God Doesn't Have Favourites (Mathew 15. 10-28)
Preached at Evensong, St Peter Mancroft Church
It has been a disturbing couple of weeks. With mudslides devastating Sierra Leone and the enormous fascist demonstrations in Charlottesville. It can sometimes feel like things are out of control. There are no easy answers and I’m not going to patronise you by trying to neatly package it up, but what I will say is that God does not have favourites.
It has been a disturbing couple of weeks. With mudslides devastating Sierra Leone and the enormous fascist demonstrations in Charlottesville. It can sometimes feel like things are out of control. There are no easy answers and I’m not going to patronise you by trying to neatly package it up, but what I will say is that God does not have favourites.
One of the many things that
disgusts me about fascism is the notion of white supremacy. It’s an ideology
that those of us who are white are the master race, that we have the right to
enslave other people wo are not like us, because we are better than them. As
Christians it is our role in society to condemn these ideologies in the
strongest possible terms, we shouldn’t just be anti-fascist but anti-hate and
anti-discrimination. These ideologies are not compatible with the gospel or
with being a Christian. Being a racist is a sin because it violates one of the
two primary commandments, love your neighbour as yourself. It’s sinful because
it dehumanises other people and fails to see the image of God in the other
person.
But then this. This passage tonight
suddenly made me stop in my tracks. Jesus talks here about election, that he is
sent only to Israel and refers to someone of a different ethnicity from him, a
Canaanite, as a dog. Referring to someone as a Canaanite at that time was like
us referring to a Scandinavian person as a Viking. Canaanites represented
everything that the Jews were not, Pagans, Idol Worshippers. She was likely to
have been Syrophoenician. Is it true
that we mean less to God if we’re not Jewish? Does God have favourites? Does
Jesus make out that Israel is superior to other people?
No. What this passage is about, is
not election but God’s mercy which overflows to all people.
Matthew is quite a Jewish gospel,
and it’s very likely that those from a Jewish background would have read and
written it. One of the themes that runs through Matthew very strongly is that
the mercy we show, will indicate the kind of mercy that we will receive. Those
who are merciful will receive mercy. God doesn’t have favourites, but the mercy
we show will have consequences.
It is because of the greatness of
God’s mercy that the Jewish religion existed, looking at the Old Testament,
it’s made abundantly clear that Israel is no better or worse than any other
nation. They do bad things, they do good. They are God’s chosen people, not
because they’re superior to anyone else, but because God is in covenant with
them, he makes a special promise to them. Moreover, through their way of life
and actions they were supposed to be a light to the nations, a guiding star for
all people to come into relationship with God. At this time the religious
authorities had got so bound up in the rules, that they had forgotten the
spirit of mercy, and the mercy that God had shown to them.
Twice in previous clashes with the Pharisees over questions
of obedience to the law, Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 “I desire mercy not sacrifice.”
Mercy is the cornerstone of Jesus’ critique of their religion and life choices.
The Syrophoenician woman is
pleading for mercy, but this time, like a juxtaposition, it’s Jesus who is
standing in the way of that mercy. Not the Pharisees, but Jesus himself who initially
says “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” This woman however is
persistent, she understands that the basis of God’s election is mercy, she
knows of Jesus calling him ‘son of David.’
Women at that time in Jewish and Syrophoenician
society were expected to be quiet, demure and not make a fuss, so it must have
taken huge amounts of courage to shout like she did. Audiences would have been
shocked to hear of her behaviour when they read this in the 1st
Century. Perhaps Jesus didn’t initially
respond, not because he did not care or was ignoring her, but that he was so
shocked by her behaviour. A Canaanite woman, with a sick daughter was
incredibly marginalised, even more so when her behaviour breaches the social
norms of the time, as it does when she shouts at Jesus.
Then there is the dramatic shift,
in which she pleads with Jesus, throwing herself at his mercy, this would’ve
changed the audiences view of her from affront to sympathy.
This narrative is yet another
example that is found throughout the Gospels, of Jesus doing the unexpected, he
seems to change his mind. Perhaps the woman does change his mind through her
argument, or perhaps this was Jesus’ intention all along, to use this woman as
an opportunity to demonstrate what God’s mercy is like, the means are not what
is most important.
The most important thing that this
shows is the wideness of God’s mercy, even though this woman was a gentile, she
broke the social norms, she disregarded the rules, God still has mercy on her,
because He loves her. God doesn’t have favourites. Her unshakable belief in
God’s mercy towards her is what Jesus calls ‘faith’.
We mustn’t forget the greatness of
God’s mercy that he shows, that the labels that we choose to put on people are
not necessarily the way that God sees us or them, men, women, black, white, it
doesn’t matter. We are all elected and called to relationship with God, and we
are all made in His image.
This passage indicates just how
wrong those fascists who gathered in Charlottesville are, Christians should not
believe that we are any better than anyone else, nor that anyone is more or
less chosen to have faith in God. God doesn’t have favourites, but seeks to
form a relationship with all people, of all races. The lamb of God, who died to
reconcile the whole world to God, calls us into peace, to proclaim that message
of his mercy, and to utterly condemn ideologies who have no perception of mercy,
because it is what comes from within a person that defiles, it is hate towards
others that poisons and destroys society. Let us seek to love those who hate others, so
that they will come to know that God doesn’t have favourites, and neither
should we.
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