I wonder how you feel about surprises. Some love them. Some hate them. I’m afraid I’m one of those people that sometimes find surprises challenging to deal with. 

But surprises, of course, come in different forms. Surprises may be unpleasant but they can also be very joyous. A surprise may even come in the form of England reaching a World Cup final for the first time in 57 years.

Our gospel reading is one of surprises. Here, Jesus meets a Canaanite woman. She is not Jewish, but a Gentile. Jesus meets her in the region of Tyre and Sidon – 2 cities with evil reputations throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. And, to make matters worse, Canaanites and Israelites have a long and bloody history.

And so we have the first surprise of the passage: despite the animosity between her own people and Jesus’ people, the Canaanite woman approaches Jesus in desperation, for healing for her daughter. She even calls Jesus “Lord”.

Which leads us to our second surprise: Jesus’ response to the woman’s cry for help. Even though she shouts after him, demanding to be heard, Jesus ignores her. He responds only to the disciples who ask him to tell her to just go away. 

Jesus retorts “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. In other words, the Jewish people, are the ones he has come for.

Jesus’ initial response to her may feel unexpected, out of character. But, to his Jewish disciples, this was the very response they may well have been expecting. 

Jesus and his Jewish disciples are a part of God’s chosen people. This woman is a Gentile outsider. She is not part of the people of God. Of course she should be turned away.

But should we take Jesus’ words at face value? 

If we look at the passage more closely and the context surrounding it, Jesus has travelled very far out of his way. At the end of chapter 14 he is on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. He then travels here to the Gentile district of Tyre and Sidon. 

It was about 35 miles from the Sea of Galilee to Tyre and 50 miles to Sidon so this encounter is somewhere between the two. Jesus and his disciples probably would have walked all that way. That is a long trip to make if you are only going to ignore the people you find there. 

So it seems to me that Jesus was doing something very deliberate in this conversation with the Canaanite woman.

And the woman does not give up. She kneels before him “Lord, help me”.

Jesus responds “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. In this imagery, the “children” are the Jewish people and the “dogs” are the Gentiles.

If this is Jesus testing the woman and the disciples, he is parroting what the Jewish disciples may have expected. 

In so doing, he allows the woman to respond and surprise them. 

“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table”.

Here the woman both recognises Israel’s privileges yet also implies that these privileges go wider still. Jesus praises her faith and instantly heals her daughter. 

The woman has highlighted a profound truth – salvation is for both Jew and Gentile.

Of course, this isn’t actually new in the Hebrew scriptures. The reason the Israelites were God’s chosen people was precisely so that they could be a light to the nations. Their faith, their trust in Yahweh was to draw all nations, all people to the knowledge and love of God. 

Yet, just like the Pharisees had focused so much on their own restrictive traditions rather than the heart of the Jewish Law, so Israel had forgotten its mission to the rest of the world.

In the words of the Gospel canticle at night prayer, the ‘Nunc dimittis’:

“…mine eyes have seen thy salvation;

Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles: and to be the glory of thy people Israel”

It is a message so powerful that it is included here by the writer of Matthew’s gospel as a reminder to the Christian church of the grace of God.

If I was the Canaanite woman, I imagine it would have been so easy to presume I should not approach Jesus. 

How many people do not come through the doors of church because they think they have to be a certain kind of person to come? That they have to look a certain way or they have to behave in a certain way? How many people have feared judgement or presumed they would never be welcomed?

As Michelle mentioned, it is my final Sunday on Placement and I’m reaching the point where I’m reflecting on my time here.

Well, I have been welcomed here. From the very first time I came to investigate whether I wanted to come here for placement back in May, people were warm and I felt this was the place God wanted me to come to. I hope that encourages you.

And you’ll be glad to know that that perception hasn’t changed over the last 4 weeks!

I have also learned through different church activities here, through the hub, through our Galaxy Window Wednesdays, services, meetings, that sometimes I’ve met people that I don’t appear to have much in common with, and I’ve found it easier to get on with some people more than others. That I’m sure is the case for all of us in different ways; we all have people we prefer to talk to than others, and some people may annoy us or even aggravate us.

But what unites all these groups of people is that they are all children of God. 

If you have been a follower of Christ for a long time, you are a child of God. If you are new to this church, you are a child of God. 

Jesus did not come just for the religious, for the existing family, just as he didn’t only come to bring glory to the people of Israel. He came for all, for those who thought they would never receive the joy of God’s blessing, just as he came for the Gentiles, those who had existed outside the boundary lines.

Shortly, we will come for communion. We come and we ask simply to be fed through bread and wine or through a blessing. We come for those crumbs which are actually an overflowing abundance.

We are all equal at the Lord’s table. All you need to do is come as you are and receive the grace of God, like the Canaanite woman coming to Jesus, a woman whose voice Jesus used to show the boundlessness of God’s love.

And perhaps, as you come to be fed, you may want to look at the people coming with you and see Christ in them.

Service: Anglican Ordinand Laura Elworthy. 20th August 2023. (St John’s Church Peterborough UK)

Referenced Scripture: Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28