Pentecost 9, Proper 15
August 14, 2011
Matthew 15:10-28
Who here remembers the Mr. Mister song called “Kyrie eleison”? I was in 8th grade when it came out. Apparently the band member who wrote the words was inspired by singing the Kyrie in his Episcopal Church as a kid: "Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison." It means: Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. It probably sounded a lot like the one we sang at the start of our service this morning.
As a cradle Episcopalian, I was one of the few in my peer group who had any clue that the words to the #1 Billboard song meant “Lord, have mercy.” I distinctly remember giggling when instead of singing “Kyrie eleison down the road that I must travel” my friends belted out “Carry a laser down the road that I must travel….” I always felt like I had a secret insight on the song – like it had a deeper message that was just for me.
The chorus especially spoke to my teenage angst, I think:
Kyrie eleison down the road that I must travel
Kyrie eleison through the darkness of the night
Kyrie eleison where I’m going will you follow?
Kyrie eleison on a highway in the light.
The song played at our 8th grade Farewell Dance and I remember sort of praying along with the song, along with a little plug for God to direct the cute boy across the room my way. It didn’t work. And yet, even still, every once in a while when I find myself incredibly frustrated, or at a loss over what to do, or filled with worry, I find myself repeating those words as a sort of mantra: “Kyrie eleison… Lord have mercy…”
Maybe that’s why I’m so angry at Jesus this morning. So offended by his treatment of this poor Canaanite woman who comes to him shouting “Have mercy on me, Lord!” Kyrie eleison! Her daughter is being tormented by a demon, she says. But does Jesus take this desperate mother into his arms? Does he turn to her with care and concern? No! Jesus starts by completely ignoring her. Then when his disciples urge him to send her away because she’s making such a nuisance of herself, Jesus tells them that she is outside his circle of concern because he “was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But despite the complete lack of sympathy from anyone in Jesus’ circle, still the anxious woman kneels in front of him and begs him again “Lord, have mercy! Kyrie eleison!” Now Jesus doesn’t just ignore her, he downright insults her by comparing her to a dog who doesn’t deserve the children’s food.
It’s hard to know what to do with this portrait of Jesus because it seems so incredibly counter to the Jesus that I profess. My Jesus is all about hanging out with and helping the people that no one else even looks twice at. My Jesus talks to and touches the people that the rest of us turn our heads from when they walk near us on the street. My Jesus challenges the Pharisees’ and his own disciples’ assumptions of purity and righteousness and worthiness.
That’s the Jesus I long for in this story. I want him to hear this poor woman’s cries and immediately reach out to her and her daughter. I want immediate love and concern and healing for these women.
And I’m not alone in my discomfort with the picture of Jesus in this story. Oodles of scholars and commentators have taken a swing at explaining away Jesus’ bad behavior. Maybe Jesus was really putting on a show for his disciples so they’d see how ugly their behavior was. Maybe Jesus was testing this woman’s faith. Maybe this was a friendlier conversation that it seems – the Greek word for “dog” in this passage really means “pet dog” so the insult wasn’t so terrible afterall. The Jesus Seminar folks just discount the conversation completely, and argue that it is a later addition written in reaction to early followers who sought to narrow the scope of their mission.
And yet, if Jesus had behaved exactly as I would wish and expect and healed the Canaanite woman’s daughter immediately, my reaction might be the same as it sometimes is in those other stories where someone is the lucky recipient of a miracle. “Well, that’s nice, but what about [the people starving in Africa/the people struggling with cancer/the people who have lost their loved ones too soon]? Where are the miracles for them? For us? For me?
And so while a part of me would like to soften this story and explain away Jesus’ harsh-seeming treatment of this woman so that I don’t have to deal with my discomfort, I think we’d miss something that way. The Canaanite woman had to struggle with Jesus in this passage and so do we.
Maybe we are more like this woman than we realize. Maybe this story actually hits pretty close to home. Chances are, none of us have perfectly neat and completely satisfying experiences of God. Chances are that we have all experienced times when God didn’t come through for us as we hoped. When there seemed to be no answer to our own desperate pleas. When our “kyrie eleisons” echoed without response through the darkness of the night.
So what do we do then? What does faith look like when God has disappointed or abandoned us? How do we engage with God when our deepest hopes are shattered?
There’s no one way, of course. But I love this passage because it’s a rebuke to the well-meaning people who would tell you in your darkest hour that whatever you’re experiencing is God’s will and you should just accept it. The Canaanite woman is about as far from demure as possible. She is like Job questioning God about the horrible and unfair circumstances that have befallen him, she’s like Jacob wrestling with that stranger by the river. This woman does not give up.
She shouts so long and so loud that the disciples are at their wits’ end. She demands attention – demands access to God – and won’t leave until she’s satisfied. Even when she receives an answer, she refuses to accept it. She disagrees, she argues. She knows she needs mercy and she knows that her God is merciful. And so she keeps pushing until her theological vision of God – a God who is compassionate and inclusive – is realized. She knows Jesus, as it turns out, better than he knows himself. That’s when the Jesus I expect shows up – the one who so lovingly tells her: “Great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.”
For whatever reason, this woman has to struggle with Jesus before she can move on to what is next for her. And so we have to struggle with this messy, offensive passage before we move past it. And sometimes, just like Job, and Jacob, and this Canaanite woman, we have to struggle with our own experiences of God’s distance, or silence, or seeming cruelty before we can move on to seeing God’s mercy and grace. Sometimes we have to travel through a lot of darkness before we reach the other side.
And so, in the immortal refrain of Mr. Mister, “Kyrie eleison down the road that you must travel. Kyrie eleison through the darkness of the night.” Amen.
August 14, 2011
Matthew 15:10-28
Who here remembers the Mr. Mister song called “Kyrie eleison”? I was in 8th grade when it came out. Apparently the band member who wrote the words was inspired by singing the Kyrie in his Episcopal Church as a kid: "Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison." It means: Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. It probably sounded a lot like the one we sang at the start of our service this morning.
As a cradle Episcopalian, I was one of the few in my peer group who had any clue that the words to the #1 Billboard song meant “Lord, have mercy.” I distinctly remember giggling when instead of singing “Kyrie eleison down the road that I must travel” my friends belted out “Carry a laser down the road that I must travel….” I always felt like I had a secret insight on the song – like it had a deeper message that was just for me.
The chorus especially spoke to my teenage angst, I think:
Kyrie eleison down the road that I must travel
Kyrie eleison through the darkness of the night
Kyrie eleison where I’m going will you follow?
Kyrie eleison on a highway in the light.
The song played at our 8th grade Farewell Dance and I remember sort of praying along with the song, along with a little plug for God to direct the cute boy across the room my way. It didn’t work. And yet, even still, every once in a while when I find myself incredibly frustrated, or at a loss over what to do, or filled with worry, I find myself repeating those words as a sort of mantra: “Kyrie eleison… Lord have mercy…”
Maybe that’s why I’m so angry at Jesus this morning. So offended by his treatment of this poor Canaanite woman who comes to him shouting “Have mercy on me, Lord!” Kyrie eleison! Her daughter is being tormented by a demon, she says. But does Jesus take this desperate mother into his arms? Does he turn to her with care and concern? No! Jesus starts by completely ignoring her. Then when his disciples urge him to send her away because she’s making such a nuisance of herself, Jesus tells them that she is outside his circle of concern because he “was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But despite the complete lack of sympathy from anyone in Jesus’ circle, still the anxious woman kneels in front of him and begs him again “Lord, have mercy! Kyrie eleison!” Now Jesus doesn’t just ignore her, he downright insults her by comparing her to a dog who doesn’t deserve the children’s food.
It’s hard to know what to do with this portrait of Jesus because it seems so incredibly counter to the Jesus that I profess. My Jesus is all about hanging out with and helping the people that no one else even looks twice at. My Jesus talks to and touches the people that the rest of us turn our heads from when they walk near us on the street. My Jesus challenges the Pharisees’ and his own disciples’ assumptions of purity and righteousness and worthiness.
That’s the Jesus I long for in this story. I want him to hear this poor woman’s cries and immediately reach out to her and her daughter. I want immediate love and concern and healing for these women.
And I’m not alone in my discomfort with the picture of Jesus in this story. Oodles of scholars and commentators have taken a swing at explaining away Jesus’ bad behavior. Maybe Jesus was really putting on a show for his disciples so they’d see how ugly their behavior was. Maybe Jesus was testing this woman’s faith. Maybe this was a friendlier conversation that it seems – the Greek word for “dog” in this passage really means “pet dog” so the insult wasn’t so terrible afterall. The Jesus Seminar folks just discount the conversation completely, and argue that it is a later addition written in reaction to early followers who sought to narrow the scope of their mission.
And yet, if Jesus had behaved exactly as I would wish and expect and healed the Canaanite woman’s daughter immediately, my reaction might be the same as it sometimes is in those other stories where someone is the lucky recipient of a miracle. “Well, that’s nice, but what about [the people starving in Africa/the people struggling with cancer/the people who have lost their loved ones too soon]? Where are the miracles for them? For us? For me?
And so while a part of me would like to soften this story and explain away Jesus’ harsh-seeming treatment of this woman so that I don’t have to deal with my discomfort, I think we’d miss something that way. The Canaanite woman had to struggle with Jesus in this passage and so do we.
Maybe we are more like this woman than we realize. Maybe this story actually hits pretty close to home. Chances are, none of us have perfectly neat and completely satisfying experiences of God. Chances are that we have all experienced times when God didn’t come through for us as we hoped. When there seemed to be no answer to our own desperate pleas. When our “kyrie eleisons” echoed without response through the darkness of the night.
So what do we do then? What does faith look like when God has disappointed or abandoned us? How do we engage with God when our deepest hopes are shattered?
There’s no one way, of course. But I love this passage because it’s a rebuke to the well-meaning people who would tell you in your darkest hour that whatever you’re experiencing is God’s will and you should just accept it. The Canaanite woman is about as far from demure as possible. She is like Job questioning God about the horrible and unfair circumstances that have befallen him, she’s like Jacob wrestling with that stranger by the river. This woman does not give up.
She shouts so long and so loud that the disciples are at their wits’ end. She demands attention – demands access to God – and won’t leave until she’s satisfied. Even when she receives an answer, she refuses to accept it. She disagrees, she argues. She knows she needs mercy and she knows that her God is merciful. And so she keeps pushing until her theological vision of God – a God who is compassionate and inclusive – is realized. She knows Jesus, as it turns out, better than he knows himself. That’s when the Jesus I expect shows up – the one who so lovingly tells her: “Great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.”
For whatever reason, this woman has to struggle with Jesus before she can move on to what is next for her. And so we have to struggle with this messy, offensive passage before we move past it. And sometimes, just like Job, and Jacob, and this Canaanite woman, we have to struggle with our own experiences of God’s distance, or silence, or seeming cruelty before we can move on to seeing God’s mercy and grace. Sometimes we have to travel through a lot of darkness before we reach the other side.
And so, in the immortal refrain of Mr. Mister, “Kyrie eleison down the road that you must travel. Kyrie eleison through the darkness of the night.” Amen.
Thanks so much Elizabeth! Your sermon was my church this morning. Read it laying in the bed. Hope you and the beautiful family are all doing well.
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