August 18, 2023 - Renewed Heart Ministries

It’s Okay to Discover You Are Wrong

Posted on August 18, 2023 by Herb Montgomery

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Season 1, Episode 26: Matthew 15.10-28. Lectionary A, Proper 15

Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

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It’s Okay to Discover You Are Wrong

Herb Montgomery | August 18, 2023

To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.

“She calls him out on the hurtfulness of his rhetoric. She also uses his language against him to show him how blinkered his understanding is. And Jesus models humility. She is right, and Jesus makes an about-face.”

Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:

Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly. (Matthew 15:10-20, 21-28)

Before we begin this week I want to address some harmful language in our reading. The first is a generalizing reference to Pharisees. The Pharisees were a very diverse group that held many of the same ethical views of love and inclusion as the early Jesus community did. They were the progressive liberals of their community, and appealed to a large portion of the masses. The Pharisees later evolved into what would become Rabbinic Judaism. Their ethics of love and compassion, justice, and inclusion are a central part of Jewish wisdom today.

This is important to say because using the term “Pharisee” as a pejorative slur is historically incorrect and has also been the root cause of antisemitism in Christianity over the centuries.

There was a sect of the Pharisees (the school of Shammai) that opposed the more progressive Jesus community. But this group of Pharisees were just as much opposed to their more progressive fellow Pharisees in the school of Hillel.

Because of this complex historical reality, as we tell the Jesus story we need to remember that many of the debates we encounter in the Jesus story were not between Christians and Jews (as Jesus himself was never a Christian). They were a debate within the Jewish community, between competing voices in Judaism, over what fidelity to their God looked like.

The first portion of our reading addresses whether things we eat defile us individually and whether how we relate to one another defile us collectively. This was a debate between Jesus and some of the Pharisees, and also a debate among the Pharisees themselves.

Second, this passage refers to blindness pejoratively too. Equating a disability like blindness with being inferior, sinful, or adversarial is harmful to people who live with disabilities every day. Again, today we can do better when we tell the Jesus story.

Later in this week’s reading, we encounter a story of a woman whom Matthew refers to as “Canaanite” and Mark calls “Syrophoenician” (Mark 7:26). When Matthew refers to her as a Canaanite, his listeners would have recalled the region’s ancient Indigenous populations within their own cultural stories and folklores of exodus, migration and settlement there.

The early Jesus movement was not monolithic on the underlying message of this passage. Some members of the early Jesus movement felt their purpose was more in-house: they believed they were to be about winning fellow Jews to follow the Jewish Jesus. Many of these members stayed in Judea, specifically Jerusalem, and recognized the apostleship of Peter and James (see Luke and Acts). Others in the early Jesus community believed they were called to win those outside of the Jewish community to become followers of Jesus. Paul and the Matthean community in Galilee held this view (compare the endings of Matthew’s gospel and Luke’s). In Luke’s gospel, all the disciples remain in Jerusalem and grow the Jesus movement among the Jewish people from there. But in Matthew’s gospel, all the disciples return to Galilee and grow the Jesus movement from there, embracing even those who were not Jews.

The story of the Canaanite woman supports the Matthean community’s view that Jesus teachings should be shared beyond the boundaries of the Jewish community.

What I love about this story is that we get a picture of a very human Jesus. He models being open to listening to those our theologies, interpretations, or views harm and being willing to grow and change. When we discover that something in our theology or our interpretations is harmful, this Jesus tells us it’s okay to learn and change. It’s okay to admit that once you held a harmful position, you now know more than you knew then, and your mind has changed.

This story forces us to embrace an evolving Jesus, not a fixed one. As the gospel of Luke says, “The child [Jesus] grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him” (Luke 2:40).

When Jesus became an adult, did this growing and learning in wisdom stop? Did he just know everything as an adult? It may appeal to some to view Jesus this way, but it doesn’t align with our own experiences or how much we keep learning, evolving, and growing as adults.

Consider this passage in the New Testament book of Hebrews: “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” (Hebrews 5.8)

Jesus learned obedience. And he learned it through those things he suffered. This sounds a lot like the way all of us learn: through experience and the hard way. It’s a picture of a very human Jesus who, when his understanding broadened, embraced change to become even more a source of healing and life to those he came in contact with.

Again, Matthew’s gospel refers to this woman as a Canaanite woman. I love that the person who teaches Jesus to see the world through a much larger lens is a woman. When Jesus refers to Jewish people as God’s children and non-Jews as less than dogs, she calls him out on the hurtfulness of his rhetoric. She also uses his language against him to show him how blinkered his understanding is. And Jesus models humility. She is right, and Jesus makes an about-face.

Remember, this is not just any Gentile woman. Matthew refers to her as a Canaanite.

This calls to my mind the words of James Cone in his classic, God of the Oppressed, and Philip Jenkins’ comments in Laying Down the Sword. Here are both:

“Native American theologian Robert Warrior [reads] the Exodus and Conquest narratives ‘with Canaanite eyes.’ The Exodus is not a paradigmatic event of liberation for indigenous peoples but rather an event of colonization.” (James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed, Kindle Edition Location 130)

The story of the Exodus speaks of liberation to some oppressed communities, and to others, this same narrative speaks of colonization.

“The parallels are all the more painful as European colonialists over the centuries consciously used the conquest of Canaan as a model for their own activities.” (Philip Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses, p. 20-21)

This month’s recommended reading from Renewed Heart Ministries is Randy Woodley’s Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonized Approach to Christian Doctrine. This volume is well worth reading as we also follow Jesus in listening to and growing our understanding of, relationships with, and reparations toward Indigenous populations today.

Who might our Canaanite women be today? Who might we need to listen to?

How can we follow the Jesus of this week’s reading and be willing to listen to communities our theologies and interpretation have harmed? Jesus followers who are men could begin by listening to the experiences of women. Jesus followers who are straight and cisgender could begin by listening to the experiences of those who identify as LGBTQ. Jesus followers who are White could listen to the experiences of people of color. Jesus followers who are upper class or middle class could listen to the experiences of those who spend every day trying to survive poverty. The list could go on and on.

What does it look like for us today to follow the Jesus in our reading this week? Again, who are the Canaanite women that we need to listen to today?

HeartGroup Application

1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.

2. Think back to an experience from your own journey where you discovered you were wrong and that you needed a larger worldview through which to relate to others in our shared world? Share and discuss with your group.

3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?

Thanks for checking in with us, today.

I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.

You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.

Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.

And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.

My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com

Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.

I love each of you dearly,

I’ll see you next week.

Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!

Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.

Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com