Pentecost +11A                      August 20, 2017                                        Matthew 15:[10-20] 21-28

Blame – the Blame game. After last Saturday’s events in Charlottesville, VA we have just exacerbated the national debate over who is to blame for the racial tensions in our country. Some look around at the lingering statues and names of elementary schools across the south and see the remnants of slavery. Others see the groups like “White Supremacists” and the “KKK” as extreme groups of hatred and violence. Still others look to the police in their areas as co-conspirators in gatherings and protests allowing them to devolve into chaos. And then, there are at least two people who look to the “counter-protesters” as fanning the flames of an already “out of control” situation. Following this week’s chaos in Charlottesville, the ACLU and governor of Virginia were finding ways to sling mud at each other. And with the upcoming Solar Eclipse and now the terrorist event in Barcelona, Spain to take our minds off the issues of race and inequality for a few days, we will probably still fail in finding ways to have the necessary conversations. If you read my open letter to the congregation I posted on Face Book (and I have copies in the Narthex if you have not read it) I stated that all four groups have some culpability in the chaos in Virginia – the protesters, the counter-protesters, the police and the politicians. Of course, we cannot forget that in the argument of who was to blame, one woman was killed and almost twenty were injured. I am now almost 55 years old. I have been a pastor for twelve years, not including the five years I spent in seminary preparing for the ministry. It is my experience that in America we are obsessed with finding the “Scapegoat” – the person or persons to blame for all incidents – or, as our Gospel text points to this morning, the “Canaanite Woman” in our lives. When Jesus is approached by the woman, Jesus initially reacts as if she is “persona non grata” – she is a “non-entity”. And so she has a choice to make – how she will proceed – even with the one she calls “Lord, Son of David”.

I wonder what we might think of this lesson if the woman was initially held back by the disciples, and then she got into a fracas with them? And what if in the process of fighting back, someone got hurt? She was, after all a woman approaching Jesus, which should not have happened in her day. And she was, as Jesus said, not “part of the lost sheep of the House of Israel”. She had no right to even approach him, let alone whine about her situation – or advocate for her daughter. Her very presence was detestable to the disciples – long with her shouting and whining.

I heard this week from a historian that Robert E. Lee did not want people of the South to erect statues of him, or others, following the Civil War. He even believed they should not erect any in Gettysburg. He believed that the battlefields should not be set aside as memorials to the battle. Instead he believed they should be bulldozed and built upon, or plowed. It was his opinion that a country that does not memorialize a war like that, especially a civil was, would find it easier to move on with healing without statues and similar memorials. So what did the country do? They put up almost 500 statues. There are statues all over our country. Drive through the square of many small towns in PA and you will see a statue of someone, if not something – and usually they memorialize an event like the Second World War or the Korean War, and those local men and women who served in the military. Other times they memorialize someone who was instrumental to the local city or town. Other times they are just interesting background. Pottsville has a statue of Henry Clay. Philadelphia has a forty-five foot statue of a clothes pin in front of City Hall (I do not understand that one). New York has a statue of Lenin atop a residential building named “Red Square” – he points toward the Financial District (again, I do not understand). Finally there is a statue of Nikolai Tesla in Niagara Falls, in upstate New York. One of the things we do in this country is erect statues of everything from trolls under bridges in the west, to eccentric inventors in the North. My favorite, of course, is the “Christ the Redeemer” statue that overlooks Rio. And these statues and other memorials will be looked upon by some with questioning, or disgust, or surprise, or pride, or faith. So, it isn’t just people who we see as threats, even the statues we erect, the ways we render images and people around the country that threaten us. And lately, the solution has been to tear them down – let’s be rid of the past (even if it means we run the risk of forgetting the past, increasing the possibility of repeating it). Is it better to bury our memories – to keep the bad stuff away from us, rather than face them every day?

The Israelites, including the disciples, would have seen all Gentiles as threats to their ritual purity and their cultural existence. They had deep-seated hatred for people like the Samaritans, the Cretans, and others who were not like them. The woman from the Gentile areas of Tyre and Sidon was just such a person – an unwashed, detestable heathen. She was a first century version of the statue of Robert E. Lee (in a strange sort of way). And so when she approaches Jesus, his first reaction is to ignore her. The disciple’s first reaction is to remove her. Get her out of their sight. She was shouting at them – she was not supposed to be there – so let’s get rid of her. Jesus, we assume, has the right, religiously and culturally to do just that – to get rid of her. After all, it is easier to ignore or remove from our presence those who are not like us. It is easier to remove them or ignore them instead of forcing ourselves to admit our common humanity.

But she will not be deterred. She has a problem – she needs healing for her daughter, and reconciliation with her “Lord”. Sounds like the same needs that our country has today – healing for our nation and reconciliation with our people. And that begins with relationships…….period. Until we have walked in the shoes of our adversaries and tried to understand their life experiences, we will never be able to come to any healthy reconciliation. This is what the Canaanite woman accomplishes – she is able to get into a conversation with Jesus – she pushes the situation and the conversation by first establishing a relationship with Jesus. And by extension, this is a model for us – we too are supposed to push for conversations that begin with listening – instead of shouting judgment and condemnation – sit down with one another with love and compassion in our hearts – not hate and violence.
The woman from Tyre and Sidon is a fighter – she is fighting for the life of her daughter – and for her own life. But though she is shouting now, she soon models the methods we all need to choose – humility, conversation, and reverence. I see too many people shouting and fighting in our society instead of talking and listening – too many people start from a position of arrogance rather than having any regard for the humanity of “the others”. This is what is most telling about the interaction between Jesus and the woman. At first it appears that Jesus negates her humanity – but she does something that keeps Jesus in the conversation – she kneels at his feet, in humility. If we are ever to understand our fiercest enemies – our most mis-understood rivals – we must first humble ourselves before the conversation will ever find a way forward. And I am advocating a mutual humbling – both sides must begin with a recognition of each other’s humanity — or we might as well just talk to statues for the rest of our lives.

Right now we are treating each other as statues in this country – as something that needs to be removed from our midst before we will be able to feel better about ourselves. But statues are objects – they are things. People are people. Statues can be ignored, if we are willing. People should not be ignored – everyone deserves to be reckoned with – and that will be most effective if we begin with a mutual respect and an understanding that we are all children of our creator. As long as we continue just to shout at one another – across the wide divide of political and racial tensions – the more we will have one-sided conversations.
So, who is right? And, who is to blame? Is there any hope? Many believe that hope is almost unachievable. But I think there is always hope. And there are always answers — as long as we develop a willingness to listen – to humble ourselves, kneel at the feet of Jesus. And that requires a lot of prayer.

Isaiah said, “Thus says the Lord…my house shall be a house of prayer”. As you have heard the statistics this summer, the number of people who are attending church is declining every year. One of the reasons we are advocating for reaching out to our neighbors, besides being our Christian calling, is because too many people live their lives without a relationship with G-d. Therefore we need to bear some of the blame – because we are called to take the good news of Jesus Christ to all people, and to teach people why a relationship with G-d matters in our lives. When we are willing to recognize that we are called to be obedient to G-d, and to love G-d with our whole heart, mind and soul, this is what propels us to live in community, in relationship with one another – one that is defined by love, not hate – love for all people, not just those who look like us.

So, we have a lot of work to do, as people of G-d in Lemoyne, and as a nation that was originally formed under some aspects of Judeo-Christian values (though even that is a debated fact). I believe our “fore-fathers” were people of faith. I believe they held some beliefs and ideas for the new country that sprung out of their faith. Perhaps we have always just shouted at each other – ignored each other – simply telling the “others’ in our lives what they wanted to hear, not what we truly believed in our hearts. In other words, we have been lying to each other for many, many years. Paul says, in Romans, “G-d has imprisoned all in obedience so that he may be merciful to all.” In other words, no one is any better than any other. We are all equal in the eyes of G-d, especially equal in the sin of selfishness — no matter what beliefs certain people shout at us. And without G-d, we are all doomed, not just to repeat the failures of our past, but doomed to live lives where we simply ignore one another and the problems that plague our nation.

What we need to do is model the actions of the Canaanite Woman:

Recognize who is Lord of all — Kneel at the feet of Jesus – and Form a relationship with Jesus that includes the ultimate form of conversation – a conversation of prayer. Only then will we be able to begin the healing – when we “shut up” – pray for understanding — and begin really listening to one another.

Pastor Dave