Let me tell you a story, one that nonprofit executive directors know all too well…
Samantha, a dedicated executive director of a nonprofit organization, was known for her unwavering commitment to her organization’s mission of providing education to underprivileged children. One day, Samantha’s team proposed a new initiative to offer extracurricular activities to the children they served, aiming to enrich their lives beyond academics. Eager to make a difference, Samantha agreed. Before she knew it, they were also providing meals, healthcare, and even job training for the parents. As the organization expanded its scope, Samantha realized that they were straying far from their initial mission. The budget was stretched thin, and the core educational programs suffered.
Samantha found herself entangled in a web of mission creep. She had to step back and refocus the organization on its original mission. It was a valuable lesson, a reminder that sometimes, even the most well-intentioned leaders can unintentionally drift from their core purpose. 1
You and I do not have to be non-profits to experience this dynamic in our own lives. Even Jesus did, thanks to a brave, tenacious woman. It’s a good thing he did, without stepping back.
Today’s Gospel is difficult to hear. We are used to Jesus being kind, empathetic, ready to heal and teach. We have also heard Him berate the disciples and Pharisees from time to time. But this? I make no excuses for Jesus’ language, but why give this woman a hard time?
Luke makes it clear that Jesus was brought up in accordance with Jewish law. He was baptized by Jordan River water and the Holy Spirit; the words from heaven affirmed his commission to fulfill His calling from a God to Whom Jesus was long-uniquely-connected.
His mission was to bring the good news of the realm of God to the Jewish people. Earlier in Matthew, Jesus directed an advance team of disciples specifically to avoid Gentile homes and only “to go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:6).
I think some of us may forget just how Jewish Jesus was. His teaching to follow the Law inwardly as well as outwardly was first aimed at the house of Israel. And Jesus was not a wishy-washy character whose convictions waved about like one of those high inflatable air-dancing men at car dealerships. Jesus was dedicated to his messiah mission. First the Jews, later the Gentiles, to fulfill Scripture. Headstrong he was, as Yoda might say. But I believe in our story ‘later’ had not come yet. He did not see what, or who, was coming!
The ‘persistence’ of the sermon title comes from our Canaanite friend. First, as understood at the time, her daughter was “tormented by a demon.” Any parent whose child undergoes horrific suffering can put themselves in her place. The helplessness. The fear. Evidently, she’d heard of Jesus’ healings. Secondly, as she approached Jesus, which took courage, she had several things working against her: She was a woman, and for a woman to talk to a man, let alone a rabbi, in public was not done. She was a Canaanite from that region, whose people had a long history of enmity with Israel. She was not Jewish. As Middlebury University’s Professor Eunyung Lim wrote, “Several layers of tension arise from the ethnic, religious, and gender differences between Jesus, his disciples, and her”. As a woman, a woman alone, and a Canaanite, as far as society went, in no way did she approach and engage Jesus as anything like an equal.
She’s desperate, and her mysterious but deep faith in Jesus has combined with her love for her child to do all that she can. Believing he can heal, she comes beseeching him for mercy.
The mission-focused Jesus is confronted by someone not on his radar. She is not part of His mission. But here she is, this frightened-out-of-her-wits mom, begging with a heart-breaking appeal. She shouted to him, calling him Lord and Son of David, asking for mercy for her tormented girl. He knew the mission; but now He may question what that is right here and now.
His response: Silence. Her reason for optimism? He did not say “no.” She kept up her pleading. Perchance her request was starting to penetrate His sense of mission, moving His spirit to the compassion we believe He embodied. He was struck, and processing – perhaps. The disciples pressed upon Him to send her away; her shouting annoyed them. Her reason for optimism? He did not do what they told Him.
At length he answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Nope; you come later. Nevertheless, she persisted. She came closer and knelt before him, which you did when you acknowledged you were in the presence of a kind of royalty. Carla Works wrote, “Kneeling is not only a sign of recognized authority but also a recognition of power.”
This could not have left Jesus unaffected. She cries, “Lord, help me.” It is a plea for grace, from only Him. He replies with those unfortunate, but not-so-unfortunate, words that it would not be fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. Some Jews did call Gentiles dogs. The word in Greek is for a house-dog. Does He insult her? Yes. Does it grieve, confuse, even anger us? I would hope so. But she sees an opening. She dives on the imagery: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
By referring to her people as belonging to the house-dogs, Jesus has metaphorically let her into “the house.” Frederick Bruner in his commentary opines, “under the same roof as the children at the table . . . they have a place within its walls, and are fed, if not with the children’s bread. Thus the term, which on Jewish lips could have sounded like a reproach, is used by the Lord to open a door of hope through which” the woman in pain “is not slow to enter.” He continues, “The Gentiles are no longer outside in the streets; they are now in the house. In a moment they will be at the table”. 2
She uses Jesus’ metaphor almost literally to turn the tables on Him by receiving the entry into the house and being fed. She gets through to Him. Now it seems she has helped Him see that to heal her daughter is not mission creep; she is not trying to thwart or delay the will of God as He sees it, nor take the good news away from Israel. It is an expression of faith so persistently proclaimed with shouts and tears that this is God’s will as sure as the mission to Israel.
Richard Ward wrote, “One can almost feel ‘old wineskins’ of religious tradition stretched to the breaking point in the presence of deep human need. The tension in the encounter is released with a simple statement of faith . . . when she declares her utter dependence on God’s grace, Jesus’ tradition-shaped heart breaks open”. To use a theological term, it is a Kairos moment; “Kairos moment” is a term used to describe a divinely-appointed, opportune moment for action or decision-making. For change, growth, transformation!
Last fall and winter thousands of us had our own Kairos events. We had focused on our own agendas and channels for our energy. We had our missions. Then came ICE before Thanksgiving, and people including many here let something else join or complement our agenda of loving our neighbors as Jesus taught. We were legal observers, marchers, participants in networks providing money for rent and food. Some took kids to and from school to protect threatened parents, some followed ICE vehicles, some prayed at the Whipple and the Capitol, we were often known by wearing whistles. None of this was on anyone’s initial agenda but we were confronted. Some deleted any Islamophobia they felt, folks gave of their time, bandwidth, resources and emotions when it was beyond the daily demands of life. We said Yes.
And how did Jesus react in the end? “Terrific!” Bruner translates. “’Great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.”
Now that a Gentile Canaanite woman has been welcomed into the household, she became the vanguard for all Gentiles that followed, in Jesus’ ministry and that of the Church. Think: In the Good Samaritan story, the outsider was the hero, Jesus’ model for how to love your neighbor. The outsider has been welcomed into the story and lifted up. The mission we always assumed was part of Jesus’ mission since His conception has been adopted. Isaiah 56’s beautiful description of non-Israelite believers in the united joyful worshiping community is on its way.
It began with the persistence of this woman of powerful, aggressive, suffering faith. She did not let the silence of Jesus stop her. She did not let the dismissive words of the disciples dissuade her. She did not take the “dogs” reference as a “dis,” but turned it into a moment of transformation. Jesus’ mission-timeline was upended by her and the Spirit’s work on Him. I daresay Jesus was somehow changed by the encounter with this woman of persistent faith.
Like the brave woman, the Minnesotans who went out, who observed and resisted, did not let the threats of tear gas keep them home. They did not let intimidation keep them from sharing precious resources, from car-pooling, from protecting mosques during holy days and prayers or even being arrested at MSP in peaceful protest. We did not respond with business-as-usual when Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered. And like Jesus, so many in our state saw a new way to love the neighbors who are not like us and went out of our way to help. We heard the cry of the woman whose first language is not English. Like Jesus we were interrupted, but like Him too we reframed that persistent, pressing interruption as part of our ministry. Even today rapid response groups send out appeals for help on Signal and beyond. Jesus is not the only one who changed by listening and embracing an unexpected but needful inclusion into the community of love. So have we. We’ve undergone Kairos moments and we are not the same still.
Having said this, we are only human. Different people and varieties of circumstances still cross our paths and implicitly challenge us: What does God want us to do, our will, which can be very reasonable, or is helping this inconvenient, unknown traumatized family also part of the mission? Like our Bible Study asked, do we fall into old mindsets, like that of scarcity and what we do not have, rather than look to God’s abundance? Do we choose the old wineskins, the stiff but predictable ways we know, or do we again find new wineskins to make room for a wider mission of both / and? Will we listen. As Jane said at the end of last Sunday’s sermon, will we “embrace the opportunities to be transformed?” I add, can the community help when we cannot do it for some time? For we are not in this alone.
The other challenge is inspired by the Canaanite mom: That is, can you, I and the Church, like her, keep persisting in faith – in shouting out for healing, for justice, for belonging, for inclusivity, for secure elections and more – despite the onslaught of threats, slurs, barriers, and the costly passage of time? Can you and I be inspired, moved anew by this woman, whose faith and love drove her, and Jesus, to a Kairos, transforming again our vision of the community beloved? May it be so. AMEN.
1 “Understanding Mission Creep for Nonprofits: Tips for Executive Directors” on the Mission Met blog
2 The Churchbook: Matthew 13–28 by Frederick Dale Bruner | pp. 100–102