I have enjoyed many things about my office at Saint Mark’s. It’s cozy, and sitting at the desk, I have enjoyed lovely views of the garden. I have watched children playing happily before choir rehearsals. I have witnessed faithful parishioners welcoming the stranger. And I have observed Gus, the rectory cat, chasing his prey. The only downside to that office, in my opinion, is its location. It seems that every time I would sit down to write a sermon, someone would buzz at the office door, and on Fridays, I was only one of a handful of people around to answer it.
Inevitably, after I answered the door, I would resume my sermon preparation, and alas, someone else would ring the buzzer, and I’d have to let them in, too. It could be hard to focus. Not to mention, that even after nearly two years, I still have no idea how to set my office phone on “do not disturb.”
In today’s Gospel story, it rather seems like the Canaanite woman is a disturbance to Jesus and his disciples. She is the intruding call during sermon preparation, or the mail delivery during lunch. As soon as Jesus and his disciples venture into Gentile territory, their hearts presumably set on whatever their task is ahead, this woman suddenly appears on the scene, shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!” Let’s name the elephant in the room: Jesus’ uncharacteristic behavior in this story is troubling.
What are we to make of Jesus ignoring this woman, who only asks for mercy and, indirectly, for her daughter’s healing? Why does Jesus not directly address the woman but, instead, reply to his disciples with an answer that seems to be directed at the woman? It’s as if Jesus cannot be bothered to speak to the Canaanite woman face to face. All of our modern hackles are raised: a man, and a well-known one at that, is dismissive of an unnamed woman, who represents the other, an ethnic group that is all too easily sidelined. Jesus says he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
And when we are desperately longing for Jesus to help this poor woman, his words are capable of giving offense. He says that it’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.
Just sit with that for a minute. If I had ever talked to anyone using such words and my parents heard it, I would have been in serious trouble. How does any of this pair with Jesus’ injunctions of neighborly love?
Jesus has had his eye on his future ministry in the region around Tyre and Sidon since he left Galilee, and this Canaanite woman has the temerity to blindside him with her request. He has no time for this. He has a mission to accomplish, and it would appear as if this woman has no place in that mission.
We might easily identify with not wanting to be distracted from important business, but what does it feel like to be in the shoes of the Canaanite woman? What painful memories does it stir up for you to be desperately in need of help and yet ignored and shunned? What is it like to desperately entreat God for relief from sickness, for a job, or for the protection of a loved one?
Five months after we closed the doors at Saint Mark’s to our normal public worship, we continue to grapple in the dark through this pandemic, looking for the light switch that will illuminate everything and help us understand why we are in this mess. Daily, it seems, we are screaming to God, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!” And the reply is discouraging silence, as if we have been set on ignore or “do not disturb.” Or maybe, like that Canaanite woman, our needs are just in the way of some other more important mission that God has in store.
And yet we continue to plead: Lord, send us a vaccine! Lord, give me a job! Lord, let my children go back to school safely so I can work from home! Lord, heal my sister! Lord, deliver us from the sin of racism! And the demoralizing reply, if unvoiced and translated by our skewed perspective, is this: “I was sent only to certain groups of people, to the privileged, to the wealthy, to those who can afford healthcare, to those who are cruising up high, even while many are slugging away down below.”
Some who beg for God’s mercy never make it past the first time they feel ignored. They cease their pleading and steer their begging toward the gods of science or secular humanism. Others, like the Canaanite woman, continue imploring God until their knees hurt, crying, “Lord, help me!”, only to be dismissed yet again. The conclusion, too often reached, is that the prayers and the pleas are just a nuisance. God has other plans, and we are just in the way.
But we know that the Canaanite woman’s story doesn’t stop with her being ignored. Our hasty assessment that God’s mission is directed somewhere other than to us does not feel accurate. And it’s in the ending of the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman that we find some hope, even though it doesn’t immediately eliminate the problems stirred up around Jesus’ problematic behavior. We know that at the story’s conclusion, the Canaanite woman’s faith wins the day, and her daughter is instantly healed. And Jesus commends her faith.
And still, it is understandable if we remain bothered that it took so much groveling to get there in the first place. We might be rightly frustrated that we have to demean ourselves in order to earn God’s mercy and compassion. How many times must we ask for help? How many times do the downtrodden have to scream until they are heard?
This, I think, is the view from below. In this perplexing story, Jesus is, in some sense and for a time, locked into history in the first century AD. Jesus, in his full humanity, has his blinders on as he zealously pursues God’s mission. But in his divine glory, Jesus is also open to being surprised at the enlargement of his mission by God through the sending of this beautiful Canaanite woman, who is not an annoyance but part of God’s generous plan.
The Canaanite woman doesn’t know how she is a part of this plan, for she, too, is locked into the view from below. Even while she pleads with God, she is otherwise content with her place on ground level. At that level, to us, Jesus’ actions seem rude, and the Canaanite woman appears to be a distraction to him. She has disrupted his trajectory, which follows a gradual ethnic arc in Matthew’s Gospel, from Jews to Gentiles. This woman is like a breadcrumb leading to the end of Matthew’s Gospel, a foretaste of what is to come, where all nations are brought under the reign of Christ.
And did you notice how much Jesus’ final words to the Canaanite woman are a mirror of Mary’s words to the angel Gabriel? Jesus, when he finally praises the faith of this Canaanite woman, says, “Let it be done for you as you wish.” This Canaanite woman is lauded, because she has followed in the footsteps of blessed Mary by asking nothing for herself except for God’s mercy and indirectly for her daughter’s healing.
And how different is this woman from the disciples! Seeing her as a nuisance, they order Jesus—not ask, but order him—to make her go away. But the Canaanite woman, ensconced in history and bound by the view from below, does not presume to know how God will help her, but she knows that God will, in some incomprehensible way, help.
The view from above, however, is more expansive. In God’s eyes, this incredible woman is no inconvenience. She is a shining example of the tenacity of faith. She refuses to take no for an answer because she understands somehow that God’s answer is always, if mysteriously, yes. If she can’t get the full meal, she is content with just a crumb. And she knows that her asking for help is inseparably, if asynchronously, bound up with God’s eternal yes.
She has no presumptions about her status, but if she can merely be granted the opportunity to hang around the edges of the table, just maybe she can experience something of God’s healing power. The woman is not willing to let even one crumb go to waste, not one ounce of God’s mercy will go unabsorbed by her.
How different is this Canaanite woman from us, too! How often do we cry out, “Listen, Lord, for your servant is speaking!” “Lord, let it be done to me as I wish!” And when we are locked into that view from below, when every specific request seems to be greeted by silence or denial, we end up believing we are pestering God or that God has put us on “do not disturb.” At worst, we give up.
And so often, we have no clue about how the crumbs we are receiving line up into a continuous trail of crumbs from God’s end of things. When I first sat in a pew on the Epistle side here at Saint Mark’s eighteen years ago, visiting Philadelphia for the first time, I had no idea I would ever serve in this place, much less as a priest. But I now have received some fleeting glimpse of the view from above, knowing that God has blessed me profoundly for future service by the generous spirit, deep wisdom, and love of this parish. And I am so grateful for it. The view from below is often confusing, even if everything makes sense to God.
And so, it might be that if we were to stand more firmly in the shoes of the Canaanite woman and let her be our patron saint of prayer, we could get a fleeting glimpse of the view from above without needing to fully understand the end of the story. We would see that does God not expect us to grovel before him before pronouncing mercy or before healing. God’s property is always to have mercy. Always. But we might also learn to be grateful for even one tiny morsel falling from the table. From below, each morsel seems like it’s not enough, but from above, it’s an eternal shower of heavenly manna.
When we are so blessed to witness someone’s great faith, like that of the Canaanite woman or that of Blessed Mary, we see things from above. From that perspective, crumbs scattered on a path lead miles and miles in a sinuous line to a heavenly kingdom where there is no pain or sighing. And there is a throng of saints, the Canaanite woman among them, who are kneeling before God’s throne, pleading, “Lord, have mercy!”
May we, like those in that holy crowd, offer in our hearts that prayer of faith, “Lord, let it be done to me according to your word. Lord, we know you will help us. Let your will be done.”
Preached by Father Kyle Babin
16 August 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia