Tuesday • 11/9/2021
Tuesday of the Twenty-fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 27)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78:1–39; Nehemiah 9:26–38; Revelation 18:9–20; Matthew 15:21–28

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

Nehemiah: back in the land but still in Egypt. At Advent, we hear again John the Baptist quoting Isaiah in the wilderness: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3). We take these words for granted, I think. Instead, we should be bowled over by them! When Isaiah forecasts God’s people’s exile for their sin, he characterizes that exile as a slavery just like that from Egypt under Moses, perhaps a millennium before his time. The Babylonian exile, says Isaiah, will require a second exodus. With his “Prepare the way of the Lord,” Isaiah offers hope for that second deliverance from slavery. 

John the Baptist’s premise is that his listeners are in the same position: in slavery in exile in a “Babylon” or an “Egypt,” and in need of rescue. Physically, they are in the Promised Land; and despite Roman occupation, there is no small level of prosperity and ease (at least for some) thanks to the expansive architectural ambitions and political finesse of the Herod dynasty. And yet, John the Baptist knows that his listeners understand they are still in an exile, still in need of a desert highway to home. His message strikes such a chord with people that they flock to him in the wilderness to receive his baptism of repentance in preparation for a new exodus. 

What is extraordinary about today’s reading in Nehemiah is the confession that the generation of Ezra and Nehemiah make: “Here we are, slaves to this day—slaves in the land that you gave to our ancestors to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts” (Nehemiah 9:36). Newly returned from the Babylonian exile Isaiah had predicted, newly “second exodusized” just as Isaiah had promised, they nonetheless confess themselves still to be in exile, in slavery, in need of the kind of exodus that four centuries later John the Baptist will announce. 

The response that Ezra and Nehemiah lead is worthy of note: there is deep confession, and a covenanting together of the people to renew their love for the God of forgiveness and redemption: “[W]e make a firm agreement in writing, and on that sealed document are inscribed the names of our officials, our Levites, and our priests” (Nehemiah 9:38).

Matthew: a moment of pregnant silence. As we saw in the first half of Matthew 15, Jesus maintains that the things that make us “unclean” do not come from outside us, but from inside us. What defiles us is not external dirt, but internal sin. The implication is that once the inside of a person has been made clean, that is, once a sinner has been made right, they are clean indeed. 

Now, in the second half of Matthew 15, Jesus launches a mission into territories inhabited by “unclean” people, Gentile “dogs.” First, he brings his disciples west to the land of classical Phoenicia. Following this leg of the journey, he will take them east across the River Jordan into the Decapolis, the land of classical Syria. 

What’s he doing? Jesus is showing how God plans to work among Gentiles to make sinners into saints. Jesus is demonstrating how faith in the gospel will transform the “unclean” into “clean.” He’s preparing his disciples for the day when he will send them to make disciples of all nations, a mission that has already been foreshadowed in the coming of “wise men from the East” to worship him in infancy (Matthew 2 and 28). 

I think that the reading of today’s account of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21–28), requires attention to two things: 1) the fact that Jesus has brought his disciples into pagan territory right after teaching that “uncleanness” lies within the human heart; and 2) a pregnant silence. Let’s keep reading.

The only person we meet here on the coast of the Mediterranean is a woman of “the district of Tyre and Sidon” (Matthew 15:21). King Solomon had made a matrimonial alliance with the Sidonians, bringing idolatry into Israel (1Kings 11:1,33). King Ahab’s wife Jezebel, devotee of Baal and persecutor of the prophets, was a Sidonian princess (1 Kings 16:31). At the same time, the prophet Elijah had sojourned with a Sidonian widow and raised her son from the dead (1 Kings 17:9–24). In today’s reading, this pagan woman calls out to Jesus, “Lord, Son of David” (Matthew 15:22). Regardless of whatever influences are in her past, somehow she recognizes Jesus as Israel’s Messiah; and, not only that, but as the only hope that her daughter might be rid of a demon that has possessed her. This pagan woman asks Israel’s Messiah for mercy. Hers is a remarkable confession, a lightning bolt out of the blue. 

Jesus’s response is astounding. He says nothing: “But he did not answer her at all” (Matthew 15:23a). What’s he doing? He’s going to let his disciples make the next move. Do they understand? Do they “get it” that he has brought them over here to show them that any and every person can be made “clean” by faith in Messiah. 

What do they do? They say, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us” (Matthew 15:23b). To them, she’s an inconvenience and irritation. And so, Jesus, in full sarcastic mode, says (if I may paraphrase), “Well, gentlemen, you’re right. I have no idea what we’re doing over here. I only came for the lost tribes of Israel. Forget the fact that I brought you out of Israel over here into pagan territory” (Matthew 15:24). What’s going on in this conversation? She gets it, and presses in: “Lord, help me!” You can almost see the two of them make eye contact and smile. He says, “Surely you don’t expect me to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs.” (In my head, I see, the “air quotes” he puts around “dogs,” a horrible term of disparagement that “clean” Jews used for “unclean” Gentiles.) She presses further in: “Well, look, even the dogs get to eat of the crumbs that fall off the table.” It’s as though she can see the smile in his eyes and hear the playfulness in his voice. He sees the smile in her eyes, and he lauds her faith. “Then Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed at that moment” (Matthew 15:28).

Takeaways. When we are trapped in prisons of sin, addiction, bad habits, and patterns of hurtful relationships, may we have the courage and honesty of the generation of Ezra and Nehemiah (as well as of those who came to John the Baptist). May we confess our imprisonment and ask for a new exodus. 

No matter your background, no matter your “Babylon” or “Egypt,” no matter what demon oppresses you or what temptation tempts you, I pray you know that Jesus the Son of David has the power to heal and to make you “clean” … and the mercy to will it so. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Ilyas Basim Khuri Bazzi Rahib , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; 

This folio from Walters manuscript W.592 contains an illustration of Jesus and the Canaanite woman. Date: 1684.
1931: bequeathed to Walters Art Museum by Henry Walters