August 11, 2005
Turning
Pentecost 13/15A Mt 15.21-28
“Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good.”
Charlotte Whitton, one of the 20th century’s most colorful and controversial women, spoke these words. When she did, she paused and added, “Luckily, this is not all that difficult.”
Had she been alive today, she may have been thinking of Cindy Sheehan, whose 24-yr old son was killed in Baghdad, and who is now camped out on the road near a ranch over in Crawford, Texas. And she may have thought of the many women reportedly coming in from all over to join her. But she could have, as well, had in mind the Canaanite woman in this morning’s gospel.
Again and again in the saga of the Way, it is women who so often provide the major turning points. It began for us with Mary’s commitment to God’s wish even in her frightfully young life on the very edge of her womanhood. That other and later Mary exemplified for Jesus the contemplative life. The importunate widow set the pattern for spiritual endurance with the unjust judge. The Samaritan woman at the well became the first evangelist. And finally, Mary Magdalene became the apostle who gave the wake-up call to the apostles-to-become.
It has often been a bone of contention whether God — or even Jesus — ever changed his mind. I don’t know why, for even a casual reading of Scripture — both Old and New — can demonstrate that reality quite easily.
This Gentile woman with the possessed daughter should leave us with little doubt. Here she is, pleading with Jesus. She even calls him Lord and Son of David to make it altogether clear she knows to whom she is speaking. For her reward, first, she’s stonewalled with silence, then shunned by the disciples, then twice insulted by Jesus. Only then does he realize something new is afoot. Accepting it fully, he has only to recognize and affirm her faith for her child instantly to be healed.
“Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good,” said Charlotte Whitton, “but luckily, this is not all that difficult.”
In this simple and maybe not all that uncommon encounter, there comes a major bend in the history of the gospel and of Jesus’ ministry — and, of course, in ours. His way is not only an ethnic religion’s fulfillment as Jesus may once have thought. It is far more, for it is now seen as the redemptive Good News for all people everywhere. Without this moment, one cannot even imagine such a ministry as Paul’s to the Gentiles, ironically, the Canaanite woman’s kin. And without Paul’s ministry, it would be next to impossible even to conceive of the bulk of the New Testament as we know it.
But maybe there’s at least one more equally important and vital thing especially for us.
As a child growing up in the wilds of west Texas, I remember being fascinated by and not a little confused by the term “melting pot.” It seemed somehow to be associated with people, especially with immigrants and always with the Statue of Liberty. As I look back, I had a vision of some humongous cauldron that was surely located in New York City, wherever that was. I suppose I never worried about the unbearable heat implied by such an image, rather only the intense and purposeful mixing and blending of radically different peoples that might and could and would take place there.
Now, even if I know better and have a somewhat improved appreciation for metaphor, the image is no less vivid. At its outset, this great land of ours was conceived as a vast and inclusive undertaking. And further, this remarkable political experiment and concept welcomed in its Declaration of Independence not only the audience, but also the judgment of the whole world to this daring venture as a new nation state — under God. “To prove this,” said our founding mothers and fathers, “let (the) Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
Not the least of the reasons for this unique aspiration for fundamental human inclusiveness, civility, and collegial justice and for the compensating checks and balances at its very heart is human being as the gospel conceives it. Is it too much of a stretch of the imagination that such a wild and crazy notion first caught fire in that encounter with the woman from Cana?
Of course, I do not mean even to imply that I believe this to be a Christian nation. Its frequent moral imbalance, moral complexity, and moral confusion in high places, its ambient puritan stigmata, its embarrassing and shameful treatment of Native Americans and enslaved Africans, let alone the plurality of its many religions are evidence enough never to entertain such a notion.
But it is, I believe, true that we’ve inherited a residual pattern and keenness of desire that just as in Christ, there is here, as well, “neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female” (Gal 3.28) in whatever figurative way we can bring that to pass.
I don’t know much if anything about Australia, but in the wake of some of our recent confusion about the sex and religion, I’m mindful of an Aussie’s comment on the internet. She said how grateful she is that in the distant past, the United Kingdom sent their prisoners to Australia and their Puritans to the USA. We might even in some strange way be grateful for that, ourselves.