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| Cook, Crumbs of Love, 2008 |
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
God's house will be called a house of prayer for all people. This text of God's promise was in today's Old Testament reading
Pastor Emillie gave her sermon over zoom today. She was not sick. It was out of an abundance of caution because of her exposure to the covid virus earlier. The timing of the Gospel's focus on purity laws, which are mainly found in Leviticus, was intriguing to think about. This was the first service since the height of the pandemic where both the Pastor and Assisting Minister were joining worship via zoom.
When Jesus addressed the Jewish purity laws in today's Gospel he turned the disciple’s attention to a deeper truth, “the cleanliness of the heart not just of the body” Next, there is no story in the Gospels like the dialogue that happens between Jesus and the Greek Syrophoenician gentile woman (or the Canaanite woman as she is described here). He not only refuses to heal her daughter when she asks for his help, but he calls her a dog.
For most of us Jesus labels this woman with a dehumanizing word that, together with his overall demeanor to her, are both uncomfortable for us to contemplate. They are out of character with our love of the compassionate identity of Jesus. Pastor Emillie, however, also adds that she wished that there could be a trigger warning for this story because it conjured up painful memories for her.
She shared one of these memories in detail. The incident happened a few months after she came to this country. After a hectic day of work she was walking home from work when a car slowed down and someone leaned out the window and threw something at her.
For a second, she was too dazed, to realize what happened. Next fear kicked in. Had she been shot? She looked down at her green jacket for signs of blood but she didn’t see any. She felt everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Then the words that had been shouted by this stranger finally settled in as “Here’s a quarter N***a”.
She shared that she had been called names before. Since she had grown up as an immigrant this wasn’t new but something about this word, at this time, cut deeper. It reminded her of her blackness, her unwantedness and the scary realization that this was going to be her new reality.
Pastor Emillie admired the woman in the Gospel because this woman did not freeze or stutter, she used some very hurtful words to bring to light the heart of the gospel. The woman made the gospel speak not just for herself but also to heart of Jesus.
I share her admiration of the woman. I believe that Jesus better understood his larger mission after his encounter with her. I have tried, in the past, to tack on the omniscient narrator's knowledge that her daughter was instantly cured because of this woman's great faith as an unproblematic happy ending. Today I keep it in tension with what I imagine this woman would remember of her entire encounter with Jesus.
Reflecting on the memory Pastor Emillie shared is challenging to the heart of this story. There was certainly no opportunity for our pastor to address the hatred and fear that prompted the woman to hurl that insult and quarter. The sermon concluded with the her prayer that the story of the Canaanite woman not only challenges us but encourages us to be rooted in who we are as children of God.
I yearn for that prayer to be true.
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