Our texts this morning have to do
with two people who have deep encounters with their own mortality and human
suffering, and yet their trust in God carries them to a deeper place of
relationship and trust.
The first text is about that
cosseted and beloved youngest son named Joseph, who in our text last week was
taken from the bosom and the security of that family where he was favored and
given gifts, and then seized by his envious siblings and almost killed - but
instead was sold as a slave to merchants in a caravan headed to Egypt. Last week we imagined what it must’ve been
like for Joseph to unexpectedly have his safe, normal world shattered, and find
himself in a threatening and unknown place.
The Bible gives us no glimpse into what kind of despair he may have
fallen into, what kind of anguish and betrayal he felt; and we compared it with
the disorientation and crisis we felt, waking up in a different world of
Covid-19. The passage this morning
about Joseph's revelation of who he is to his brothers could have been one of
anger and revenge - we are almost shocked that instead he offers welcome, and
forgiveness with tears - and surprisingly is able to say that though they meant
it for evil, it was God who sent him before them in Egypt to prepare the way for saving the whole tribe. How did he get to this deep level of trust in
God?
I think we can assume that Joseph’s
initial reactions to his brother’s betrayal and slavery in Egypt were more
along the lines of “Why me, God?” and anger and even despair of faith and life.
He was still a young man, and his reactions were probably what ours would be.
That he comes out in such a faithful and believing place years later tells us
that he did some wrestling with God in the tradition of his father whose name
was changed to “Strives with God,” Isra-El.
He’s come out at a very deep, deep place, a very mature place. One doesn’t get to this level of acceptance
by trite phrases and pretending, nor by denying the pain - one only comes out
here after great struggles, honest prayer; bringing all one feels to God. Evidently Joseph found a deep well of faith -
a deep trust that God cared and heard his cries.
The Canaanite woman, from our
Matthew text, is also facing a difficult thing and crying out to Jesus. No
parent wants to face what she did - the suffering of her child, especially when
she can do absolutely nothing about it. This kind of thing wrings a parents’
heart, a mother’s heart, when some part of us that is so beloved is beyond our
help. The Scripture says her daughter was possessed by a demon, which we don’t
quite understand, but we DO know that the woman feels so helpless before her
daughter’s suffering that she comes to this Jewish healer to cry out, cry out,
cry out for help. That she is
Canaanite, and therefore a Gentile, doesn’t deter her - her distress about her
daughter sends her calling out to Jesus, AND THEN SENDS HER TO HER KNEES BEFORE
HIM.
This text has always kind of
bothered me… Jesus’ disciples want to send her away, and even Jesus seems to be
rude to her. I’ve not known how to take
his words that seem to point out the cultural divide between Jews and
Canaanites. I'm more comfortable with the story of Jesus and the woman at the
well, who’s a Samaritan - another cultural divide - but Jesus asks her to draw
water for him and talks with her. In
this encounter with the Canaanite mother, however, Jesus is rather confrontive
- and yet, she comes back at him!
Sometimes I think I can hear Jesus’ words in a way similar to the way a
boyfriend’s dad told me gruffly, “Shut the door, were you raised in a barn?” My
boyfriend said that meant he liked me.
What I DO see is that she persists -
She challenges Jesus with his own words. “I can’t give the children’s
food to dogs,” he says; she quips, “Even the dogs get crumbs that fall from the
table.” And then Jesus acknowledges her deep faith - and her daughter is
healed.
**********************
I'm going to come at this from a
different place for a minute - this week we tallied the 62 surveys that you all
have returned (and will get the summaries and observations out pretty
soon). Some things won’t be a surprise,
like that over half of our congregation are over 70. If we add in those in their 60s we get close
to ⅔; add in those in their 50s and we get over ¾. Looking at this statistic, it's probably safe
to assume that many of us have experienced life-shattering events like Joseph
and this Canaanite mom. We’ve done our
own wrestling with fears and doubts, we’ve felt hopeless and perhaps despairing
of life. We’ve come face to face with our own mortality. The covid-19 crisis is probably not the first
time we’ve feared death, although the national and global aspects of this
pandemic are new and also fearful. We’ve
faced cancer and other diseases, we’ve felt helpless about a beloved child’s
situation, we’ve been through sudden changes and loss. Knowing somewhat about
people, I might guess that we haven’t talked out loud about these deep and
scary feelings with other people, but kept them private.
Yet it's true that we’ve had times
when our own anguish has been cried out to God, when we’ve wrestled with the
“Why me?” question, when our faith and trust in God has been challenged by our
loss, our anger, or perhaps feelings of betrayal. Maybe we’ve had to quit going to church for a
while; maybe we’ve not been able to pray the way we had before, and we’ve just
not prayed.
I hope,
friends, that we HAVE been bold to cry out our pain and fears to God, like that
Canaanite woman did. I hope that we have
had the courage to be like our faith ancestors Jacob, who wrestled with God -
and earned the name Isra-el, “Strives with God.” We can tell that Joseph followed in his
father’s path, because we can see its results in the words of faith and trust
that he speaks in today’s texts. People
don’t get to an authentic trust like that without struggle. Even our own Jesus wrestled in the garden
before he was arrested, and the Scripture says he even sweat drops of blood - I
can’t imagine what that would be like.
He didn’t try to ignore or deny the struggle - he endured it, spoke it,
wrestled with it. And finally Jesus
found that place of submission where he could say, “Not my will but yours be
done.” And to be able to say later,
“Into your hands I commit my spirit.”
That’s a deep and mature faith.
We don’t
get to that level of faith by denying our pain; we don’t find that level of
trust by saying a trite, “Just praise
the Lord.” We don’t gain that place of
resting in God by repeating phrases like ‘I guess it's God’s will,’ or ‘God
needed another angel,’ or ‘every cloud has a silver lining.’ We only get there through bringing to God the
cries of our heart, the anguish of our spirit, the despair of our gut, the pain
of our confusion and loss. Only this
honesty before God in prayer is the path of insight and deepening faith. Only this trusting of God with our harshest
feelings, trusting that God can take it and that God won’t abandon us - only
this authentic crying out, like the Canaanite woman, only this level of
encounter with the source of life and our creator leads to the ability to say
with Joseph that God’s hand was in this; and leads to the place where Jesus
could say, Into your hands I commit my spirit.
So we’ve come to a very deep place
following these texts today. We’ve
talked out loud about some very private things.
We’ve touched on some scary thoughts and feelings that come from our
deepest places inside, from when we’ve had to face those scary moments of
helplessness, lack of control, imminent danger of loss of life. I remember the
fear and confusion and denial when I heard the “cancer” word...and I certainly
wrestled with God about it. This
hospitalization the other week was another reminder of my mortality - when I read my discharge papers, it hit me that things could have gone really
bad really quickly, and I could have died.
Suddenly, no warning, no time to prepare. I think I’m still processing that - it’s
still new.
Covid continues to be a reminder of
mortal issues, too - reading the stories of people’s suffering and struggle to
breathe, reading the heart-rending accounts of people dying without their
families - and families unable to be with their own beloved ones. Those fears linger in the back of our minds,
especially if we don’t talk about them.
I hope, my
friends, that we are bringing these kinds of cries to God, and not glossing
over them with trite sayings and pretended assurances. This time is an opportunity for us to pray in
depth, and wrestle with our creator about ultimate issues, cry out our fears;
and find beneath our feet the rock of our salvation, find the depth and
solidity of faith, the assurance of trust in God’s care and love. When we are moved by the stories we read, I
hope we are sharing that with God. When
we cough and are suddenly afraid we’ve caught the virus, I hope we’re taking
all that fear to God.
God loves
us, God cares for us, God knows our standing up and our sitting down, our going
out and coming in (Ps 139), the words that are on our tongue before we say
them. God knows the number of hairs on
our heads and the number of stars in the universe. God even came to our
suffering world in Jesus, to show us the vision of living in God’s kingdom and
offer us restoration. We are not alone,
and being in God’s hands is the safest place to be ever. Joseph remembered that and held onto it. The unnamed Canaanite mom reached out for
it. We can, too. AMEN.
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