No Excuse
Grace to you and peace from God our Creator, from our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and from our Sustainer, the Holy Spirit.
Who is to blame? Who will be held accountable? Who or what caused the deadly inferno that wiped out the historic town of Lahaina on the island of Maui in Hawaii. Already over 100 people were burned to death. One thousand is the number – the jaw-dropping number of people still unaccounted for. Some speculate that many of the dead are children who were home alone because school had been called off that morning due to a small brush fire near their school. It was a sudden school closing for which parents had little time to prepare. Many of those parents had to go to work leaving their children home alone.
An early morning video from a Lahaina resident may have captured key evidence on his cell phone camera the morning of the fire. His video shows a power line snapping in the wind, falling to the ground and igniting dry grass with a spark from the wire. Class-action suits blame Hawaiian Electric Company for keeping the power on amid high wind warnings as dozens of people reported downed power-lines. Maybe the electric company is to blame. Hold them accountable? Who is to blame? Who is responsible for this disaster?
Even with such a fire, why were so many trapped? Another possibility? The administrator of Maui’s emergency management agency has resigned citing health reasons – a day after he defended the silence of the island’s siren system during the fire. As the deadly fire spread, no one tried to activate Maui’s 80-alarm, all-hazard outdoor siren system. Last Wednesday the administrator was asked whether he regretted not sounding the alarm. “I do not” he told reporters, adding he worried the blares of the warning sirens would have sent many residents inland into the fire.” Some are trying to blame him for his decision not to sound the alarm. Hold him accountable? Blame him? Who is responsible?
Who is going to hold Jesus accountable for his disturbing words and actions in today’s gospel? That’s right – Jesus! If that question sounds strange – it is because it is an odd, rather jarring question to be asked about Jesus. However, as we dig deep into today’s gospel text, the story we hear demands that we ask this question. Who is holding Jesus accountable for his callous attitude and careless actions?
Here is the story. First, Jesus ventures into Gentile territory where the Canaanite woman lived – another way of saying the same thing is that Jesus travels to a place where the people were different. They were not Jewish like Jesus. They were outside the cozy confines of who is familiar. In fact, there is a long history of the Canaanites being viewed as enemies – even enemies of God. There a Canaanite woman approaches Jesus and immediately she has two strikes against her. She is a foreigner and she is a woman, which, according to the social norms of the day makes her “less-than.” She shouts at Jesus, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”
What is Jesus’ first response? He is silent. He ignores her. Now how can that be? Jesus is silent. Jesus ignores a plea for mercy! Then the disciples follow suit and behave just as badly as Jesus. They are suspicious of this FOREIGN WOMAN. They tell Jesus to send her away because she is causing a scene – and she is shouting which means that the men are “tone policing.”
Then it gets worse. Jesus digs himself deeper into the hole. Sounding defensive, he narrows the scope of his ministry. In other words, he tells the woman that his ministry is only for certain people, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” This nameless, shouting foreign woman persists. She will not let up. She will not shut up. So concerned and passionate about her ill daughter and so convinced of Jesus’ divinity, so sure of her faith in him, so convinced of his healing power, she gets down on her knees in front of Jesus and begs, “Lord, help me.”
Then it gets even worse. Jesus digs himself deeper into a hole of despicable behavior. Jesus dismisses her with an insult. Jesus judges her as inferior. He compares her to a dog under a table. “It’s not fair,” he says quite piously, “to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
Does it strike you – as it does me – that the words out of Jesus’ mouth are outrageous and unacceptable? Does it make your blood boil –as it does mine – that Jesus is behaving in all the wrong ways – in ways opposite to what we believe Jesus is all about?
However, I must ask – are we really all that shocked? Isn’t there something familiar to what we are hearing? After all, the church is the body of Christ. Since the death and resurrection of Jesus, we believe the church is the body of Christ. The church is Jesus. The church – and I mean the church all around the world including all the different expressions, Protestant and Evangelical and Catholic and Orthodox – every flavor of Christianity you can think of – the church is the living breathing present body of Christ. The church is Jesus – and look how the church has treated women for centuries – no different from how Jesus is treating the Canaanite woman. Even in our Lutheran church women have been “allowed” (by the men) to be ordained for only about 53 years out of over 500 years of our existence. The Southern Baptisms just defrocked all women who had been serving as pastors for decades. The Catholic Church still does not allow women to be ordained.
The church is Jesus and look how the church has treated people in the LGBTQI+ community. The narrative for centuries was this. “You know – we love those people, those sinners, but we hate the sin.” Even in our own Lutheran church members of the queer community have been “allowed” to be ordained only since 2009 – only 14 years out of over 500 years of our existence!
The way Jesus acts in today’s gospel should come as no surprise. After all this is the very human side of Jesus. We believe Jesus is both human and divine at the same time. The words Jesus says in today’s gospel should come as no surprise. After all, we believe the church is Jesus himself both divine and human, and we only need to look at the church’s worst scandal for proof – the clergy abuse scandal in both Protestant churches and Catholic churches and evangelical around the world that has traumatized so many young people. Pastors and priests have abused tens of thousands of children – boys and girls. It is no wonder that so many young people want nothing to do with the church. Just like there is a very human/broken side to Jesus, so too there is a very human, broken side of the church
Whenever the church stays silent about how people are treated, it is no different from Jesus ignoring the Canaanite woman. Whenever the church is too timid to speak up and fight for fairness, it is no different from Jesus comparing a woman to a dog. Whenever the church finds excuses not to provide refuge for those in danger, it is no different from Jesus focusing his mission only on a select group of “chosen people”. Whenever the church hides behind its walls refusing to get involved in issues that matter to people’s well-being, it is no different from Jesus acting callously and recklessly. In addition, whenever we – at Holy Trinity – rely on tradition and the way we have always done things at the expense of trying new things to reach new people, it is no different from Jesus hiding behind the walls of the synagogue.
The story we hear today of Jesus is a disturbing one. It is Jesus human and broken. No different from the church which is also human and broke, but thank God, – thank God – the story does not end there. At the very end of his life, just like the Canaanite woman, Jesus faced rejection, as well. He felt what it was like for that Canaanite woman to be mocked, ridiculed, and treated like a dog. As Jesus hung on the cross to die – rejected by a world that would not tolerate his radical love – as Jesus hung on that cross to die – he, too, was mocked and ridiculed. He, too pleaded to God for mercy, just as the Canaanite woman pleaded to Jesus for mercy, “Lord, have mercy on me.”
Hanging on the cross by those nails in his hands and feet, Jesus cried out to God, “Let this cup of suffering pass from me.” Nothing. No response. Crickets. Like the nameless, foreign woman, Jesus’ plea for mercy to God was met with silence and in that silence, Jesus died. In that silence, Jesus was laid in the tomb. In that silence, Jesus rose again…and saves us from our silence, saves us from our indifference, saves us all from our guilt. In the quiet dawn of Easter morning, Jesus saves us from our brokenness, and we are made whole. We are healed. We are healed just as the Canaanite woman’s daughter was healed due to her passionate belief in Jesus. Thanks be to God. Amen.