Sunday After Pentecost: Cananean Lives Matter

In the midst of a nation rising up for justice in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Lindsey and Adam look at Matthew 9:35-10:8, when Jesus sent his disciples to be in solidarity with the vulnerable people of Israel. “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.”

What does Jesus send followers to do? Proclaim that there is one true way to follow and all others are damned? Of course not.

Jesus sends his disciples to do the hard, urgent work of compassion in a dangerous world that has long operated on the myth that some lives matter less than others. In a culture where disease was considered punishment for sin, even by some of the disciples themselves, curing the sick was a political statement on the inviolability of human dignity as well as an act of mercy.

And to whom does Jesus give this urgent work?

All his disciples, including one “Simon the Cananean.”

Wait, weren’t the Cananites those people that “God” commanded the early Israelites to kill?

The idea that God cares for some lives at the expense of others, that some people are more God’s children than others or that God might have created peoples for exploitation or extermination… Jesus obliterates that idea.

The human projection of violence onto God is exposed by the prophets and particularly by Jesus. Jesus has Moabite genealogy and a Cananean disciple.

Cananean lives matter.

Black lives matter.

Lindsey and Adam discuss these verses of the Bible, which shines the light of God’s expanding, all-inclusive, merciful love, in the context of today’s uprisings for a world in which lives are no longer sacrificed on alters of white or Christian supremacy, or greed, or powerlust.

Also discussed in this episode: kingdom economics and the meaning of myth. Abundance, generosity, and sharing. Recognizing the voices of those once silenced.

We invite you listen, reflect, and lend your voice and talents to the calling Jesus gives.