Sermons from St Faith's
Being Vulnerable
Revd Sue Lucas, 17th August,
2014
I was a philosophy undergraduate at London
University in the 1980s – at Bedford College, in
fact – now Regent’s College, in Regent’s
time. It was an exciting time for London
philosophy – though as a callow youth at the time,
I didn’t realise it! A.J. – Freddy – Ayer
had not long left University College, which he had
built into a fine department, Richard Wollheim
replaced him, Bernard Willliams had been at
Bedford – some of the great names in analytic
philosophy from the middle of last century.
The discussions went on long into the night and
way out to sea; often carrying on in the pub or
the college bar – and seminars had a habit of
going on as long as someone had something to
say. Doctors in the congregation had better
cover their ears at this point – one could smoke
in lecture theatres in those days – and, being
philosophers, there were quite a few roll-up
Gauloises around – and I swear that, as the heat
of debate increased, the blue fog got denser!
On one particular occasion – late one afternoon –
it was winter, cold and getting dark, Prof Brian
O’Shaughnessy was presenting some work on
Schopenhauer. He’d dedicated his life to the
study of Schopenhauer, in particular, his views on
the will, and had recently published a two volume
magnum opus about it; he was a bear of a man, a
tall, imposing, but somehow laid back
Australian. And, as the argument raged, and
the blue fog got thicker, suddenly, a young
whipper snapper of an undergraduate – who at that
time had a blue Mohican I think - delivered a
killer blow – a point devastating to the entire
line of argument. (that undergraduate is now
himself Professor of Philosophy at UCL by the
way). Prof O’Shaughnessy leaned against one
of the mullioned windows, opened it to let a bit
of the fug out, and an icy blast in, and said, in
Antipodean strains – ‘O, I don’t know – but I
thought I would give it a try.’
Today’s Gospel is unique; it is unique,
because Jesus gets into an argument with a
woman – and loses. It’s unique because it is
not as though Jesus is incapable of winning an
argument; in his encounters with the supposedly
educated, the scribes and the Pharisees, it is
usually him that ties them in knots and turns
their own rhetoric against them – it is usually
him that delivers the killer blow. In the
first part of today’s Gospel, we see him do just
that: and, not insignificantly, it is the purity
laws the debate is about; Jesus lambasts them with
tying ordinary people up in knots about what is
pure and impure, whilst being unfaithful to the
covenant themselves.
So Jesus’ initial response to the woman in the
second half of the Gospel – is deeply shocking –
because it seems to side with the very purity laws
he had so summarily dismissed. His view is
that of a Jewish man of the time – and in the
Greek, the words he uses to address her are
shockingly rude – offensive, even. Jesus in
fact allows himself to be an illustration of the
‘sewer mouth’ he has just so comprehensively
demolished in the Scribes and Pharisees. But
the woman is made of strong stuff: she doesn’t
deny the insult – which so easily turns an
argument into a fruitless game of ‘he said she
said’ – but accepts it, holds her head up, and
deflects it: she uses Jesus’ own words against him
– even the dogs get to eat the scraps. At
this point, she wins – Jesus capitulates; there is
a total turn around, and Jesus, who had dismissed
her treats her as an equal. There are echoes
of Elijah’s encounter with Ahab in 1 Kings 17, and
his subsequently being offered hospitality by a
widow – like Elijah, Jesus heals the woman’s
child, restores her to her community; but this
child is a daughter, not a son.
There are real difficulties in this passage, and
they should not be dismissed too easily, or
allegorised away, or made safe by
over-spiritualising them;
First, we are reminded of the reality of the
incarnation: to be human is to be limited – to be
limited by our bodies, by the time and place of
our birth, by our gender, race and class; and in
responding as he does to this woman, Jesus shows
that this is true of him too.
But if we see the passage as a whole, it is
possible to see the two debates in it as linked
and contrasted. Jesus wipes the floor with
those who represent the interests of those who
have power and influence, whether that be the
brutality of Rome or the oppressive, rule-bound
hypocrisy of the religious ruling classes that
colluded with it.
In Mark’s version of the same story, the woman is
described as being ‘Syro-Phoenician,’ here, in
Matthew, as a Canaanite, from the region of Tyre
and Sidon in other words, a foreigner.
Perhaps she is what we would now call an asylum
seeker, fleeing persecution; or an economic
migrant, seeking to support her daughter and
herself through where work is available. And
she is a woman without male protection – which in
that culture makes her very vulnerable.
So Jesus who is never bested by the powerful, by
those in control of both resources, and ideology –
but he is bested by someone who is doubly marginal
– a woman and a foreigner; he heals her daughter,
gives her back her family, restores her to her
community.
Jesus, that is, in allows himself to be made
vulnerable, lives out Isaiah’s inclusive vision –
of maintaining justice, doing what is right.
God’s remaking of his people in Jesus means that
to be truly human is to live in a world in which
race and class and gender and sexuality and wealth
are abolished. And this, as Paul tells us in
Romans, is God’s gift – and it is also our
calling: to be questioning, and suspicious, and
argumentative – with those who control power, and
wealth and ideology –
But it is also about allowing ourselves to be
vulnerable, to be changed by hearing the voices of
those who are weak and powerless and marginal, and
to acknowledge our own collusion in systems that
divide and dehumanise;
And it is to name the contradictions of the
present, whilst living the hope that God’s reality
is different: of feeding the hungry, welcoming the
stranger and outcast and protecting the poor from
the violence of the rich.
As we witness violence on our streets and in the
world’s economic systems, our calling has never
been more urgent. May we be faithful to
it. Amen.
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