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August 20, 2017Matthew 15:21-28Rev. Micol Cottrell
Encountering the Canaanite Woman:
Our calling toa path of communion, compassion, and justice.
This past July my wife Jessica and I took a week of study leave. While I sat at home reading a wonderful book on Male Spirituality by Richard Rohr Jessica made a pilgrimage to the annual “Young Clergy Women International” Conference which was held this year in Vancouver. Young Clergy Women International is a group of ordained women under the age of 40 from around the world who connect with each other mostly through private Facebook groups. There are about 1 600 women that make up the online community. They offer one another encouragement, prayers, turn to one another when they are struggling, and laugh with one another over the funny and absurd things that happen in their ministry and in their lives. Young Clergy Women International has an electronic magazine, a publishing company, and once a year there is a conference where people connect in person, learn from a guest speaker, and attend various workshops. Over the past eight years I have watched how Jessica’s life and ministry has been blessed by this amazing community.
Although the conversations are confidential, Jessica has shared with me that one of the common issues that many, if not most of these women face is the way they are treated in ministry because of their gender. Sometimes it is the subtle ways in which they are treated differently than their male Colleagues. Other times it is more blatant: discrimination, disrespectful comments, unwanted attention to their clothing or body, abusive words about why women should not be in ministry. Yet each week this group of inspiring women go out into the world to live their ministry by preaching, providing pastoral care, sharing the Sacraments, and journeying with others as they explore their faith. By being who they are they challenge people to rethink their understanding of gender and ministry, and they inspire others.
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She knows it’s not expected of her, it’s not the respectful thing to do, not her proper place but here he is, in her town, and she needs help, so she won’t take no for an answer. When the wandering preacher, healer, maybe even messiah, Jesus approaches she calls out to him, “Have mercy on me, Lord, heir of David; my daughter is tormented, help her!” She sees the disciples laughing at her. She calls out again...and again... and again. But all she sees is a stone face and she hears the disciples saying “make her go away!”
And the stone faced man, who she has placed all her hopes upon, turns to her and says “I was sent here for the lost sheep of the house of Jacob, for my own people.”
No. She will not let him just pass her by. She will not let this man ignore her. She will be seen, she will be heard. She kneels in front of him, blocking his way, and begs “please, Lord, help me.”
Then she hears a word that shakes her to her core, an all too common insult thrown between the Israelites to the Canaanites, these two long time enemies: “Dog.” The stone faced man has turned to her and said “It is not fair to take away the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
She knows she should walk away. He has refused to help her, to see her child’s suffering, to see their need. Instead he has insulted her, degraded her, and thrown her aside. But she won’t let him pass by– even if he won’t help her, he will see her.
“Yes, Lord, you call me a dog! Well the dogs are treated better than you are treating me. Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall off the master’s table.”
She watches as the stone face softens; humility, pain, and awakening washing over the man. He looks at her, he sees her, and with tears he says “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be as you wish.” And her daughter is healed.
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Hold on! Does Jesus really call a woman a dog? Does this holy man who stands alongside the downtrodden, the rejected, and the suffering who demands the powerful torepent and turn towards justice really reject and humiliate a woman because she is from another tribe?
Over the years many people have tried to preach away the sharp edge of today’s Gospel story by saying that Jesus is just doing this to show how all are loved by God and he’s not insulting her but calling her a little beloved family pet. But no person should be degraded in this way and no one in the vulnerable position of begging for help deserves to be called a dog. This story has a shocking, sharp edge: Jesus doesn’t really see the woman in need. He repeats a narrow mission statement that allows him to walk away “I’m here for the lost of my own tribe.” He parrots a common hate “You are a Canaanite dog.”
But when she literally does the act of turning the other cheek, twisting his insult in a way that makes him encounter her fully, Jesus changes. He experiences his own need to repent – to turn and return to a better way. Jesus encounters in this woman an embodiment of his teachings. She speaks God’s prophetic wisdom calling Jesusback to a path of communion, compassion, and justice.
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The young clergy women who make up the group Jessica belongs to often have to be the Canaanite woman, the ones who by simply and profoundly living out their calling invite people into a better way of life in a world where sexism still runs rampant and where many refuse to see women as capable of leadership or acceptable as clergy. Through their ministry they call the world to a life of communion, compassion, and justice.
Last weekend we encountered the Canaanite woman in Charlottesville Virginia. When the city planned to take down a statue of General Lee because of the racism and oppression he fought for during the American Civil War, the largest gathering of white nationalists in decades took place. A swarming of Klu Klux klan members, skin heads, neo-Nazis, and militant anti-imgrationists marched into the city. Some were armed with weapons:guns, tactical gear, placards of hate speech. Racist and anti-Semitic statements were yelled, Nazi salutes were given, and torches were carried in. And when placed within the history of the Southern United States the torches carried a much more sinister meaning – drawing many people’s minds to when torches were carried by white clad men who burned crosses on lawns, destroyed property, and murdered black people. There was a terrorist act as a young man known for his radical white nationalist beliefs drove a car drove through a crowd of anti-hate activists injuring many and killing one woman.
We encountered the Canaanite woman in Charlottesville standing in the streets yelling out that hatred is not okay, calling from the sidelines “love has already won!” She was there standing against the tide of hatred saying that no longer should people have to remain silent as they see tributes to heroes of slavery, or witness salutes, flags, torches, chants, and actions that are meant to degrade and terrorize people. She died bleeding on a sidewalk, like Jesus, standing up against hatred, fear, and injustice paying a price no one should have to. She stood in front of reporters reminding us all that the horrific hatred we witnessed in Charlottesville is a reality that many people face each and every day.
Here she stands, the Canaanite woman calling to us“you have to see me – see me as human, as one who is in relationship, in communion with you, one who is worthy of compassion and justice.” She cries out to us “You must fully encounter me because it is the only way we will all be saved.” She stands there calling all of us back to the sacred path of communion, compassion, and justice.
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How do we respond to the call of the Canaanite woman? First we go inward, we look at any fear, pain, hatred, or old tracts passed onto us by society or family that separates us from others. We look at our life, not just the moments we have been our best self but the times we have ignored the suffering of others or added to their suffering. We allow the Canaanite woman to speak into our broken places causing us to repent, to turn, and return to a better path.
Than we go outward, we look at the torches, the flags, the salutes, the statues, and plaques, and we look at the brokenness that lies all around us. We allow holy presence to guide us towards the way of communion, compassion, and justice. We take another step on that path – maybe a fearful and hesitant step or a bold beautiful prophetic Canaanite woman step. We take a step by committing ourselves to working against hatred in all of its destructive forms, to standing alongside those who are crying out for justice, striving to model the better way for others. We continue to work at our church being a place where all who wish to join their lives in love, compassion, and justice are fully welcomed in the great diversity of genders, sexualities, age, race, culture, abilities, economic realities, beliefs and so much more – because we are richer together than divided. We remind ourselves that our faith isn’t just about worshiping but about worshipful living, a faith embodied in everyday actions.
So friends, may we encounter God leading us through the Canaanite woman calling to us. When we stumble and get lostmay we hear her voice drawing us back to the way of communion, compassion, and justice, the way of Christ, the way of the dominion of God, the way of life. Comefor the journey continues and we are all part of the sacred story. Amen. Let it be so.