tension

I don't know if it is just Episcopal clergy or clergy from all walks of life, but we love to sit in tension, to be int the middle of two forces pulling in opposite directions. This week the tension spot I found is somewhere in between the collect and the gospel lesson.

As most of my readers know, we begin our service of Holy Eucharist Rite II with an opening acclimation, the collect for purity, a song of praise, and then the collect of the day where, this Sunday, we will pray, "Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life." We will then sit down and hear the lessons before standing again to hear this from the gospel, "Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

Um, isn't this the same Jesus who just finished teaching about what comes out of one's mouth defiling? Isn't this the same Lord who is our "example of godly life" in whose steps in "his most holy life" we pray to follow? Sound the tension alarm, something feels diametrically opposed!

This is one of those passages of Scripture that keep people from attending church. Granted that probably isn't a good excuse, but as preachers we need to be aware of it and deal honestly with what seems so apparently to be ugliness from Jesus toward another human being. We must do this especially as we lift up his example so highly in our prayers this week; the juxtaposition is astounding.

Thousands of interpretations are floating around out there for why Jesus appears to be so mean to this woman (some say he is calling her a puppy not a dog - I'm not sure that helps). I'm not a Matthian scholar, nor have I done the exegetical work to comment on what is really happening here between Jesus, his disciples, and the woman and what the whole encounter means to Matthew's community, but I am certain that the last line of the lesson is the tension resolver, ""Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly."