“There’s Shouting Going On”

Matthew 15:21-28

There was a big event this past week, a big event. It was an event of such large significance that we should all stand up and pay attention. Friends, if you haven’t heard the news, they found Bigfoot! Yes, my friends, this is of great significance! In case you were distracted by such trivial matters as work, or the presidential campaign, or even Michael Phelps, two Georgia men say they were hiking in early June when they discovered the body of a 7-foot-7, 500-pound half-ape, half-human creature near a stream. They also spotted about three similar living creatures shadowing them, living in a den whose location they would not divulge to protect the creatures well-being. Did you see the press conference? We can rest easier, now, the mystery’s been solved.

Ok, ok, this sermon is not about Bigfoot. But there was something important going on last week, something of great significance, something that has been going on for a long time. There was shouting going on.

You see, once upon a time, a long time ago, a woman on a dusty path began to shout. That particular day was hot, and the sweat had already soaked her clothing. The path was very dry, her feet were dusty and sore, and she was out of breath. Her throat was parched.

But her thoughts were not upon her own discomfort. In fact, she paid no attention at all to her thirst or to the soreness that was creeping up her legs. She had no reaction to the strange expressions of others around her, nor to the glances of pity she noticed out of the corner of her eye as she rushed down the street of the town. Instead, her mind was completely occupied with a ragtag group of men visiting from the Jewish lands. She was focused on one in particular. They were trying to ignore her, but she would have none of it.

She was at her wits end. A demon it was, that had taken over her daughter. She had tried everything to free her, but to know avail. She chased her daughter around her village on the days when she was wild, and held her daughter in her arms deep in the night as she seized and cried. She had tried all kinds of cures: the South Sidon diet, the bottle of supplements that promised miraculous relief. She had gone to the local priest of the local god. Nothing had worked. As she thought about her daughter, she knew she would give anything, say anything, do anything to free her of the power that bound her precious child.

But lately it became more and more difficult to fight the feeling that there was no more strength in her to do anything, that there was nothing more in her to give, that there was no more that she could control that would make any bit of difference. She was tired, exhausted in her very core.

In the quiet of the night, when her daughter was either passed out in her bed or out roaming in the wilderness, the woman would give in to the despair, believing that her daughter was falling irretrievably into the abyss and dragging her along for the ride.

But when word came of strange foreign visitors traveling about, one of them a healer, a thought popped into her head, a thought born out of her last seed of hope: there is one more thing that she can do. At that moment, she got up.

She started down the dusty path. She searched until she noticed the healer in the distance. She began to shout. Once she started, she could not stop for the screams came from deep inside of her, born out of a pain that she had long tried to bury, that she had not allowed herself to feel because it was too dangerous, too powerful, too selfish (She had to focus on her daughter after all.) But once she let loose with the first shout, she could not stop. “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!”

Nothing, nothing would stand in her way. Not the fact that he was a man and she was a woman, who in those days were not to have contact with each other in public; not the fact that he was a Jew and she a despised Canaanite; not the group of men that gave her dirty looks, shushed her, and told her to go away. She was an outsider to these men. To them she was unclean, unholy, un-redeemable. Their law said she was not to be touched, not to be acknowledged. These barriers were high. These walls thick, but they would not stand in her way. She would shout over them until she got the healer’s attention.

Even the Lord to whom she turned seemed to be turning a deaf ear. As he continued to show his back to her, she ran around him and threw herself down right in front of him so he had to stop. Still shouting, she said, “Lord, help me!”

When the insult came from his lips, likening her to a dog, it was expected, but she did not flinch. She turned it to her advantage. After all, all she needed was a crumb. “Great is your faith,” he said to her then. “Let it be done for you as you wish,” he said. Had she heard right?

Great is your faith. Not ‘little’ like Peter’s faith, but great. The woman in our story shouted so loud, so persistently, that it’s echo has reached us here this morning.

In Bible Study this week, we had a rather spirited debate about what this story tells us about Jesus. Why would Jesus ignore, reject, and insult her? His insult doesn’t fit our picture

of the gentle welcoming shepherd. Was he testing her? Or did the woman’s persistent shouting really teach him something new?

In the end, this is a juicy narrative gap in the story that remains. We cannot finally say what this story reveals to us about Jesus. But the story, I believe, isn’t really about Jesus, it is about the woman, and her persistent shouting. ‘Little’ is the word Jesus uses to describe the faith of his disciples, more than once. But here, this outsider, this one thought to be unclean, unholy, not to be acknowledged, this woman’s faith is great. What makes it great is her shouting, her persistent, stubborn, not to be denied shouting that does not stop until it is heard.

Perhaps you have encountered a demon or two, a problem, a condition, a relationship, some evil that seems out of your control that exercises a power in your life or in the life of a loved one that cannot be tamed. Perhaps it is an addiction, a particular expression of hatred or fear, a physical or mental or spiritual wound that will not heal, a grief that will not go away, a loneliness for which there doesn’t seem to be an answer, self-centeredness that seeks wealth and power at the expense of others, or violence that seeks to force its own will. Oh, these demonic powers run rampant in our lives and world. If Jesus seems to be turning his back on you, if others seem to be feasting while you are looking for crumbs, this story encourages us to keep shouting. I know, I know, easier preached than done. Your continued shouting is what shows the strength of your faith.

For the rest us, for the rest of us disciples (I won’t recall how Jesus characterizes our faith) this story functions a little differently. For us, the woman, the outsider, is still shouting, and we are still trying to tell her to be quiet.

Her shouting reaches our ears through the many outsiders in our own day. Our General Assembly has recently acted to send to the larger church the recommendation that we remove from our constitution language aimed at barring active homosexuals from serving as officers of the church. It has, once again, caused a stir. From some quarters very loudly, (and in others quietly wished) our homosexual brothers and sisters are still being told to shush up. As I wrote this sermon, I tried to stay away from this issue (I did, really!), but the woman kept shouting. “You’re unclean,” we think. “The Bible says so,” we think. “Send them away, Jesus!” we say. They are causing trouble, division. They don’t fit in our church growth strategies. We’re tired of the discussion.

In the midst of all this, what amazes me is the greatness of their faith that keeps shouting to a church that continues to regard them as something less, something not worthy of full inclusion, who they are being something less than the beautiful creation of a loving God. Once I thought so.

But, God bless them, they keep shouting. They love Jesus too much to stop. Like the Canaanites of Jesus day, and the Apostle Paul on behalf of the Gentiles, and people of color, and women who have shouted for equality and justice, they have turned the eyes of many back to Scripture to discover that the biblical shout for embracing and including is far louder than the very suspect biblical interpretation of a handful of texts of exclusion. (The biblical case, I have come to believe, against homosexuality is about a weak a case as any of the controversial issues which we fight about today. Let’s talk about it.) Their faith continues to inspire me.

Well what about us the rest of us, the rest of us disciples? What do we do in the face of this shouting? If Jesus really was testing anybody, I would guess that he was testing not the woman, but his disciples, showing them and challenging them how to move from a little faith to greater faith. Perhaps we can do what Jesus did for the woman: appreciate the strength of their faith, see the extent of their suffering, listen, and join them in their shouting for justice and love for all God’s children.

The conversation of faith continues. Amen.

August 17, 2008

Rev. Paul Heins

First Presbyterian Church

Logan, Utah