Bible Text: Genesis 45:1-15; Matthew 15 7:1-23 | Preacher: Rev. Berlin Guerrero | Series: 2020 | The story in last Sunday’s lectionary reading, particularly Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28, was about the acts of the Joseph’s brothers of planning to kill him. They hated Joseph because he was favoured and loved by Jacob more than any of the other brothers (Gen 37:4). Besides, his dreams of ruling over them made his brothers hate him more (v.8).

 

With Reuben’s intervention, the older brothers decided to drop him in a pit instead of murdering him and later on he was sold as a slave and taken to Egypt.

 

Upon hearing a concocted story that Joseph was devoured by an animal in the fields of Dothan, with his bloodied robe as “evidence’, Joseph was torn to pieces (v. 33). He was heart-broken and mourned for many days.

 

How heartless Joseph’s brothers were for selling their brother to slavery and causing their father to grieve, devastated and heart-broken!

 

Some years later, Joseph impressed the Pharaoh and became second in command (Genesis 41:41-45). When a famine gripped the region, Jacob told his sons to go to Egypt to buy grain. They appeared before Joseph who recognized them, but they did not know it was him. Joseph kept his identity; instead, he used his power over his brothers (42:9–43:34). First, he demanded they return with their youngest brother, Benjamin, and until they did, he imprisons Simeon. The brothers were sent home with the grain. Jacob would not let Benjamin go to Egypt because he had already lost two sons. But when the food ran out, and the famine was still severe, Jacob sent the sons back with Benjamin. After seeing Benjamin and sharing a meal with his brothers, they still did not know him.

Then Joseph placed his bothers to a test. Joseph instructs his servant to slip a silver cup in Benjamin’s sack. Joseph then confronts the brothers about the alleged theft. The brothers beg Joseph to release Benjamin and Judah volunteers to stay in his place. It was then that Joseph revealed himself to his brothers.

 

This is quite a touching scene!

 

And here you can see that the heartless brothers were not heartless at all. They did everything they could to protect Benjamin (their youngest brother) and their father Jacob as well. They wouldn’t allow another brother to be in danger and their father to be subjected to the same devastation due to loss of another son.

 

And as victim of an evil act, Joseph, did not hold a grudge against his brothers. His heart was not consumed by hate despite what his brothers did to him. He restored their family but also absolved them of their crime by saying it was God who planned it all.

 

Some questions for reflections:

 

Does good eventually come from evil acts (what Joseph’s brothers did to him)?

 

Does God cause bad things to happen so good can come of them?

 

What lurks in the heart of people that they do evil things on one hand, and do godly acts on the other?

 

This question connects us to the Matthew 14 reading, particularly verse 19: For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.

 

But before this let us see where the verse is located in the rest of the reading, or perhaps the whole chapter.

 

Jesus was teaching the crowd (not necessarily about pathology, the scientific study of causes of diseases) about what it means to be ritually clean according to Jewish beliefs. He explains that it is not what a person eats (unwashed or by using unwashed hands) that defiles or makes a person unclean but what comes out of the mouth which proceeds from the heart that defiles.

 

Jesus was pointing out that what is more important than being ritually clean (religiously practicing the Jewish law of washing one’s hand) is to be clean in God’s eyes. In other words, one cannot be clean in God’s eyes simply by obeying the law.

 

Jesus reminds the crowd that God’s law is higher than any other laws. And this unique kind of law is not written in paper or tablets but is written in the heart.

 

‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people’” (Jer. 31:33).

 

In Psalm 37:30-31 we read, “The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just. The law of his God is in his heart; his feet do not slip.”

 

God’s law has already been put in the people’s heart and it requires persons to acknowledge and conform with this law in order to displace and dispel evil that lurks in the heart. From the clean heart will come what is good and righteous in God’s sight.

 

I believe this was operational in Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman.

 

First, he ignores the woman’s plea for mercy so that her daughter can be freed from a tormenting demon as if the woman was invisible. Similar to how homeless persons feel invisible (not seen) because they are ignored. They are denied of their existence.

 

In response to his disciples prodding him to do something

for the woman, he says to them responds “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Mat 15:24).

 

We begin to ask what kind of Jesus is this? This is not the usual Jesus who would always respond with compassion and healing.

 

Yet the woman was persistent. In one of the most moving gestures in all gospels, she kneels before Jesus and begs for help, “Lord, help me.” (v. 25) And yet again, as if Jesus was reminded of how a domestic animal behaves before its master at feeding time, blurts out: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” (v. 26)

 

What she receives is another (the third time) rejection which you can say an all-time “low” – comparing the begging woman to a hungry dog! A commentator wrote how heartless Jesus was at this point.

 

The woman, undaunted and not disheartened by Jesus’ portrayal of her as a dog, uses the comparison to strengthen her cause by saying: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” (v. 27).

 

To which Jesus answered, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly (v. 28).

 

In the verses that followed, nothing was said about how the disciples reacted towards the end of the encounter with the Canaanite woman. We can ask: Why did Jesus behave in such way?

 

In Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman, he shows to his disciples what a person with God’s law in his/her heart can do.

 

A person with God’s law inscribed in the heart is no longer burdened by religious law is preoccupied by what is more important to God.

 

James has a way of defining what a genuine religion is:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world (James 1:27).

 

Micah’s (6:8) definition:  

God has told you, O mortal, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

 

In the preceding verses of Matthew’s gospel, the writer describes Jesus full of compassion for the people as he continued to cure the sick, and feed the hungry, and preach the good news of God’s Reign.