Just Who Do You Think You Are?

A sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 15
August 20, 2023

Just who do you think you are? Has anyone ever asked you that, perhaps with a tone revealing that they certainly don’t think of you in the same way? 

The question is central in today’s gospel–who do you think you are? I’ll be honest: this passage has always been a challenge for me. Maybe it has for you, too. Let’s dive in and take a close look. 

A Canaanite woman approaches Jesus. This woman is an outsider. She is marginalized in several ways: She’s a woman in a society that saw women as inferior and even incomplete persons; she is a Canaanite, the traditional enemy of the Jewish people in the land; and as a Canaanite, she’s likely a worshiper of the Baals. As if that wasn’t enough, her daughter is possessed by a demon. Perhaps it is spiritual oppression; perhaps it is mental illness or even something physical like epilepsy. We don’t know, and frankly it doesn’t matter. Her daughter is suffering with something that cannot be cured or explained away, and this woman and her daughter were no doubt avoided in the street, excluded from polite company, put to the margins, left without the help they desperately need, even among their own people. 

If we asked this woman our question, how would she respond? Just who do you think you are? She might say she’s a woman who just needs a break, just a little help, just a smile and some dignity in a world where both are in short supply; a woman who will do anything to help her daughter get relief from her terrible suffering.

I know some folks like her. I bet you do, too. A lot of them come up to our church doors, asking for a bus ticket, a snack pack; hoping to find some dignity in a world where dignity must be earned instead of given freely. 

She certainly doesn’t find any help among Jesus’s disciples. “Send her away,” they beg Jesus, no doubt jeering at her. We’re tired; she’s bothering us; she’s not important to us–just who does she think she is, thinking she has the right to interrupt us like this! Send her away, Jesus. 

I know some folks like that, too. I’ve been one of them before. “Beep!” the buzzer downstairs sounds out. “Oh, send them away, Lord.” May God have mercy on me. 

For his part, Jesus doesn’t even acknowledge her at first. When he does acknowledge her, he dismisses her concern. “It is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Jesus uses the common metaphor for Gentile people among the Jews–dogs. It sounds harsh to our ears, difficult to hear. It doesn’t seem to conform with what we know about Jesus. 

Jesus is asking the question, too. “Just who do you think you are? God has sent me to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he says. “I see your troubles, but you’re not my mission. You’re from a different people–a dog, not a lost sheep.” 

But then the woman, this woman who had been on the outside for so long, this foreign woman, this desperate woman, this incredible woman, does what the Pharisees and the scribes always fail to do. She beats Jesus in a debate. She quips, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 

Just who do you think you are? This woman answers: I may be a dog; I may be an outsider; I may not be who you’re looking for; but I believe some of God’s mercy is for me and my daughter, and all I’m asking for is a crumb. A crumb would be enough.” 

The early Church fathers look at this scene and they argue something incredible happens. Through this woman, an outsider and marginalized as she can be, God the Father speaks to God the Son, in the same way that God can speak to us through those people around us we might rather pass by. Through this woman, the Father tells the Son that his mission is not only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; it is to all people. In this woman, in this most unexpected encounter, Jesus hears his Father’s voice and obeys. “Great is your faith,” he says. “Let it be done for you as you wish.” 

St. Augustine of Hippo says that this woman should be the model for all of us Gentile folk. So her question is ours today: Just who do you think you are? 

My friend, you may be a dog. I know I can be a dog sometimes. I’m certainly a sinner. If you’re expecting the person in this pulpit to have all the answers and be a perfect saint, I’m afraid you’re going to have to go somewhere else. And I hope you’ll acknowledge the same about yourself. You’ve messed up just as I have; and you fall down just like I do. 

But be that as it may, there is grace sufficient here. There is forgiveness for you and for me. God’s mercy is for you. The love of God is big enough to catch you and pick you up. And just a crumb of God’s provision in your life is enough. And because we have received so generously, so freely from our loving and life-giving God, we can afford to give out grace and forgiveness and mercy and love and dignity to all those around us, especially to those who haven’t received any from this old world–we can afford to dole it out without cost, over and over and over again. 

Just who do you think you are? I hope you know you’re a child of God. And even if we are dogs from time to time, we can take comfort knowing that not only does Jesus love the little children of the world, he loves the dogs, too. And we have a seat at his table, because we belong to him.