Psalm 133
Romans 1:13-36
Matthew 15:10-28
While filling out my census form, I discovered a potential for improvement in the form. In particular, the question about heritage. Did you know that you can only select up to four options when entering your background? The British Isles have four nations; that’s everything used up, leaving no room for any of the Nordic countries, anywhere in the Mediterranean, or Aboriginal. And so it made me think about identity markers. What is our heritage? And how does that define who we are now?
In today’s Gospel passage we have a discussion about heritage. Our Lord is approached by a certain person, and we are told her heritage: she is a Caananite. Straight away this should make us sit up. The Caananites are the historic “baddies” of the Old Testament. Their culture is in direct opposition to God, and God uses his people against them. But the Caananites manage to mix their culture in with that of God’s people, leading them all into the same sin. The negative influence of the Caananites is a huge theme in the history of God’s people leading up to this conversation with Jesus.
Yet she strikes up conversation with him; not only conversation, but a forthright request for help. You can imagine the scene: a Maroons supporter breaks down on the side of the road. He goes into the local pub looking for help, and it is filled with people dressed in Blues regalia. He goes up to the publican and asks for help. Dial this situation up to 11, and that is what we have here.
Our Lord’s initial response sounds like he might be “playing to the crowd”. Surrounded by his Jewish followers, he replies that he has come for the children of Israel, not the “dogs” of Caanan. “Get ‘em, Lord!” is probably being muttered by not a few of them. Yet she persists, with that famous line that “even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table”.
The crowd must have been filled with a sort of shocked amusement at this. Who is this uppity Caananite? Doesn’t she know how this works? This is the Holy One of Israel, not the Holy One of Caanan. I think Jesus is using the situation to make the people around him as proud as possible of their heritage so that he can push the woman to this point. Because it is here that he flips around and declares that she has been saved by her faith, and her child is healed. Her Caananite heritage counts for nothing; her faith is all that matters.
When we think about who we are, or more precisely, who “our people” are, we often reach for obvious and shallow things. What language do we speak (or with what accent)? Where are our grandparents from? When I was talking to your parish nominators about the potential of me becoming your priest, the topic of rugby was brought up. I know little about rugby league, but I know enough to have been worried that you might be Broncos supporters. It was with great relief, which I am sure you will share, that one of your parish nominators proudly declared “we are in Dolphins territory”.
On a more serious note, these things that make us who we are can inform not just what colours we wear during football season, but our entire cosmology and worldview. That is to say, there is a risk that our heritage can define our morality and how we understand the meaning of life.
This interaction between Jesus and the Caananite acknowledges that reality. We humans do look at the differences between us, and create entire structures in our mind and society based on those differences. Yet this interaction seems to suggest that there is, at the end of the day, only one difference that matters: whether we have faith in Jesus as our saviour, or not.
Ancient Israelites and Caananites had massive differences. Different language, heritage, culture, and so on. The only difference God cared about, however, was whether they worshipped him as their God or not. The Caananites historic sin was worshipping other gods; the sin of the ancient Israelites was following the Caananites to their false gods. The salvation offered to the ancient Israelites was through Jesus; that same salvation was offered to this Caananite woman.
Let’s come back to ourselves. What similarities do we have with our neighbours – our actual neighbours, those in the same street? I literally live next door to a married, middle aged man, of Anglo-Australian ethnicity, with a son. We might as well be the same person, based off those things. Yet I have more in common with the unnamed grandmother in a North Korean gulag for Christians than I do with my next-door neighbour. For we have the same God; and that is what our Lord counts as most important.
Think also of the Jews. St Paul teaches us today that we are of those people according to our shared spiritual heritage. God has planted a tree – the tree being an illustration of God’s people. Some branches have been broken off – the unbelieving Jews. Other branches have been taken from wild plants and grafted in – believing barbarians, such as ourselves. As Christians, we have more in common with Jews than with unbelieving next-door neighbours who follow the same rugby team, eat the same food and speak the same language with the same accent.
So that is our heritage – our heritage is primarily spiritual, and it is our love and obedience for the Lord Jesus that defines it. But what does that mean for how we will live this week?
Consider the difference between our spiritual heritage and those other things. Those other things are like a club that is difficult to join. If someone from Kazakhstan wanted to join “team English language speaker with an Australian accent”, they would probably spend the rest of their natural life trying to get in, without terribly much success either. Or if someone from Morocco wanted to join “team East Asian physical features”, they would never be able to get in at all!
The defining difference that Jesus is concerned about – faith in the one true God – is a club that is not only easy to join, but membership is enthusiastically encouraged! And I think this is a way we can think about our Christian witness. We are members of all these different groups: our heritage, our language, our culture, and so on. And they are all wonderful expressions of the variety of God’s good creation. But ultimately the thing that binds us together is God himself in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can hold all those lesser differences and celebrate them more fully as Christians, because with Christianity, all are welcome, and all belong. Our differences are no longer cause for exclusion, but celebration. And we can hold them easily and lightly, because the important defining factor in who we are is that we place our faith in the Lord Jesus. “Our people” stretch all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and all the way up to the saints in heaven who behold God face to face.
So only having four options in the census question shows that even the Australian Government doesn’t quite understand what Jesus is about. But that is OK, because they are welcome to join his family too, if they are ready to put their faith in him. Let us be people known for our faith in the Lord Jesus, that all may know that our differences need not be an excuse to exclude, but to celebrate at the throne of the Almighty God who made us.