Work for the Whole
THE TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Genesis 45:1-15 • Psalm 133 • Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 • Matthew 15:21-28
In a conversation this week during a visit, I assured my new friend that folks aren’t going to church because we’re saints. Well, maybe there are some of you, but I promised that most of us are coming to church not because we’re saints but because we are broken. There is something in our lives that is not whole, and we are seeking healing, restoration, a return to wholeness, if we know what that might be like. We hear a lot about reconciliation, especially in regard to racial reconciliation. To be reconciled relationally is to be made friendly again, to be brought back to harmony. As the people on The Episcopal Church’s task force for racial reconciliation dug deeper into their work, they found that to seek reconciliation would be difficult because there had not been a time when the “races” were ever in full, good relationship. There had never been wholeness. There wasn’t anything to be reconciled back to. Instead, they changed the name of their group, indicating the work they were and are actually doing: truth-telling, reckoning, and healing. They don’t call it anything about reconciliation, but in this kind of work, when we get to the core of our being individually and collectively and get to a place of health and wholeness, that is where we find our reconciliation with God and one another. This is holy work.
If we ever wonder if we’re on the right track in our work as Christians, we can check to see if there’s a story that compares in our scripture. The same can also be said if we’re wondering if we’re going off the rails, but today let’s focus on the merit of doing the work of truth-telling, reckoning, and healing. Our lectionary serves us some wonderful examples with which to work.
In the reading from the Book of Genesis, we have the reunification of Joseph and his brothers. Focusing on the immediate family and this moment in the story, Joseph can’t take it any more. He is going to reveal the truth, and even though Joseph clears the room of everyone but his brothers, everyone in and around the vicinity of Pharaoh's household hears it, the agony of it, the release of it. Joseph proclaims who he is, and his next question is about his father, the one whom he knew without a doubt loved him. While the truth-telling work processes through Joseph in a wave of release, how do the brothers feel? Are they ready to engage? Are they happy to see him, to be faced with the truth? Not at all! They’re unable to answer him. They’re “dismayed . . . at his presence.” It might be an understatement to say that they are uncomfortable in the moment, but truthbombs are aptly named for the discomfort they often bring.
After the truth-telling or at least wading deeper into the truth, if there’s persistence and perseverance, we can get to the reckoning stage. Joseph persists, reassuring or reminding his brothers that it is him, remember, the one they sold into slavery. There’s a lot of truth yet to be told, stories to share, but Joseph fast-tracks them into acknowledging their feelings and their self-judgment in relation to all that has transpired. Even more, Joseph emphasizes the present moment for them so they have to grapple with the fact of the famine, Joseph’s important place in the house of Pharaoh, and how God’s will has prevailed favorably for Joseph despite the brothers’ best efforts to ensure his demise. Maybe the brothers aren’t reckoning with anything; maybe this is mainly focused on Joseph’s perspective, but at least we have a view of the work he is doing.
When what has been done is faced truthfully and what the present moment presents is reckoned with, the path toward healing can appear. Joseph names that his brothers see him now and know that it is he who speaks to them, and he urges them to tell their father what has come of him and all that they’ve seen. For Joseph, his healing lies in being in full relationship with his brothers and ultimately being restored to relationship with his father. Whereas we don’t have evidence that Joseph ever had a good relationship with his brothers, we do know that Jacob loved Joseph. Joseph’s relationship with his brothers could be healed, sealed with tears and kisses and finally conversation. Joseph’s relationship with his father has a chance to be reconciled fully, made all the more meaningful because the brothers went through all the stages of truth-telling, reckoning, and healing. There is transparency in what had happened that caused the fracture in the beginning. The more we get at the root of our disconnect from God and one another, the better the chances of our long-lasting well-being and full restoration into who God created us to be in the first place.
The flow of truth-telling, reckoning, and healing works well for Joseph, but what about in the case of the Canaanite woman? What about in a story where it sounds like Jesus is not exactly filling the role of the Son of the Most Compassionate One? In staff meeting this week, it was pointed out that this story often makes the preacher feel like they need to apologize for Jesus being rude and dismissive if not outright prejudiced. But I don’t think I need to apologize for Jesus here. Just as with Joseph’s trials and tribulations, God’s plan will prevail even through the discomfort, whether we’re in the story or in the pews.
A truth revealed at this point in the Gospel according to Matthew is that there are those who are part of God’s chosen people and those who are decidedly not—the classic “us” and “them.” Naming the Canaanite woman as such marks her as an outsider, yet it is the outsider who is calling upon Jesus with hope. Jesus doesn’t answer right away, and the response of the disciples is to “send her away” because surely he realizes how annoying she is, how distracting, how unwelcome she is. Was Jesus waiting for the disciples to reveal their thoughts and feelings out loud? Jesus responds to his disciples, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
What if we’ve moved from truth-telling to reckoning? What if Jesus’ response is a question and not a statement about their tradition? “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”? Think of the crowds who have been seeking Jesus, the thousands more that will come. He knows their place of birth, their hometown, their hearts, and their sins, but we don’t have evidence of checking documentation, baptismal records, or bank accounts before a healing commences. The woman knows the power of Jesus. She must have seen something in the look in his eyes. She kneels before him, “Lord, help me.” Keeping eye contact with her, the compassion of the Son of God illuminated in his being, do you think the words were for her or for those around him trying to uphold the fortress of a tradition that would exclude those who sought true healing? Reckon with the tradition, the doctrine, the dogma that claims, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” and listen to the voice of the one crying out that “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” She is not and will not be belittled or abandoned by the one whose mercy knows no boundaries. Jesus is not one to exclude or dismiss those who seek love and health and wholeness for themselves or for others. Of course the daughter is healed instantly. Great is the woman’s faith. Great is God’s mercy.
As we continue in our faithful work to bring about beloved community, to manifest heaven on earth, we, too, can participate in the truth-telling and reckoning to benefit our healing and hopefully even make way for reconciliation. We know how good and pleasant it is when we live together in unity, but can we imagine that on a larger scale? I think that’s the hope of the ultimate Beloved Community. I think that’s the dream for us all, and I think that’s the scope of God’s love and embrace of us. God loves us. We are loved. United in love, we are all one in God, and that is our health and wholeness, our ultimate reconciliation.
© 2023 The Rev. Sara Milford
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas