Have Mercy

August 16, 2020

St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Matthew 15:21-28[1]

Hey, um, Jesus? Why are we going into the city? Chicago has some bad neighborhoods, you know. Watch out for that lady, the one that’s yelling. She sounds crazy. Okay, now she’s begging. Whoa, did you hear what he just said? And her comeback? Wow! Something just happened.

In this story, Jesus went away to a region where there were fewer Israelites and more Canaanites. Though they lived in proximity to one another, they were not friends. The disciples try to dismiss this woman, to roll up the windows and lock the doors if you will, but she keeps crying out. How wide is God’s mercy? Who is included in God’s saving grace? They wrestle with the question of who is included, and who is excluded.

We have some expectations for what will happen. Jesus always heals people, right? Jesus helps everybody. But in this instance, we are faced with the realization that Jesus doesn’t always behave the way we think he should. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”[2] Jesus himself puts a limit on the reach of God’s mercy.

Is there a limited quantity of the power to cast out a demon? Does Jesus have batteries that run out, and the power can’t be wasted on the wrong people? If Jesus heals this girl from the demon, does that mean there will be less power for the next Israelite who was demonized? If the power that Jesus has comes from God, that doesn’t make sense. God’s power doesn’t run out. God doesn’t have limits. What is going on?

This is strange behavior from Jesus. And maybe it can’t be explained except to say that Jesus was not only Christ, Son of God, and Savior, but was also human, and had human failings, and was able to learn and grow. Something significant happened that day, and it may have changed Jesus’ whole view of his mission and ministry. Perhaps in this moment, Jesus changed from a Jewish prophet concerned only with his own people into the Savior of the whole world.

In the tenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus first sends the disciples out, he tells them “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans.”[3] At the end of the Gospel, Jesus told them “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”[4] Could it be that this experience in the district of Tyre and Sidon changed him?

There is a hymn by Gordan Light and Mark Miller called “Draw the Circle Wide.”[5] “Draw the circle wide. Draw it wider still. Let this be our song, no one stands alone, draw the circle wide.” This is the kind of big, open, welcoming love of God that we know. No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here. God loves you, yes, even you!

There is a similar image in the poem “Outwitted” by Edwin Markham: “He drew a circle that shut me out-Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him in!”[6] The love of God isn’t limited. God’s love doesn’t apply only to us and not to them. That is how we understand the wideness of God’s mercy.

The early church wasn’t there at first. The Jesus movement initially spread among the Jewish communities. It was Paul, converted from a persecutor of Christians into a follower of Christ, who took the church to the Gentiles. “There is no longer Jew or Greek,” Paul wrote to the church in Galatia, “there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[7] The trajectory of the mission of Jesus changed after this encounter with the Canaanite woman.

She demanded his attention. Like all those in need of healing, she cries out “Have mercy on me, Lord.” A cry for help, help that this prophet is known to give. News of Jesus has spread throughout all Syria,[8] Capernaum,[9] the country of the Gadarenes,[10] and all the cities and villages of Israel,[11] how he heals the demon-possessed. This is her chance to help her daughter, and she won’t let it pass.

She appeals to their common ancestry. The Son of David has three Canaanite women recorded in his genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel: Rahab, Tamar, and Ruth.[12] She says, in a way: We are kinfolk, you and I. I may be only a Canaanite, and we know what you Israelites think of us, but we are family. Still, he ignores her.

Even today we fail to empathize with people who are different from us. If another experiences oppression, injustice, or pain, but it is not happening in our community or doesn’t impact us because of our race, gender, class, or sexuality, then we dismiss it as unwelcome, unjustified, or untrue. The disciples urge Jesus to send her away, and he dismisses her as if her crisis is not his problem. Even the appeal to their common humanity, their relatedness, does not move him.

She persists. She won’t go away. She must see this through. She kneels before him and pleads: “Lord, help me.” Yet even this desperate act does not draw from him the needed mercy, only a crude response. It must have hurt, being dismissed like a dog. Still, she persists. She accepts the insult and musters a response. “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”[13] I know you can do this. I must save my daughter. Have you no mercy, even so much as a crumb, to spare for one such as me?

Maybe it was her persistence, despite the insult, despite the obvious effort to dismiss her. Maybe it was her wit to turn the insult into an argument for her case. In the end, Jesus notices her, and responds. He commends her faith. The disciples have heard his scolding, “You of little faith.” Here, in this persistent woman driven by the need of mercy, there is great faith. Persistence in the pursuit of mercy, faith in his power, and love, and mercy, has changed his mind. Her request is granted. Her daughter is healed. And Jesus has changed.

There is much that can divide us: heritage and history, nationality, race, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, and the cultural pull to get in with the right crowd and keep the others out. We can go along with the social expectation to draw a close circle around us, seeking protection, comfort, and safety. But will we notice the cry for mercy, for welcome, for love? Are we willing to draw a wider circle, to take in those who have been left out? Will we have enough persistence in the pursuit of mercy to change hardened hearts? I pray that we will have great faith as we seek to bring God’s mercy to the world.  Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Matthew 15:24.

[3] Matthew 10:5.

[4] Matthew 28:19.

[5] “Draw the Circle Wide” WORDS: Gordon Light © 2008 Common Cup Company. MUSIC: Mark A. Miller © 2008 Abingdon Press, admin. by The Copyright Company.

[6] “Outwitted” by Edwin Markham (1852-1940).

[7] Galatians 3:28.

[8] Matthew 4:24.

[9] Matthew 8:16.

[10] Matthew 8:28.

[11] Matthew 9:35.

[12] Matthew 1:3, 5.

[13] Matthew 15:27.