THE nations of the world came to America this summer in the form of the World Cup soccer tournament. The national teams of 48 countries competed to see which nation is the best at the sport the rest of the world calls football. I’m only a casual soccer fan but even I could see that the soccer was brilliant. And I think I finally figured out what offsides is in soccer.

What really go my attention happened outside the soccer field. It was the enthusiastic and warm welcome that many Americans gave to these foreign teams and their fans. In Lawrence, Kansas, for example, where the team from Algeria was headquartered, the University of Kansas band learned to play the Algerian national anthem. Citizens of Lawrence adopted the team as their own and distributed scarves with Algeria’s colors. The Algerian players were reportedly moved to tears by this welcome. The Algerian players responded by organizing soccer clinics for local youth. Back in Algeria, the government of that mostly Muslim country decided to create a sister city relationship with Kansas City. 

There were a lot of feel-good stories like this throughout the tournament. Which came as something of a surprise given the political mood of our country and our nation’s current relationship with the rest of the globe. As a soccer fan from Scotland put it, “We were expecting to be met by ICE agents, aggressive police, and the political climate we all see on the news, and that could not be further from the truth of what we've actually experienced.” 

These are small gestures of hospitality, to be sure, but significant, for they give us a glimpse of that day envisioned by the prophet Isaiah when people of all nations will gather on God’s holy mountain and find unity in praising God together and living in a way that is a blessing to one another. 

In our Gospel reading today, we see that vision of Isaiah lived out by Jesus, as he reaches across boundaries of language, culture, and religion to bring healing to the daughter of a Canaanite woman.

But let’s face it, this story of Jesus meeting a Canaanite woman is not exactly a feel-good story. It turns out to be rather more complicated than that, as maybe encounters with differences usually are if we dig into them. 

Jesus is not all that warm and welcoming, at least not at first. He tells the woman that healing a foreigner is not at the top of his agenda. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he says, and adds what sounds to our ears like an insult: “It’s not fair to give the food meant for the children to the dogs.” 

Amazingly, the woman is not put off by Jesus’ comment. She seems to accept the fact that she is not the primary target of Jesus’ ministry. Her faith is resilient, however. She still has faith that there is enough of God’s power and mercy in Jesus for him to heal her daughter. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs from their master’s table,” she says. 

We can’t help wishing that Jesus had healed this woman’s daughter straight away. We can’t help wishing he had been more sensitive. But before we send Jesus off to a workshop on diversity, equity, and inclusion, we might remember that Jesus often challenged people and was not always quick to solve their problems. Jesus tends to ask awkward questions and tell provocative stories; he assumes people can be resilient, for his intention is to lead people to a deeper relationship with God. 

In his conversation with the Canaanite woman, Jesus names the elephant in the room, that is, he names the awkward truth, which is that there is a real difference between the Canaanites and the people of Israel and it is not trivial. The awkward truth is that Jesus’ entire ministry grows out of a very specific tradition that we call Judaism. Jesus does not try to hide this fact or pretend that such differences don’t matter at all. 

Perhaps we can take a lesson here for our own encounters with people of a different culture, religion, or political worldview. Perhaps we can learn to be resilient. 

In our nation we live in a time of huge political differences. The differences are often the elephant in the room at family gatherings. One approach we can take is to avoid talking about these differences. But that is hard to do and doesn’t always feel genuine. Another approach is to try to argue the other person into adopting our point of view—but that hardly ever turns out well. Few of us are ever argued out of our positions. 

There is another approach, and maybe a more Jesus-like approach: we can use the occasion to deepen the relationship. We can acknowledge differences and be curious about how the other person came to have the convictions they do and why they care about certain issues. And we might describe how we have come to hold the positions we hold. The goal of such a conversation would be to reveal something of ourselves and learn about the other, and to name what we long for, and the healing we hope for. That might bring us closer and point us toward the God who is bigger than our differences. Such conversations call for resilience. And a hope in a God who is bigger than our differences.

Before we send Jesus to the diversity workshop we might also reflect on where we find ourselves in this story. Are we one of the disciples advising Jesus on how to conduct his ministry? Or are we closer to the Canaanite woman, desperate for healing, and knowing perfectly well that in a world of so much suffering we have no particular claim on God’s healing power, but we trust there is enough mercy and grace in Jesus Christ for us. A crumb from the table is all we need. That is what faith looks like, according to Jesus. 

And when we trust that there is enough of God’s healing and mercy for us, we are able to believe there is healing and mercy for those who are different from us. 

Some years ago, a Catholic priest named Gregory Boyle was assigned to a neighborhood of Los Angeles ravaged by gang violence. The world of gangs was vastly different from anything he had known. Part of him wanted to preach to these young men and women about the bad choices they were making. Part of him wanted to argue with them and convince them that they were headed toward either prison or a violent end. 

But after a while he realized that these men and women who belonged to gangs knew those facts better than anyone else. They knew that their lives were headed nowhere good. They knew they had no claim on God; in fact they were pretty sure God had no blessings for them. What they needed, Father Boyle decided, was a sign that there were crumbs of God’s mercy and grace left over for them. 

Father Boyle went on to create an organization called Homeboy Industries which offers jobs, job training, and counseling to former gang members. Boyle wanted to make God’s mercy tangible. And through these signs of God’s love, faith and hope have been awakened in these men and women. Which leads to their healing.

Boyle tells the story of a man named Andre, who had been abandoned by his mother when he was 9 and was homeless for two years and survived on food that he scavenged from dumpsters. Eventually he ended up a gang and then in prison. Finally, coming out of prison, he made it to Homeboy Industries.

One Monday morning, Andre had an appointment with his job counselor. The counselor knew Andre was always hungry and that he liked Triscuits, so she brought him a box of Triscuits. “You bought these Triscuits for me?” Andre asked in disbelief. The counselor nodded Yes. “You mean, you thought about me over the weekend?” Andre asked. The counselor said, “Yeah, I thought about you.”

“You mean, you think about me when I’m not with you?” Andre said. “Wow. I never imagined anybody would think about me when I’m not with them.”

Andre was learning to see himself as someone worth thinking about. He was beginning to trust that there was enough of God’s love and mercy also for him. 

 Through Jesus Christ, God is making a new world out of a world of differences. It is not always a feel-good process. In Jesus Christ our differences are not erased but they become occasions for our horizons to be expanded and our hearts to lifted so we may reconciled with God and one another and learn to be a blessing to one another. 

Because there is enough of God’s healing and mercy for us, we can show grace to others. And God is sending us the Holy Spirit that we might make a holy world of difference, through Christ our Lord. 

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