ISAIAH 56 AND THE CANAANITE WOMAN - Anne East

Isaiah 56: 1,6-8.   Matthew 15: 21 – 28

For 25 years Stanley Green walked up and down Oxford Street carrying a placard that encouraged us all to be better people. His sign read: “Less Lust, By Less Protein: Meat Fish Bird; Eg Cheese; Peas Beans, Nuts. And Sitting’. He believed that eating less protein would curb aggression and lust, leading to a happier society.

God rest his soul, but it doesn’t really work like that. If only it were that easy – and we could fix it all by changing our diet.

Isaiah 56: verse 1 “Thus says the Lord: maintain justice and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.”

“maintain justice and do what is right” :  This final section of the book of Isaiah Is addressed to the people who are returning from exile in Babylon.

The book of Isaiah is very long - as those of you who attended our Wednesday Bible Studies last year (led by Brutus and by Sarah Cooper) will know. It is considered by scholars to span 200 to 250 years and is often viewed in three sections:

Chapters 1 – 39 written mostly by Isaiah the historical prophet.

Chapters 40 – 55 (‘second Isaiah’) messages of comfort and hope for the exiles in Babylon, including the famous ‘Suffering Servant’ poems

and Chapters 56 – 66 (‘third Isaiah’) which focuses on the return to Jerusalem, rebuilding the community, and a vision of a new heaven and earth.

The exile to Babylon, after the conquest of Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar , was a significant event in the history of the Jewish people. Jerusalem and King Solomon’s temple were completely destroyed. The heartbreaking lament in Psalm 137 is from that period:

By the rivers of Babylon—    there we sat down and wept    when we remembered Zion.² On the willows    we hung up our harps.³ For there our captors    asked us for songs,and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,    ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’

⁴ How could we sing the Lord’s song    in a foreign land?

But now a generation has passed. People have returned from exile to find other people living in their homes, the economy is broken, there is a lack of order, and  a mix of cultures and religions.

Disaster recovery is a messy business. Who makes decisions? Whom can you trust?  And most importantly, who belongs and who does not?

Well the writer of today’s passage (chapter 56) has a surprising answer: a radical new definition of who is “in” and who is “out”. It’s not based on ethnicity, or cultural customs, or even on religion, but on behaviour:

And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,    to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,    and to be his servants,all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,    and hold fast my covenant—⁷ these I will bring to my holy mountain,    and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

Earlier in the chapter, in a part which our lectionary omits, we have a reference, not only to foreigners but also to eunuchs:

do not let the eunuch say,    ‘I am just a dry tree.’⁴ For thus says the Lord:To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,    who choose the things that please me    and hold fast my covenant,⁵ I will give, in my house and within my walls,    a monument and a name    better than sons and daughters;I will give them an everlasting name    that shall not be cut off.

So what defines a faithful person is not his or her sexual condition, nationality or religion, the faithful person is the one who loves the name of the Lord, keeps the Sabbath, and holds fast God’s covenant.

Everyone is invited to gather under a covenant based on justice and doing what is right. This is a broad vision. Studies of the official records of that time have noted that there were many foreigners living in the area: “Jewish, Edomite, Arab, Phoenician and Aramaean names are identifiable”. (this from the French priest and scholar Bernard Gosse)

“Maintain justice and do what is right” says the prophet. Accept those who live by God’s love, who embody goodness, justice and care for one another.

“my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

So what, then, are we to make of the exchange between Jesus and the Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel reading? Jesus’ attitude and language is shocking. How does that sit with what we’ve just read in Isaiah? And with Paul’s powerful statement to the Galatians:  ‘In Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’ (Galatians 3:28) Salvation is not exclusive.

This woman comes seeking help for her daughter, but Jesus says that his mission is only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and then there is this witty conversation about taking the children’s food and giving it to the dogs. In calling her  a dog – an insulting name that was routinely given to Gentile pagans, Jesus is reminding her of her lowly place in society. And yet she persists. She comes to Jesus with an unshakeable conviction that God’s mercy is enough. She addresses him as ‘Son of David’ and cries out “Lord have mercy”.

In Mark’s version of this story she is described as “Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia”. It’s likely therefore that she addressed Jesus directly in Greek which was the universal language for trade and daily communication in that part of the world. And it is also the language in which the Gospels were written.

“Lord have mercy - Kyrie eleison” words we still repeat in our liturgy. Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy — a cry that echoes through the centuries, chanted in cloisters, whispered in hospitals, screamed on battlefields.

“Lord, help me,” she keeps on shouting. The disciples want to send her away. She kneels at his feet.

What a remarkable woman. She is persistent and unrelenting. And her quick and witty retort to Jesus, “ Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table” might well have brought a smile to Jesus’ face. His love and compassion flow and the daughter is healed.

I’m not one for rhyming couplets, to be honest, but here’s an epigram from the American poet Edwin Markham:

He drew a circle that shut me out –

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle and took him in.

“Maintain justice and do what is right” : in this week which has seen the tragic death of Jason Arday, academic, professor, father, partner, brother and son, we need to ensure that justice can tell the truth without becoming an instrument of humiliation. We need to examine ourselves and the society which we are building. We need to draw that circle of love big enough to encompass those we might perceive to be ‘different’.

Lord, have mercy. Amen