A sermon preached at St. Mary’s by Graham Low on 7th August 2024

One of the greatest moral issues of the twentieth century was racial identity, leading among other things to the Nazis killing six million people whose only crime in their sight was that they were Jews. Later apartheid in South Africa discriminated against most of the population because of their skin colour. And in the current century racism has been seen in many parts of the world. The majority view in our country is that all humans are equal, irrespective of race or colour, and that we are committed to making this work for people from different backgrounds so that they can live together peacefully. Alarmingly, this is not a view held by everyone here and racism, with violence in some cases, is being seen and heard our own streets now.

When we read this story we might at first find it quite shocking. Jesus appears to refuse a person in need because she is from the wrong race. We would not think well of a doctor or nurse who refused to treat a patient because their background or colour differed from our own.

Jesus is in the region of Tyre and Sidon, cities with evil reputations and meets a Caananite woman. Cannanite adds to the negative connotations of the region. The woman surprisingly addresses Jesus as Lord and Son of David, asking  mercy for her daughter suffering from demonic possession. Jesus’ response is silence. Is he turning her down or trying her faith? The disciples want her dismissed. Jesus then declares his commitment to Israel, in this the most prominently Jewish of the gospels. This is a nation lost for lack of leadership. And so he promotes a biblical doctrine of election: Israel is God’s chosen people and to them the messiah goes first. Even in the face of opposition and disbelief, Jesus continues to direct his mission to the leaderless sheep of Israel. However, instead of accepting Jesus’ theological pronouncement, the woman again for asks for help. Jesus’ reply is seemingly cruel: he says it is not good to take the bread for the children, which we interpret to mean the people of Israel, and give it to the dogs, which we interpret as meaning the inferior gentiles. But the woman wisely and unexpectedly replies that the dogs eat the scraps that fall from their master’s tables. This both recognizes Israel’s privileges and also implies at the same time that others can be benefitted. At this point Jesus acknowledges this clever reply is the result of great faith and so grants the daughter’s healing.

From the beginning of the Christian church we know that after a good deal of discussion, gentiles were accepted on the same terms as Jews. Paul was a key figure in making this abundantly clear. Today’s story would have been startling to those of Jesus’ followers who were actually present. In a sense the woman broke through the waiting period, the time that Jesus would take to come to Jerusalem as Israel’s messiah, be crucified, raised from the dead, and send his followers into all the world. Today’s account shows that neither the disciples, nor Jesus are ready for Calvary. The foreign Canaanite woman is already insisting upon Easter.

Christians often find themselves asking God in prayer to do things now, while others are content to wait for the future. Thus, in the early 19^th century Christians thought slavery was evil and must stop but not immediately. It was a while before William Wilberforce and colleagues prayerfully brought slavery to an end, because they believed it had to end, by God’s power,  then and not later on. That is the great faith upon which Jesus congratulated the woman.

We face huge issues at the present time, of which climate change and breakdown is probably the greatest, with far reaching consequence for us, and those yet to be born. And yet we are behaving as if we can put off the essential great changes in our way of life until later on. God has given us enough knowledge and understanding to deal with this matter in broad terms. May we have the grace to respond by prayer and by action now. Amen.