“Undeserved Mercy”

Matthew 15:21-28

This is a difficult text: difficult to read, difficult to study, and very difficult to preach. Jesus seems so utterly out of character. A Canaanite woman – a non-Jew – asks Jesus to exorcise her demonically possessed daughter, and she’s neither subtle nor polite in her request. He ignores her. The disciples want Jesus to deal with her and then send her away. She has become a nuisance. Jesus responded by saying, “I’ve got my hands full dealing with the lost sheep of Israel.” In other words, he is too busy going about his Father’s business of proclaiming salvation to his fellow Jews to deal with this Gentile woman and her daughter.

How non-Jesus like is that? The Good Shepherd can’t worry about a lost sheep simply because she’s not part of the flock he’s tending? The healer of the sick doesn’t have a few minutes to heal a hurting child? The Savior of humankind cannot be distracted from his primary work of saving the Jews? The One who proclaimed the blessedness of being merciful doesn’t have a little mercy to spare?

Obviously not. But this Canaanite mother will not take no for an answer. She is as persistent – and annoying – as she is desperate. He baby needs deliverance. She knows that Jesus can provide such deliverance. She knows that he is her daughter’s last and only hope. So she keeps at it, going so far as to get down on her knees and beg him to heal her daughter.

Jesus, again in such a non-Jesus like way, tells her, “It’s not right to take bread out of children’s mouths and throw it to dogs.” It seems that the Bread of Life is reserved for only a select few of God’s children. It cannot be wasted on Gentile dogs. That’s harsh. That’s rigid, especially in light of Jesus’ ongoing debate with the Pharisees over who deserves God’s grace. He has been very critical of their rigid adherence to tradition as well as their prideful attitude toward their status as God’s elect.

How do we explain his Pharisaic like rigidity? We don’t. Instead we focus on the woman’s faith. She knows that she is not numbered among God’s chosen people. She knows that she is theologically and culturally unacceptable. But in the words of Jae Won Lee, “Again and again she violates boundaries, boundaries set up because of ethnicity, religion, gender, and demon possession. She must even contend with Jesus’ reluctance to violate the ethnic boundary; but contend she does. In the grand scheme of [Matthew’s Gospel], she believes that she and her daughter are people who should benefit from [God’s kingdom]. So she is willing to break through the barriers, and breaking through the barriers dramatizes her faith. When the Canaanite believes that she and her daughter should receive mercy from the ruling activity of God, this is what Jesus calls faith.”

As Karoline Lewis observes, “The woman, aware of her location and the limitations placed on her, does not succumb to them but brings them into the light and calls them into question: ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table’.” To which Jesus replied, “Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!” With those words he gave in and healed the woman’s afflicted child.

That woman had great faith. In response to it Jesus extended great mercy. All the stuff that came before is ultimately of no consequence. All that matters is her faith and God’s mercy. Faith and mercy: these are the things that matter. Not political correctness. Not theological orthodoxy. Not any one school of Biblical interpretation.

In recent weeks I’ve been confronted with some forms of theological rigidity that managed to drive me up the wall. Some of it involved some interaction on Face Book with hyper Calvinists – Calvinists who out Calvin John Calvin himself. In one of these interactions I was called a sanctimonious ass. With great effort I chose not to let that particular writer know that I considered him and his ilk sanctimonious idiots. I just let it go.

Some of it involved the theological mindset of the folks who oversaw our recent mission trip. In the face of that I didn’t let it go. I just had to say something, and I did. I told those folks that I loved them but they were wrong. I later apologized. For all their theological rigidity they were kind, committed, and loving examples of Christ like love. They had a passion for the lost – the unsaved. And during the week they very sweetly and gently surrounded my granddaughter in prayer.

The irony of these confrontations with those whom I considered overly rigid in their theology and Biblical interpretation is that I was forced to confront my own theological rigidity. To put it another way, as I got all bent out of shape over the motes in the eyes of others I was forced to look at the plank in mine. That, my friends, has not been fun.

Along the way, via my prayer journal I wrote myself a note strongly advising me to talk less and listen more. Sometimes the best response is a non-response. Sometimes the most intelligent form of debate is to simply keep one’s mouth shut.

As I pondered these things I came across a couple of wonderful quotes. The first comes from an anonymous source: “Let’s not confuse rigidity with true strength. To be strong we need to be tolerant, responsive, and gentle. We need to be strong in a loving, flexible, human way.” Let me be clear. In this case I was dealing with my own rigidity and not that of others.

The second quote comes from Bob Kopp, a pastoral colleague in Illinois: “Instead of bantering and moaning about what others are doing and how they’re behaving, our faith and ethic hold us responsible for how we respond to life’s opportunities, challenges, ups, downs, detours, distractions, joys, sorrows, victories, defeats, and all the rest.” He wrote that in a chapter entitled: “We are not responsible for the beliefs and behaviors of others; but we are responsible for our response.”

We are responsible for our own response. With that in mind I must confess that sometimes I am a sanctimonious ass and probably even a sanctimonious idiot. I can be as theologically rigid and unbending as the next guy. Sometimes I come across as intolerant, inflexible, and unloving. Why? Because sometimes I am intolerant, inflexible, and unloving as I respond to others. As in saying to a group of fellow Christians, “I love you, but you’re wrong.” Not one of my finer moments.

Sometimes we need to move beyond our rigidity, even if it’s a holy rigidity, and extend mercy to someone we sincerely believe does not deserve it. Sometimes we need to respond to those annoying, difficult, intrusive, and strange folks we encounter with some loving patience. Because it just might be that such folks are in desperate need of a healing, Christ like touch from a professed follower of Jesus. There are times when we must practice loving tolerance and flexibility. Jesus didn’t have to heal that Canaanite woman’s daughter. Doing so was clearly outside the parameters of his understood mission. But in response to that woman’s faith he healed her daughter anyway. When push came to shove God’s mercy trumped theological correctness, social convention, cultural assumptions, and one particular shepherd’s job description.

Going back over the text I realized just how much I identified with the Canaanite woman and her daughter. I do not in any way, shape, or form, deserve God’s mercy and grace. I am not fit to follow Jesus. I wrestle with demons of my own, including sanctimonious idiocy and various forms of rigidity. And yet my faith, immature and incomplete as it often is, keeps leading me to seek the loving embrace of Jesus. The truth is that my greatest sin occurs in those moments when I refuse, for whatever reason, often some rigid form of pride, to get down on my knees and beg, “Jesus, help me. I don’t deserve it but please have mercy on me. Protect and save me from my own self-destructive impulses, especially my pride and self-righteousness.” Amen.