Today we have two stories before us.   Both from the gospel of Matthew, but one is better known that the other. They are both important stories to Matthew, but admittedly, the tradition of Christianity thereafter has blessed one with better press.

Every time I went to seminary chapel services, there it was. A large oil painting of a boat out on churning waters, the men inside the boat with their arms outstretched to the figure approaching across the sea.   Every time, I walked in to chapel, I would see that painting and think to myself, “What an ugly painting!”   (And included in my list of ugly religious paintings, I note this one right after “Praying Hands” on crushed velvet.)  

The painting was a product of the 1970s, and even though I myself am a product of the 1970s, I must say that this painting was a victim of its time: lurid colors that looked out of place even hanging on an off-white wall of an otherwise austere sanctuary.

I suspicion that it was kept around because it represented a story good for pastors in training to see often. To the future leaders of the Church, the story reminded that in the midst of the tumult, Jesus comes to us, and yes, even calms the chaotic waters. And, we pastors need to keep that in mind. You go from seminary out into the open sea of ministry.   When faced with a congregation in conflict, when offering a comforting word to a grieving family, or when leading in a time of sudden crisis, that painting might come to mind, this story of the miracle that turbulent waters can be calmed down and indeed God is with us.  

By contrast, I have never seen a painting of the Canaanite woman talking, well, better said, verbally sparring with Jesus. In fact, it was not until seminary that I heard anything of her story.   Odd to think that I grew up in church, hardly missing a Sunday since elementary school, and still, this story that appears just down the narrative road from the tale of the bold, yet wet behind the ears Simon Peter, never was heard from the pulpit or in a Sunday school lesson. Why was this story of the Canaanite woman somehow missed in my religious upbringing?   Why did Simon get the 1970s oil painting and the Canaanite woman get forgotten in the text, passed over in the shuffle of sermon planning and Sunday school quarterlies?

On one hand, it could be that some stories just don’t get their day in the sun. They’re good stories, but somehow, another story gets picked up, being oft-told, considered grand, and enshrined in memory. Moreover, that other story, that poor little story, just sits there, wondering when its turn shall come.

Another perspective would be the relative inattentiveness of the Church to the stories of women in the Bible. Very little has been said historically about the women of the faith, and the centuries of patriarchal (male dominated) perspectives have shaped the Church in ways that we are still trying to bring to light and cast aside.   Thus, we frankly name these omissions and work towards a more attentive engagement with the biblical text.   Lifting up the Canaanite woman’s story is part of attuning the Church to a vision of humanity consistent with the New Testament, “There is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female, for you are all one in Christ”   (Galatians 3:28).

Let’s be honest. If we read the second story, I imagine the story of the Canaanite woman rattles our cages a bit. Here, we find Jesus’ interactions with the woman to be quite contentious. Just as the arguments play out with the Pharisees and other religious leaders, the encounter between the Canaanite woman and Jesus is back and forth, each side bantering back and forth, almost as if a tennis match. Unlike the other arguments, here the Canaanite woman bests Jesus; the only time that Jesus loses an argument in the Gospels.

Jesus’ inattention to the Canaanite would be well grounded in the “ways things are” type logic of first century Judaism. Jesus understood his mission to be primarily among the house of Israel, not among the Gentile outsiders. The Canaanite woman was everything that Jesus should not be dealing with: a Gentile from the wrong side of the tracks. There were social, religious, ethnic, and gender barriers put there by tradition and custom, and yet, here comes the woman asking for Jesus’ help, and Jesus largely unmoved by her request.   That is, until she makes a point that Jesus must concede.   The analogy chafes, comparing a person to a dog begging for table scraps, but Jesus acknowledges her faithfulness and her fortitude.   The excluded are to be included as part of Jesus’ mission.

  You might wonder why these two stories go together, seemingly different images of a disciple trying to walk on water and a woman who takes on Jesus in a flurry of words. In reading Matthew, I cannot read one story without reading the other. The two stories may be different, but they have some common issues. Both Peter and the unnamed woman deal with crises: a boat out in stormy waters and a child whose life is at risk. Both call out to Jesus as “Lord”. Both persons encounter Jesus and receive a word from Jesus about their faith. The two stories are complimentary to one another, as one story illustrates a failure of nerve and the other an abundance of belief.   And I suspicion Matthew is making a more subtle point than we might care to admit: the outsider is the one who gets it, not the person that you’d expect.

Simon Peter, the rock, the most prominent disciple in the Gospels, the one who is promised the very keys to the kingdom, falls into the water and is told he has “little faith”.   The Canaanite woman, so marginal to what the disciples believe is the message of Jesus’ gospel, so obscured from any consideration of status or “sacred worth” by so many religious laws and labels, is commended by Jesus for her “great” faith. She receives answers to prayer, while Simon Peter is all wet.

What I really wish would have been hanging up in the chapel was a picture of what happened after Jesus was sighted out at sea (or literally, out “on” the sea!). The image of Jesus patiently fishing the bold yet doubting disciple Simon Peter out of the water would be a good and prudent word for impressionable young seminarians (or seminarians in sore need of being impressionable).   Church leaders, especially the ones in training, can be too smug and certain for their own good.   It would have been a humble sight to walk in each time for chapel and see a reminder that our faith is “little”, which one scholar says is Matthew’s way of talking about a faith that is “neither perfect nor absent”, just little, a measure that still needs more to be full.   As I put it, a “little” faith is “there”, but more faith is needed!  

When we read these two stories, it is a cautionary tale for the Church. We can sometimes be skeptical (or outright indignant) about the idea of some folks being able to be part of the Church. Some churches, even denominations, operate with a velvet rope approach to God: only the ones who fit the pre-determined, ironclad criteria can get in.  

Would the Canaanite woman have a fighting chance of being heard in such a crowd?   She’s always there in the form of a person who believes in Jesus as their Lord. She’s there as the one who takes the Gospel to heart yet finds the modern day “inner circle” too skeptical, too ready to hasten Jesus onwards.   I’ve spotted her on the edges of worship services and denominational meetings, hoping to be recognized, hoping to be heard.   I find myself ashamed and angry that when spotted by the majority, she’s scorned and cast aside.   Pass a policy, keep her at arm’s length, don’t bother Jesus with her.    To be honest, if this is the way the Church works, I’d rather not be in the middle of the entourage, which is where preachers find themselves by vocation and church politics alike.   I’d rather be with her, off over to the side, asking questions, hoping to be heard.

I say to you this morning, as one who knows that he does not walk on water (and for the record, cannot swim either!), that I want to be careful in being part of the Church, because quite frankly, I take the Gospel at its word. The Church can get sometimes too certain that it forgets to honor the reality that we falter.   Look at the scope of church history, and you see the opposite of Matthew at work: the insiders can silence the outsiders quite easily, quite handily, and quite readily.   As I prayerfully read Matthew and the other gospels, I would be remiss if I did not point out that a gospel value is found along the way. The outsider is welcome, not as the sum of all the labels stamped upon them by the majority, but as the beloved of Jesus.   The Canaanite woman is worthy of Jesus’ love and affirmation, just as surely as Jesus loves that inner circle of disciples out on the stormy seas.   AMEN.