Satisfy our hunger and mercifully extend to all people the joy of salvation and faith. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.
