The ACoC has published some Lenten Meditations.
Here is one of them:
“… 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.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the houseof 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 master’s table.’ ” – Matthew 14:22-27
This not a story for people who need to think that Jesus always had it together, because it looks like we’ve caught him being mean to a lady because of her ethnicity. At first, he ignores her cries. Then he refuses to help her and compares her people to dogs.
But she challenges his prejudice. And he listens to her challenge and grows in response to it. He ends up healing her daughter. What we may have here is an important moment of self-discovery in Jesus’ life, an enlargement of what it will mean to be who he was. Maybe we are seeing Jesus understand his universality for the first time.
This meditation makes a number of important points:
Jesus did not “always have it together”. This is modern vernacular for saying Jesus was not sinless.
Jesus was prejudiced against a woman because of her race. The woman in question points out his error, Jesus becomes enlightened and understands his “universality for the first time.” Thus, Jesus was not God, made mistakes and had to be set straight. The reference to understanding his universality is undoubtedly an attempt to point out that, once the woman corrected him, Jesus came to the light as proscribed by 21st Century liberalism: inclusivity is all encompassing, paramount and – well, god.
This is an officially sanctioned document from the ACoC: it denies both Jesus’ divinity and the fact that he is sinless. The ACoC seems to be going out of its way to present itself as a non-Christian organisation; I think it has succeeded.
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Congrats on being cited and linked by Damian Thompson in the Telegraph:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2009/02/27/jesus_was_a_reformed_racist_says_anglican_church_of_canada
Next: A link from Anglican Journal!!
Thanks Scott. If I do get a link from the Journal, I’ll have to stop being so pleasant and conciliatory.
Oh my, I’ll be grabbing a coffee and stiing around to watch if that happens 🙂
I find the Lenten Reflection to be deeply offensive and not something worthy of an established church. Grace and peace with prayers always…
Excerpted from Pasadena Sub Rosa website
JESUS WAS A RACIST! THE TWISTED SCREWTAPE LENT MEDITATION BY THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA
First of all, the above scriptural citation is in error. The above verses are not from Matthew 14:22-27 but found in Matthew 21-28.
Here is the entire parable with contextual commentary below:
Matthew 15: 21-18 – The Faith of the Canaanite Woman
21. Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region ot Tyre and Sidon.
22. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!. My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession.
23. Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him ‘Send her away, for she keep crying out after us.’
24. He answered: ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.’
25. The woman came and knelt before him. ‘Lord help me!’ she said.
26. He replied, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.’
27. ‘Yes, Lord,’ she said, ‘but even the dogs eat crumbs that fall from their masters tables.’
28. Then Jesus answered, ‘Woman you have great faith! Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
The districts of Tyre and Sidon were outside the symbolic boundaries of Israel, hence it was a region inhabited by non-Israelites. “Canaanite” was a person native to Palestine, whose ancestors were to be ethnically cleansed from the land by order of the God of Israel (see Joshua 3:10; 5:12; 17:18); but some were enslaved instead.
Mercy, as noted above in Matthew 9:9-13, means the willingness to pay back and actually paying back one’s debts of obligation to God and others. To have mercy means to pay obligations. Jesus technically has no obligation to the Canaanite woman because he is “The Son of David’ whose only obligations are to the “lost sheep of the House of Israel.” Yet, Jesus accedes and accepts the faith of the Canaanite woman and heals her daughter.
He even admonishes the woman for abusing her daughter by throwing her food to the dogs. But, the woman admits her failings and says even dogs like her eat crumbs that fall from the table of their master. So Jesus is moved to have mercy on her.
After reading the entire parable, the obvious interpretation is not that Jesus denied someone because of their ethnicity or gender or race, but that Jesus reached across such social divisions to heal someone who lived outside of Israel; outside his religion. But the Anglican Church of Canada twists this to imply that Jesus was a racist. Jesus is described in Leftist therapeutic talk as someone who “didn’t have it together.” Given the many errors cited above, it would be more accurate to say that the Anglican Church of Canada doesn’t have its act together and is oddly communicating an anti-Jesus false gospel.
The above twisting of Christian scripture would fit comfortably with many establishment churches in Pasadena (California). Just substitute “gays,” or “homeless,” or some other politically correct grouping for the “Canaanite woman” and you have the twisted leftist gospel. Conversely, the twisted Anglican version of the Parable of the Faith of the Canaanite Woman could also sound like the Christian Right’s unmerciful castigation of gays or the undeserving with sub-prime loans.
Link: http://pasadenasubrosa.typepad.com/pasadena_sub_rosa/2009/02/jesus-was-a-racist-a-twisted-screwtape-lent-meditation-by-the-anglican-church-of-canada.html
Wow, that’s … special. As pointed out by Wayne, they didn’t even get the scriptural reference right. On top of that, they drop verse 23 entirely without indicating that there is any omission. This isn’t the only one, either; for example, if you look at page three, they’ve modified the quotation, even though they specifically cite it as being from the NRSV. Looking at the rest of the ‘meditations’, they’re incredibly shallow. With the added evidence of the spelling mistakes, I think it’s safe to say that nobody actually read this before they released it.
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I wanted to let you know that after reading about the Canadian Lenten reflections, in the Telegraph and then here, I went to read the March 27 entry and then blogged on them a few times at http://americamagazine.org/. You can find them under “The Good Word.” The first post is at http://americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=1&id=68105140-3048-741E-3927069357879500 and two others have followed. Thanks for alerting us all to this.
What Bible are they quoting from? My King James quotes verse 24 as
24But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Clearly Jesus says he was NOT sent only to the house of Israel, but to all people. It’s amazing how people twist scripture to fit whatever point they are trying to make. Jesus was NOT a racist and the true version of the very verses they quote prove it.