The Evil That Enslaves Us

Matthew 15:21-28

Do you feel like you know this story pretty well?

This story where Jesus encounters a woman in need, and then refuses to heal her child because “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The story where Jesus calls a disruptive but vulnerable woman a dog?

Or does it surprise you, when Jesus vividly displays the human failing of prejudice and bigotry?

Me, I feel like I’ve heard this story far too often; like I know it too well. I’ve gotten really tired of preaching this story. You see, Matthew and Mark both tell a version of this story, and so it shows up twice in our three year cycle of gospel readings.And every time it shows up, the news of the world just happens to be full of stories about race and prejudice, discrimination and disruption, the uncomfortable history of division among our people, and the pain of bigotry, injustice, and oppression.

Every time.

I hate this.

I hate having to have these conversations we’ve been having the past week – on the internet, with friends, with you one-on-one, throughout the structures of the church, and here in the pulpit – about the sins and demons of racism, bigotry, prejudice and pride.

I hate that we have to keep grappling with the demons and sins that were loose in Charlottesville last weekend – which aren’t all that different from the demons loose in Barcelona on Thursday – and which continually divide our national conversation, our personal conversations, and our hearts.

I hate knowing that I have what I have and I am who I am because I inherit – with you – a country and a culture that has robbed God’s children of their lives, their labor, their dignity, and their humanity, based on convenient fictions about the meaning of gender, language, cultural practices, and especially, skin color.

I hate this, and I bet Jesus hated it too.

But I have to face it.
Jesus had to face it.

WE have to face it.

There is no one here today who has not been touched in some way – clear or subtle, positive or negative – by the way that racism, prejudice, and discrimination are built into the structure of our country today. Some of us are deeply, personally hurt by that structure, or by the actions of individuals. Many others of us don’t feel this personally, and most of us would love to see it end, though we don’t always know how.

That’s why the confession we use today, as part of our summer tour of the prayers of our church, has both confronted and comforted me this week.

In a few minutes, together, we will confess that we have sinned against God, denying God’s goodness in one another and ourselves, and we will repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.

White folks, black folks, pink, beige, orange, brown, golden, men, women, none of the above… we did not choose to be enslaved to the evils and demons of racism, but we are. And that blinds us, often, to the evil done on our behalf. We don’t choose it, it does not make us evil, in ourselves, but we still need to repent it, because we do live it, just being where we are today.

Jesus is living it with us now, because the Body of Christ is here today.

Israelite and Canaanite in Palestine isn’t the same as black and white in America today, but, there is no time in recorded history when God could have become human completely free of the entanglements of structural division: of prejudice, racism, or enmity between parts of the human race. And every division among God’s people entangles Jesus, entangles God.

And Matthew reports that faithfully, as Jesus proclaims the division between Canaan and Israel to a woman only seeking healing.

There are plenty of good historical and theological reasons why Jesus might say, and Matthew report, that Jesus was sent only, or sent first, to find and heal and care for the lost sheep of Israel: to focus on healing and restoring the broken among God’s chosen people, whom God has called to bless the whole world. And plenty of biblical scholars will explain those reasons when we read this story. Those scholars are probably right about the history.

But they are wrong about the gospel.

If they were right – if God’s healing mission, if God’s kingdom on earth – were for certain people more than, or instead of, other people, the story we heard today would stop as soon as Jesus announces that he’s been sent to the lost of Israel.

But the story doesn’t stop there.
Jesus doesn’t stop there.

Jesus continues to listen to this woman who confronts him, this other, this person who is, by her very difference, some kind of subtle disturbance of the normal.

He listens, but the demons of racism are still present, in the conversatioin, and we hear them when he insults her, calling her a dog.

It’s hard to listen to.

But the woman listens, and she responds.

“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

There is enough, and more than enough, in God’s grace, for ALL, she tells him.

And there and then, Jesus praises her faith.

Her child is healed.

And now the disciples standing by, like you and I, know that God will not abide a world of dehumanizing division. We know that “faith” – the faith that heals – means facing down those divisions; facing our involvement with, and our injuries from, that bigotry; and there and then proclaiming God’s abundance to the powers that deny that abundance; to any who would fence it off, or try to hoard healing and wholeness for themselves.

Perhaps God is made human in Jesus not only to teach, to die and rise, but to listen to the truths that can break through our divisions, and by doing so, reveal those hidden, holy truths to the sight and hearing of the whole beloved world.

In fact, this woman’s response to Jesus reveals a holy truth that dismantles the fears of last weekend’s white supremacist protesters: that if anyone else gets more, there will not be enough for me.

It is that fear which fuels almost every argument for keeping things the way they are. It is that fear which keeps us silent. That fear opposes the gospel and the kingdom of God in first century Palestine and here and now. And the gospel destroys that fear – if we are willing to stake our trust on God’s generosity and grace.

The sins and demons of racism are not defeated in this one exchange, this one healing. They remain present, and visible, when the terms “dog” and “master” go unchallenged. They are not undone so simply, either then or now.

Instead, healing and grace happen in spite of them. 

That gospel truth means that we, like that woman, have a role to play in the healing. When we face those demons head on, owning their effect on our lives and relationships, looking into the face of God and proclaiming God’s abundance from the heart of a culture and system that denies it, God will make healing from those words and actions; from our faith.

This week I read the story of Lisa Sharon Harper, who stood among a group of clergy in Charlottesville last Saturday. Arms linked, face to face with armed militia from the white nationalist protest group (who had reportedly been instructed not to speak to the counter-protesters), Harper and other clergy stood for hours. They knelt and prayed. They chanted, over and over, “Love has already won.”
And Harper reported that when she turned to leave to avoid increasing violence, she addressed the man across from her one last time.

“I just want you to know, we love you,” she said.

The man’s face, grizzled and tired from the day, suddenly softened. After a moment, he replied: “I love you, too.”

The demons of race, bigotry, and division were not defeated in that one exchange, those few words. Instead, God brought love and healing in spite of them, in the midst of them.

It happens in first century Tyre and Sidon. It happens in twenty-first century Charlottesville. It  happens whenever, wherever you and I face into the evil, confess it, own it, looking right into God’s face, and proclaim our faith in God’s abundant grace.

And by that faith, in action, we make a way for God to heal, across all barriers and divisions,

and God will never hold back that grace.

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