Two Sides to Every Story
First United
Presbyterian Church
“Two Sides to Every Story”
Rev. Amy Morgan
Isaiah 56:1, 6-8
Thus says the Lord:
Maintain
justice, and do what is right,
for soon my salvation will come,
and my
deliverance be revealed.
And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister
to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be
his servants,
all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,
and hold
fast my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain,
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.
Thus says the Lord God,
who gathers
the outcasts of Israel,
I will gather others to them
besides
those already gathered.
Intro: In last week’s episode from the Gospel of
Matthew, Jesus and his disciples crossed over the sea of Galilee to the town of
Gennesaret. This week, they take a strange side trip to the northwest, to the
shores of the Mediterranean Sea, out of Judean territory and into the Province
of Syria. No real explanation is given for this random bit of travel. They
don’t need to pass through this region to reach another destination. In fact,
afterward, they seem to turn around and head back in the direction from which
they came. It’s a strange and challenging text in all sorts of ways. So I
invite you to listen with your whole heart and soul and mind.
Matthew 15:21-28
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 instantly.
There are two sides to every story.
On the surface of the story we just heard, Jesus –
the all-loving, all-forgiving, ever-gracious one – is rude, discriminatory, and
downright mean.
Plenty of preachers and commentators have attempted
to explain Jesus’ side of the story. Sure, he was divine, but he was also
human. He was subject to the limitations of human flesh.
So maybe he was a little tired and irritable. He’d
been rejected in his hometown. His cousin, John the Baptist, had been killed.
He’d been mobbed by crowds seeking his healing and teaching. What he really
needed now was a good, long rest, not more people pestering him for miracles.
But I don’t buy this story. First of all: yes –
Jesus is fully human. But he’s also fully DIVINE. He needs to sleep and eat,
and he feels physical and even emotional pain. But he’s still God. The human nature doesn’t take over the divine
nature and force Jesus to ignore people and call them mean names when they come
asking for help. Calling someone a female dog in ancient Aramaic is not any
nicer than it sounds in 21st century English.
So I don’t buy the story that Jesus’ behavior
excusable because he’s only human after all.
But there is another side to this story.
Jesus and his disciples have just entered the
district of Tyre and Sidon. Now, these names don’t mean much to us today,
though they are still port cities in Lebanon. In the first century, they were
major trade cities on the Mediterranean Sea, a channel for goods travelling
inland from Macedonia and Egypt. But for Jesus and his disciples, this would
have been like coming into Aspen or Beaver Creek. These were regions of wealth
and privilege.
And just as Jesus and his crew turn off 1-70 toward
the resorts, this woman comes along, raising a ruckus about wanting a favor
from Jesus.
Now, this woman is not Jewish. The gospel of Mark
calls her Syrophoenician, a description from the first-century landscape. But
Matthew labels her a Canaanite, tying her to the people-group driven out of the
Holy Land when the people of Israel arrived. Throughout the centuries, the
Canaanites kept getting the Israelites in trouble by tempting them away from
their God. By the time Jesus arrives on the scene, the now-termed
Syrophoenicians are wealthy and culturally advanced. They’re responsible for
that Phoenician alphabet upon which so many languages are based. When Rome
takes over the region, the Syrophoenicians adapt almost immediately, using
these new channels for trade to their advantage. In short, for the earliest
readers of this gospel, Syrophoenician meant someone of high class and
privilege. They were well-to-do, perhaps a little snobbish, and they weren’t
very nice or helpful to their Jewish neighbors.
The woman probably looks like a Syrian. She might be
the ancestor of Muslims. Maybe she worships the Canaanite gods Baal, Ashera, or
Melkart. Or perhaps under the influence of the surrounding cultures she
worships the Roman emperor, or the Greek pantheon.
This is all to say, there could not have been more
dividing lines between this woman and Jesus. There is historic enmity between
their clans. They are from different socio-economic strata. There are cultural
and religious divisions.
So maybe that should explain Jesus’ behavior. Maybe
the story is that Jesus had every right to ignore and insult this woman because
of their differences, and because they were ancient enemies.
But I don’t buy that story, either. The Apostle Paul
tells us that in Christ there is no longer “Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male
nor female.” In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes that Christ “is our
peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing
wall, that is, the hostility between us.” Jesus
taught people to “love their enemies” and told parables that blurred the lines
of social and economic divisions.
There are two sides to every story. Yes. That was
how some responded to the violence in Charlottesville last weekend. Two sides
to blame for the death of a young woman. Two sides to blame for injuries and
mayhem. Two perspectives to hear and understand, to rationalize and explain.
But the problem with claiming two sides to every
story is that there’s no truth in it. There’s no conviction. There’s no
freedom. In blaming both sides, you excuse them both as well. It’s no one’s
fault entirely. No one is completely wrong or totally right. It leaves a hazy
moral void that can be filled with self-righteousness, judgement, and perpetual
enmity.
So here’s a different story for you:
There was a woman, let’s call her Sally, since
scripture seems to have trouble remembering women’s names. Sally is someone who
has it all – wealth, privilege, status, children. She’s the elite. She holds
the status quo.
But Sally has a child possessed by a demon, a child
with special needs, a child who doesn’t behave, a child who says bad words, a
child who is addicted to drugs, who abuses alcohol, who is mentally ill, who is
a bully, who is gay, who is transgender. Sally has spent her life concealing
her daughter’s condition, apologizing for it, spending vast sums of money on
phony physicians and experimental remedies. She’s learned to be her daughter’s
advocate and defender, even as this has caused her to lose friends and become
alienated by her family.
And she hears about a Jew, one of those poor,
self-righteous, trouble-making Hebrews. But she’s heard he can perform
miracles. He can heal anyone of any aliment. And he’s coming through town
today. She’s desperate. Desperate enough, even, to seek help from a Jew.
When he and his band of Jewish tag-alongs come into
town, Sally confronts them. “You! You there! Jewish guy!” They keep walking.
“Hey!” she shouts, “I’m talking to you!” No response. In frustration and
desperation, she swallows her pride. “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my
daughter is tormented by a demon.” Still, they walk on. But she doesn’t give
up. She keeps up her racket, refusing to let them be.
Meanwhile, Jesus and his disciples have been trying
to keep a low profile as they passed through this territory. They didn’t expect
to meet any friendly faces, and they are hoping to pass through, back into
Jewish territory, without running into any trouble.
Finally, the disciples urge Jesus to get rid of this
woman before she starts to attract attention.
Jesus stops and looks at her. Her designer clothes,
her expensive make-up, her perfect skin and hair. He sees her desperation, but
also her disdain. He sees the centuries of division between their people. He
wants to do more than heal her daughter. He wants to heal their people. As long
as she feels superior to another person, she cannot truly experience this
healing.
And so he says to her, “I was sent only to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel.”
Sally looks shocked for a moment, expecting that the
Jew would do her bidding without hesitation, as most people did. But again, she
is desperate, and she swallows her pride. She looks around, hoping no one will
notice what she’s doing, and kneels at his feet, saying quietly through gritted
teeth, “Lord, help me.”
Echoing the many insults he’s heard from her people,
insults of parentage and ancestry, about dogs and pigs and other unclean
animals, Jesus says to the woman, “It is not fair to take the children’s food
and throw it to the dogs.”
Sally looks as though she’s been slapped across the
face. No one has ever said something like this to her before. She’s insulted,
furious, ready to get up off the ground, storm off and round up an angry mob to
drive these filthy Jews out of town.
And then she remembers that this man is her only
hope. She looks at the dust on the ground beneath her. She thinks of her
daughter. In the days when she was well. Laughing. Playing with other children.
Enjoying a meal together with the family. Sharing her scraps with a wandering dog.
Sally looks up at Jesus. She knows he can heal her
daughter. And she knows what she must say. “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat
the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
Jesus looks at this woman, who had always had a
prime seat at the table, and saw her demanding what was right and just. Crumbs.
Just enough. Not the most, not the best. Just crumbs. From the table of a Jew.
And he said to her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let
it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.
The truth of this story is that justice and healing
involves more than getting our facts straight, hearing all sides of the story,
and deciding who deserves what. That kind of story belongs to the courtrooms
and the media outlets.
The story of God’s kingdom coming to earth, the
story only we, as the church, can tell, is the story of justice and healing
that comes from confronting our own assumptions and prejudices, our own
sinfulness and pride. Only then, and with that kind of true humility, can we
stand up against injustice and ask for what is right. Only then can we
experience grace and healing, wholeness and unity. When we take our place under
the table. When we demand only scraps.
This is not easy to do, friends. Pride and
self-righteousness will fight us tooth and nail. But it is the way of God’s
kingdom. It is the way to love our enemies, to break down dividing walls. It is
the way to cross boundaries and build up the body of Christ. It is the way to
stop shifting blame and spouting rhetoric and start working on solutions to
heal our broken society.
I hope that this is the story we tell. Whether we
are talking about what’s going on with North Korea, or in Charlottesville, or
in Loveland, I hope we are not telling one side of a two-sided story. I hope we
are telling the true story of justice and healing through humility and faith.
The story that leads us to demand just enough, just crumbs. We won’t win a war
and we won’t get our names in the paper. But we might just get what we need
most. Reconciliation. Healing. And peace. May it be so, O God. Amen.
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