Trinity 5: 17^th August 2008

Preacher: Chris Green

Church: Draycott, Rodney Stoke

Readings:

Isaiah 56 1, 6-8

Romans 11, 1-2a, 29-32

Matthew 15, 10-28

How do you picture Jesus, in your mind’s eye? Does he look fair and north European, or is he dark and middle-Eastern?

There is a strong tendency to see Jesus as rather like us. In the West he is often shown as fair-haired, with blue eyes. In Africa, he may be portrayed as a black man. Recently I saw a painting of Jesus as a Native American, or Red Indian. There is a strong tradition of seeing Jesus as Everyman, someone rather like us. Perhaps this is necessary- if we are to follow him, we need someone whose example we can identify with.

However if you are trying to think like this, today’s Gospel might come as rather a shock. There aren’t many readings in the lectionary where the sheer first century Jewishness of Jesus is given to us more clearly. Let’s start with the second part of the account first.

Jesus is in the Gentile territory of Tyre and Sidon, and performs one of a very few miracles reported in the Gospel for the benefit of a Gentile. But Jesus seems to need a lot of persuading. First of all he turns a deaf ear. Next he justifies himself to the disciples by saying that he has been sent to Israel, not to other nations. Finally when he can avoid her no more, he answers her quite insultingly- ‘should the children’s bread be thrown to the dogs?’ To be called a ‘dog’ was a strong insult from a Jew, as a dog is an unclean animal. Only when she accepts the insult and answers him back does he seem finally to take compassion on her.

This has puzzled many people. Surely Jesus is not anti-Gentile? When Jesus heals the centurion’s servant Jesus says “I have not found such faith, even in Israel”. After witnessing the death of Jesus, it is the Roman centurion who says: “surely this was the son of God”. At the end of the Gospel, the risen Jesus tells the twelve to make disciples out of all the nations- the gentiles. Time and again, the Gospels seem to bend over backwards to include Gentiles.

Nevertheless, I think that Jesus is only showing himself to be a good Jew of the first century.

The fact is, Jewish religious leaders positively encouraged a sense of separateness and superiority among Jews. This dated from at least the Babylonian exile in the 6^th century BC. The deported Jews were effectively stateless, and they had to work hard to preserve their identity. A great many rules were created to help them do so- the book of Leviticus was probably written at this time. Rules included the ritual washing before meals, and rituals in the slaughter of animals and the preparation of food. The rules were added to stories of conquest of rival peoples, and the glorious past of the Davidic kingdom. They helped maintain a sense of separateness from and superiority to the Gentile nations.

But of course Jesus does eventually have pity on the woman and help her. We are perhaps seeing a moment in his ministry when Jesus crosses a forbidden line in Jewish society and found it possible to reach out to Gentiles. And we can imagine this is a memory of Jesus important to the early church- composed of Jews, but where Gentiles were trying to find a place.

We shouldn’t judge ancient Judaism too harshly for this exclusivity- it is present in many religions. In all religions there is an aspect of shared community and values, which keeps us together- religion can be translated as ‘that which binds together’. But anything that defines a group strongly can also be used to separate it from other groups. From there it is a small step to channel hostility against them. Religion can then find itself in the service of one of the most powerful and demonic forces of human nature- variously called tribalism, xenophobia or racism.

Does it have to be like this? Well I hope not- perhaps we can look to the Olympics for an example of the way in which national identities can be celebrated within a framework of mutual respect and shared endeavour.

And in the Jewish scriptures themselves, we find an extraordinary vision that seems to run counter to tribalism. Over the last few Sundays we have been reading the late part of the book of Isaiah, often called Second Isaiah. This prophet was writing in the aftermath of the Babylonian exile mentioned earlier- one of the great defeats of the Jewish people. You might have thought this would have made him embittered and xenophobic. But instead of this, we have the great vision that we heard in our first reading today. The righteous of all the nations shall come and worship the Lord on his holy mountain. There is here a vision of God that goes beyond the tribal one, taking in stranger and foreigner- this was surely a revolution in the Jewish view of their God and their worship of Him.

Righteousness is central to second Isaiah’s vision, not racial or cultural identity. But this can also be turned into something else to create an ‘us’ and ‘them’. And I think that this goes to the heart of the controversy that Jesus has with fellow-Jews. We get a flavour of this in the first part of our Gospel, told as a clash between Jesus and the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were not bad people. They were zealous for the Law, and were trying to purify the nation. For them, religion was to do with separating the righteous from the unrighteous.

There is a danger however in concentrating on the letter of any law in isolation from moral principles. Religion can become simply the rejection of people who fall foul of the rules. For Jesus, religion was to do with God’s people coming humbly before him- and once clean in their hearts, the cleanliness of their hands was irrelevant. You could say he was going beyond the letter to the spirit of the law.

Two millennia from this time, we still try to reduce religions to rules. Currently we have disagreement between traditionalists and radicals over biblical texts. Certain texts on human sexual practices are said by some to enshrine God’s word and pronounce God’s judgement. Others try to re-interpret these texts, looking to the context in which they were written. There are similar disagreements about the role of women in authority.

Well, radicals are not always right, and traditionalists are not always wrong. But I think we can draw a couple of important lessons from our readings today.

Firstly, it is not enough to argue from the letter of the scriptures, as if we are holding God to a binding contract. Scriptures were written by human hands, often in special social contexts. Jesus himself sets the example of interpreting the spirit and discarding the letter of biblical texts.

Secondly, the church must be always on its guard against the ‘tribal’ mentality. I think we see this wherever a church gets keen on defining its own boundaries. Are we using creeds or orthodoxy to create insiders and outsiders? If you want an example of the process in the church today, look no further than the Anglican Communion at the Lambeth conference.

Even Jesus seems to have needed a lesson in tribal inclusiveness, from the Canaanite woman. But his conduct among his fellow Jews should be rather uncomfortable for us. He starts by criticising them in their self-righteousness. He goes on to identify with those made unacceptable by orthodoxy, consorting with tax collectors, publicans and prostitutes. He ends as the ultimate outsider himself- disowned by his tribe, deserted by his friends, shamefully executed outside the walls of the holy city.

What kind of an example is that for us?