For our second COVID-19 Zoom service, Erica Nellessen preached to us from Mathew 15:21-28 — a passage about a Canaanite woman, which it turns out is a significant phrase in itself.

Here’s a summary from Erica’s text:

So this is a disruptive story. It’s in your face.
Some of Jesus’ actions here are confusing at best and violent and racist at worst. But this is an encounter that disrupts our view of who Jesus is, who his followers are and how the kingdom operates.
It’s a story that I had never heard preached in all my years in the church.
It’s been avoided for a reason.
But here we are talking about the messy Jesus and the woman who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Matthew is writing his gospel to show his Jewish community that Jesus is the Messiah they have been waiting for. The disciples are faithful followers, but are still having a hard time figuring Jesus out. He’s constantly blowing their minds, expanding their imaginations.

And just before our story for this morning Jesus gets into it with the religious leaders, giving a totally new take on the religious norms of the day. They happen to be discussing what is clean and unclean.
What defiles you and what doesn’t.
What makes you “in” or “out”.

Then, Jesus leaves Israel, crossing the border into the land of Tyre and Sidon, into a moment that changes Jesus’ ministry and blows the disciples minds more than they ever expected.

They are now in a neighboring yet enemy territory. They are amongst Canaanites, who are one of Israel’s longest and most terrible rivals.

Now it’s interesting. At the time of Jesus they didn’t really use the term “Canaanite” anymore. That was really a term used at the time of the Old Testament. In fact, the word Canaanite is never again used in the New Testament. It was no longer a relevant descriptor during Jesus’ time. So Matthew is being very intentional here to remind his readers of the history.
The bad blood. The history in which the God of Israel commands his people to commit genocide against the Canaanites who were living in their “Promised Land”. A history in which the Canaanites that don’t get slaughtered are then vilified or enslaved. This was justified at the time because these people were supposedly so horrible in their idolatry and way of living. This is more than a feud but a power imbalance of colonizer colonized, an oppressed, oppressor situation.

And so one of these people, and a woman, a desperate mother, comes and finds Jesus and his friends.

“Have mercy on me!” She is begging. She is desperate. I can imagine her crying. “My daughter is being cruelly tortured by a demon.” Wailing. “Please, have mercy on me, please” Chasing the disciples and Jesus and screaming as they ignore her.

The moment we meet her she is already disruptive. Disruptive to the disciples — who find her so annoying that they ask Jesus to heal her just so that she will go away.
Disruptive to me.
Disruptive to my picture of Jesus who appears to be ignoring an oppressed woman asking for help.

This doesn’t seem like the Jesus I know.

Hear the audio as Erica continues to unpack and ponder

download here