14 Pentecost Yr A

This week we have two stories that challenge the status quo and move us to forgiveness and acceptance. By all rights, after having been thrown in a pit
and then sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph should be looking for revenge. Instead, he welcomes and celebrates the arrival of his brothers and offers healing and hospitality. And in Matthew’s gospel, a Canaanite mother, an outsider, brought to Jesus her brokenness and imperfection, and challenged Jesus to embrace and honor all. In our call to be healed and to offer healing, we must reach out as God has reached out to us, no exceptions.

Last week we heard how Joseph’s brothers conspired to kill him, but Rueben spoke up and suggested that rather than killing him, they just throw him in a pit. Joseph was rescued from the pit, only to be sold by his brothers into slavery. And as the story continues, Joseph meets up with his brothers, and not only shows his brothers mercy, but seems happy and excited to see them. Through it all, Joseph remains in relationship with God, in fact Joseph attributes to God his ability to preserve life, to help people remain faithful through this famine. It seems that Joseph would have good reason to turn from God, everyone he knew turned against him, and yet, he remains in relationship with God, and even with his brothers.

And then the gospel story presents us with this Canaanite woman. Let’s see if we can see this scene. Maybe a bystander sees it this way.

It had gotten worse, her daughter couldn’t be taken out in the public square, she screamed and squirmed, it was obvious something or someone had taken hold of her mind, body and spirit. But on this day, when the one they called Jesus was coming through the village, she decided to take her daughter out. We were all embarrassed, but his time it wasn’t her daughter that was possessed. It was her, she was the one screaming and shouting, she was hysterical. She yelled at Jesus, have mercy on me, heal my daughter. Who did she think she was? He ignored her as long as he could. Jesus had no business talking to her, he was a Jew. But she kept shouting. His friends told him just to leave, but he shouted back at her that he wasn’t interested in her kind. That just made her even more hysterical. She threw herself down on that nasty ground in front of him, confirming her shamefulness, and said, Lord, help me. Jesus could have picked his words a little more kindly, but instead he really dug deep, he said she wasn’t worthy even of the children’s food. But then we couldn’t believe what she did. She should have just crawled off at that point, but no, she kept at him, and told him that even the dogs like her get the crumbs that fall off their master’s table. We had never witnessed any thing so bold, so courageous. He changed his tune. He healed her daughter.

I am very thankful for this Canaanite woman. I think she makes it possible for me, and for you, to step boldly into Jesus’ presence, to offer the reality of who we are, to be in this relationship with God, and to be forgiven and healed. This Canaanite woman could so easily have not approached Jesus at all. Or she could have turned away when Jesus ignored her. But she didn’t. She persisted, she was bold and she was courageous. And she was far from perfect. She brought all that she was, all her sinfulness, all her goodness; she dropped to her knees and offered it up.

The very hard part of this story is that she was ignored. And there is something we need to hear from her. She did not turn away from Jesus, that would have been easy. She could have said, see, he only wants perfect people, he only wants the people who are the right kind of people, but she kept at him, and because she stayed in relationship with him, he changed. Because of her, he saw that his work was for all people, not just the Jews, but everyone. The healing and reconciliation that takes place in this story is not one sided. Her staying in relationship with Jesus affects her own healing and her daughter’s healing, as well as reconciliation of a whole host of people.

What’s in these stories for us? The most powerful thing I think is twofold. First, that we come to Jesus and offer our whole selves, and second when we feel like it’s not going well, we don’t turn away to worship something else; we stay in the relationship with Jesus. And then we offer the same sort of healing and reconciliation that Joseph offered, and that the woman and her daughter received, to all we encounter.

You are worthy of God’s love. There is nothing you’ve done that puts you outside of God’s love. You may be sitting there thinking, but if she really knew me, she wouldn’t say that. I’m really not good enough to be loved like that. The thing is that I’m not the judge; none of us are the judge. And this story shows us that there is nothing we are or nothing we can do that would keep us outside of God’s love. What this story shows us is that we need to enter the relationship with God, we need to drop to our knees and say, this is me, all that I am, with all that I have done or left undone, with all of my faults, all of my insecurities, all of my control issues, all of my goodness, all of my love, all of quirkiness, everything that I am, I’m yours.

And then we need to stay in. We can’t get up and leave. We need to stay in that relationship with God. We can’t turn and say, well that was interesting, but now I think I’ll go find something better, or more fun, or more entertaining, or more prosperous, more risky, more exciting. All of those things seem better than this relationship with God. They seem better because they are valued by many around us, by our culture. We see it and we do it all the time. We worship that which looks and seems good and great, but those things cannot make us whole, they cannot heal us. And they cannot connect us to one another in the way that we are meant to be connected.

And lastly of course this is not just about you. It is about Jesus, and that because of this encounter, you and I are included in the Kingdom that God is building. The woman challenged Jesus to see the true scope of his ministry. She challenged him to see that God’s amazing and abundant love is available to all, not just to the ones who are in, or who say the right words, or look the right way, God’s amazing and abundant love is available to all, even her and her daughter. Jesus realized in this encounter that all are welcome, Jew and Greek, slave and free, man and woman. In Jesus God inaugurates the new creation that God promised, in this encounter, that new creation includes everyone.

So now, you and I, who continue to do what this woman does, we drop to our knees and ask for forgiveness, for healing and for reconciliation, do the same for others. We invite others into this relationship with God, we invite everyone to be part of the amazing and abundant love that God has for them. You and I are agents of this new creation that God begins in Jesus. We have a role to play in the kind of healing and reconciliation that Joseph offered to his brothers, and that this woman asked from Jesus. Everyone is included, no one is excluded, even you.

Alleluia. The Spirit of the Lord renews the face of the earth:
Come let us adore him. Alleluia.