Streams of Mercy
Yesterday’s gospel reading told the story of Canaanite woman who was persistent in asking Jesus to heal her daughter. This woman is one of the most unwanted of the unwanted - a Gentile “dog”; a woman belonging to her father or her husband, forbidden to speak to a man in public. She’s also a mother, pleading for mercy for the child she loves, and that depth of love would not be denied, and Jesus heals her daughter.
While Matthew is trying desperately to make Jesus acceptable to his first century Jewish audience, a community entrenched in privilege and separateness; Jesus is reaching across gender, cultural, ethnic and religious barriers to witness to God’s all-encompassing love. This story opens up an absolute can of worms as it questions our places of privilege, our assumptions, and our categorizing and judging of people who are different from us. We see that we have to change if we’re going to worship Jesus from our hearts, for the Christian story is about bringing people into the fullness of God’s grace and love, rather than shutting them out; it’s about overcoming the barriers that keep us apart.
God has an amazing ability to bring about change in the most astonishing ways, through the most unexpected people. God’s word is always surprising us, always jarring us, always shaking up our worldview – taking the scraps from our table, the crumbs that we discard, and turning them into a feast to which we’re all invited. Part of our Christian journey and our calling through our baptism, is to listen for those people calling out in pain or hunger or want; to be attuned to their needs, to meet them where they are, and let them speak to us on their own terms, even when they seem as strange and foreign as that Canaanite woman.
I’m grateful for this Canaanite woman, because through her perseverance and through her outspokenness, we catch a glimpse of God’s vision for our world – a world where grace comes to us in the most unexpected ways; a world where the least speak with the loudest voice, and the powerful act with humility; a world where God’s mercy and love are for all people- those with little faith and those with great faith; those who are hungry and those who are full; the disciples and the Canaanite woman; and for you and me. We could use a whole culture full of Canaanite women who refuse to be left unseen and unheard; who refuse to be dismissed until their sons and daughters and their neighbors, and all God’s children find justice and share the blessings of our common life.
These words I heard last week are words of my heart these days, “I wish we were at the part of the story when justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. I pray for this time, but we’re not there yet.”
May God help us to widen our circle of concern by making ourselves vulnerable to the needs of strangers, especially those who have been pushed to the side; may God help us to pay attention to those experiences in life that interrupt our normal routines, for what seems to be interrupting us make take us precisely where God wants us to be; may God help us to take risks rather than play it safe, to overcome barriers that divide us and to be persistent in faith, until that day comes - that day when justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Together, let us pray for and work for the coming of that day.
Elizabeth