Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.
Matthew 15:21-28 (NRSVue)
My sermon from the 11th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (August 20, 2023) on Matthew 15:21-28.
So I noticed that after I returned from my vacation, one of my cats became a bit uncomfortable with silence. When we got back, she acted as if we never left in the first place which is her standard operating procedure. But around two o’clock that morning, while I was fast asleep, something changed. She was on the other side of the house and began to meow. The meows were soft, at first, but quickly grew louder as she came over to my side of the building. At first, I thought the smoke alarm was going off so I woke up, ran out of my room, and saw a 10 pound ball of fur meowing at me. I assumed that maybe something outside had surprised her and after getting her to quiet down, I went back to sleep. I didn’t think much of it because cats will be cats but when the next night rolled around, she did it again; and again; and again. For the last few weeks, whenever the silence becomes too much, she feels the need to fill it with sound. It isn’t the most fun experience but it is, I think, something most of us can relate to. Whenever we find ourselves caught in a silence overflowing with tension, worry, or fear, we desperately want to fill it with something else. There are times when we welcome the silence and other times when it completely overwhelms us. And there are other moments, out-of-the-ordinary moments, that surprise us – like when Jesus responded to a mother with silence.
Now there are plenty of times in Matthew where Jesus is silent. He’s often pretty quiet when he goes off to pray and he chose to answer many questions during his trial and execution with silence. But his actions in today’s story are a bit peculiar since they don’t seem very Jesus-like. Jesus and his friends had taken a bit of a detour, heading towards the cities of Sidon and Tyre located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The region was home to ancient cities who had fought against Israel for hundreds of years over power, money, and their faith. And while the Roman Empire had united the region in an uneasy peace through a robust military occupation, the cultural and religious barriers between the two regions remained. Jesus crossed the border to visit an area where folks like him were not the so-called “norm.” He was the outsider many would have wanted to avoid. Yet this unnamed woman, identified as a descendent of the ancient enemies of Israel, came to see him. We can assume, I think, that she must have been pretty desperate to, in front of all her neighbors and friends, transgress the cultural and religious rules she and Jesus abided by. And it makes sense because her daughter needed help. Her first words to Jesus were a plea for mercy, admitting the hurt and pain consuming her family’s life. Jesus heard her cry, listened to her words, and did what none of us ever wanted him to do: he answered her with silence.
We, in our own ways, are familiar with this kind of silence. We have, through our struggles, traumas, and various crises, felt as if God was silent with us too. What we want is for God to break the silence – to make the promises declared to us in our baptism – real. The healing, the love, and the hope we see in the Bible is something we want ourselves – and our loved ones – too. And when that doesn’t happen – we are the Canaanite woman. Our text doesn’t put her feelings or her thoughts into words, instead letting the words spoken by the disciples fill the void left by the choice Jesus made. They wanted her gone, so they told Jesus to send her away. And while Jesus doesn’t do exactly what they asked, he does let the woman know that his mission in the world doesn’t include her or her daughter. It’s a bit of an odd thing for Jesus to say since non-Jews have been a part of his story since the magi brought gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh when he was very young. But here, in the face of deep human need, he told the woman she wasn’t included in what God was up to. This isn’t the fun Jesus, the kind Jesus, the Jesus we lean on when times are hard. But it is the Jesus who puts into words and actions what the silence from God feels like. What she needed back then and what we need during our own moments of fear and worry, is for a God whose heart breaks open instead of being closed and cold. She, though, had a very different – and the very human experience – of, in the presence of God, feeling completely alone. The silence she experienced was a silence of fear and worry; a silence of shame and humiliation; a silence of wonder and one filled with way too many questions. It was a silence we know we’ll – and one we inflict on others who don’t live or act or believe like we do. It’s a silence built on the expectations we use to limit what love can do.
And maybe that’s why Jesus, after crossing these cultural, religious, and physical borders, did the same. For a moment, he lived everything this silence represents. Jesus wasn’t only the one who walked on water, calmed storms, and fed thousands with a charcuterie board consisting of a little bread and fish. He’s also very human – who chose to grow up, to be cared for, and to be so emptied of divine power that, when he prayed in a garden before he was arrested and dragged to trial, he experienced the silence that empties our soul. Jesus responded to the Canaanite woman with this silence and when he and his friends broke it, they showed what this silence can do. But when she was confronted by that silence, she refused to let Jesus be anything other than the God she believed him to be. In the words of Professor Richard Ward, this is what “faith and fulfillment looks like.” It’s through Jesus “whom God makes salvation and justice happen,” fulfilling an ancient promise that Israel would bring this light to all. “It is [this] hope that [drew] this Canaanite woman to Jesus with [a] plea” to break through what silence brings. She refused to let this silence be the last word when it comes to God’s love. And she called all of God’s agents – even Jesus himself – to fulfill the promise God already declared for everyone. When we find ourselves wrapped by a silence that is not the kind of quiet which helps us connect with our God, we can choose to be like this woman and never let go of the promises of God. That does not mean our prayers will be answered in the way we want or that we, or our loved ones, will be fully healed. But it does mean the silences we live through will not be what determines our value or worth. We can, and should, be persistent in asking for help, asking all of God’s people to make the responsibilities given to us in baptism – the responsibility and call to love, to support, and to serve – to make those responsibilities real in the lives of others. And when the silence feels too much and all we can do is let out cries fill empty halls in the middle of the night, we can trust that the One who heard the Canaanite woman; the One who grew into God’s inclusive promise; the One who faced the loneliness of death with arms stretched wide, open to all; and the One who broke through the silence of the tomb with a resurrection of hope and new possibility – this One, this Jesus, – will not let the silence be the last word of our story too.
Amen.