A Lectionary Reflection for the people of Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church for worship from home, August 16, 2020, Year A, 11 Pentecost, Proper 15

Genesis 45:1-15
Psalm 133
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15:21-28

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Recently, I joined the Diocese of East Tennessee’s Becoming Beloved Community Task Force, which is taking up the work of racial reconciliation as outlined by The Episcopal Church.   The Task Force recently met (virtually) to introduce ourselves to each other.  One member is Sylvia, an 82-year-old African-American woman who has been an activist for civil rights and racial justice since the 1950s.  During her introduction, Sylvia told us, “The thing you need to know about me is, I don’t take no for an answer.”

And when I read the portion of Matthew’s gospel for today, I pictured Sylvia as the Canaanite woman who comes to Jesus.  This unnamed woman refuses to take no for an answer.  When Jesus remains stonily silent to her pleas, when the disciples try to force her away, even when Jesus goes so far as to respond with a racial slur and a flat-out rejection, the Canaanite woman persists.  She debates and demands until Jesus hears her cry for mercy and acknowledges the tenacity of her faith: “Let it be done for you as you wish.”

And the faith of this wonderful woman must have carried her all the way home.  Matthew’s gospel tells us that as soon as Jesus speaks, the woman’s daughter is healed.  But, of course, the Canaanite woman couldn’t have known that.  Instead, she had to trust that, having wrested this grace from Jesus by sheer will-power, it was sufficient and so she leaves Jesus, trusting that she would arrive home to a daughter whole and healed.  “Woman, great is your faith!” Jesus says to her.  How true that is. 

But, I want to leave the Canaanite woman for a minute and turn attention to another character in today’s lessons.  We’ve reached the final episode in the series of Abraham and his descendants that we’ve been following throughout the summer.  Last week, we heard the terrible account of Joseph being sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers.  Since then, decades have passed; through his cleverness and his divinely-inspired dreams, Joseph has risen to power as Pharaoh’s right-hand man and now there is a famine throughout the region – a disaster only Egypt is prepared for thanks to Joseph. 

Against this backdrop, Joseph is reunited with his brothers.  They have come to Egypt seeking sustenance for their family and this scene in Genesis is the tail-end of a long negotiation they’ve had with Joseph, all without knowing that the man whose help they need is their long-lost brother.  Joseph, though, knows exactly who they are and has sent them on several wild-goose chases in what must have been a personal, if comparatively light, revenge upon them. 

And then, finally, Joseph reveals his identity.  The scene is one of intense emotion as Joseph breaks down and his brothers are overcome with shock, dismay, and, we can imagine, unexpected joy and relief.  Joseph’s words are fantastic in their expression of mercy: “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.  And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here.”

How in heaven’s name could Joseph show such mercy when his siblings have treated him so horribly?  Of course, he’s had his little bit of revenge in the back-and-forth to Canaan; he’s had decades to wrestle with the fate they thrust upon him and come to terms with it.  But still, his brothers nearly killed him; they might as well have when they sent him away into slavery.  In the face of such personal offense, how can Joseph find a place in his heart for forgiveness?

I think Joseph finds forgiveness because he’s looking for God.  He arrives at a place of mercy because he sees God’s providence at work even in the tragedies of his personal story: “For God sent me before you to preserve life,” he tells his brothers.

Now I want to be clear: Joseph does not excuse his brothers’ behavior.  Their actions caused him deep harm on every level.  Joseph knows that; his brothers acknowledge it in their “dismay.”  But, as the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor points out, Joseph understands that “nothing is too bent to be used” by God.  With the benefit of hindsight, Joseph sees how God’s providence turned the symptom of human evil into an outcome for human good.  He grasps the full force of divine power that bulldozes through every sinful human obstacle to create healing and wholeness.  And it’s from that place of clarity about God’s power that Joseph forgives.

And this is where Joseph’s story aligns so well with that of the Canaanite woman in Matthew’s gospel.  At their heart, these two narratives show us what happens when we hold fast to the belief that God’s power and grace are unbound by man-made limitations and un-stopped by human machinations.  Joseph forgives his brothers because he believes God’s power is greater than their evil actions.  The Canaanite woman insists that Jesus heal her daughter because she believes God’s power is greater than the narrow cultural boundaries within which Jesus is used to operating. 

During the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. popularized a quote from 19^th century abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore Parker who said “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” And though God isn’t mentioned explicitly, Parker’s comment is a statement of faith – the same faith revealed by Joseph and the Canaanite woman.  It’s the belief that even when God’s justice has been momentarily thwarted by human sinfulness – as it was so brutally by Joseph’s brothers, as it was so long by the societal systems at work against the Canaanite woman, as it was for MLK and Theodore Parker and as it continues to be for so many others throughout history and today – nevertheless, ultimately, God’s good will for us prevails. 

These people of faith show us what it means to cling to the tenacious belief that the kingdom of heaven is real; they show us how to cleave to the gospel hope that God’s power and grace cannot and will not be contained, that, in the long run, God is at work, even now, in this bent world, through our broken lives, creating something new, re-creating us into the people God dreams us to be, healed and whole and reconciled with God and with each other. 

And, like Joseph and the Canaanite woman, like Parker and King, like my new friend Sylvia, we are each called to insist on that good news.  When the world around us seems too broken to be of any use, when the narrowness of human minds and the sinfulness of human hearts threaten our sense of the inherent goodness of creation, when the succession of bad news horrifies us, when our pleas to others for mercy and justice and compassion are met by stony silence or outright rejection, then, right then, we are called to tenaciously hold fast to the belief that God’s power and grace are greater than all of it.  When the weary world tells us our hope is in vain, it is our job, as Christ’s followers, to refuse to take that no for an answer and to persist in proclaiming the good news that we will be made whole.  Amen.