I Don't Believe It!

It’s always fun to ask a group of kindergartners what they want to be when they grow up. The variety of answers that they give is just astounding! Some of their answers are predictable. “I want to be a firefighter… a doctor… a cowboy… an astronaut!” Others are more unexpected. I once knew a little girl who wanted to dig up dinosaur bones when she grew up! And some children – bless their hearts – even want to grow up to be pastors. But I will bet you any amount of money that no child has ever said that he or she wants to grow up to be a heretic. “Heretic” just isn’t a career of choice.

Part of the reason for that, of course, is that children don’t know what a heretic actually is. In case some of you don’t know, either – a heretic is someone whose ideas are outside the mainstream thinking of any particular group. For example, someone who didn’t believe that Jesus was God’s son would be a heretic – at least as far as Christians are concerned. A heretic thinks way outside the box involving matters of faith. Now, knowing that definition of a heretic, I’m quite sure that no child would ever want to grow up to be one! Children – and most of the rest of us, as well – don’t want to be seen as different. We don’t want to be “outside the box” when we’re compared with other people. It’s more comfortable to be “inside the box” along with everybody else. If we have some thoughts that aren’t quite what everybody else thinks, we usually keep them to ourselves. After all, we don’t want anybody to think that we’re weird, do we? But heretics refuse to quietly stay inside the box. In fact, really good heretics burst out of the box and voice their opinions loudly!  They are convinced that their thinking has something to offer to the world; and they simply will not be silenced.

Now, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that every heretic is wrong! Many heretics, in hindsight, are recognized to be quite right! Galileo was a heretic. He observed that the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. But according to the Roman Catholic Church of his time, God had created the earth to be the center of the universe! Believing that the earth revolved around the sun was heresy! Another heretic was Martin Luther. He challenged the Roman Catholic Church on some of their most basic doctrines; and in the process, he started the Protestant Reformation. Without heretics like these two, the church would become hopelessly corrupt. That’s because heretics frequently correct the church when its thinking is one-sided. Heretics reevaluate old ideas in the light of their own, new experiences.

You might be surprised to learn that throughout history, some of the most influential heretics have been women! You heard the story of one of them in the scripture reading this morning. According to Matthew (15:21-28), a woman influenced Jesus to rethink the whole purpose of his ministry. And she wasn’t even Jewish. She was a Canaanite woman who lived along the Mediterranean coast north of Israel in the area of Tyre and Sidon. Now, Canaanites aren’t very well thought of in the Bible. Every good Jewish boy of Jesus’ time grew up learning that Canaanites were heathens – pagans who worshipped false gods and bowed down to idols. (Do you remember the god Baal from the Elijah stories? Baal was one of the Canaanite gods.) Canaanite women were especially dangerous.  Why, any Jewish man would rather kiss a pig fresh from the slops than associate with a Canaanite woman!

Matthew’s story shows us a Canaanite woman running after Jesus pleading with him to heal her daughter. And as a good Jewish man, Jesus wouldn’t have anything to do with her. He ignored her for as long as he could; but her yammering for help was finally more than Jesus could stand. So he told her, “It’s not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs!” Now, calling someone a “dog” in Jesus’ day was a terrible insult. It should have put a stop to her pestering. But it didn’t. In fact, she had a great comeback line. “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the little doggies get to eat the crumbs of bread that fall from the children’s table.”

What a marvelous heretic she was! Jewish thinking said that the Messiah’s ministry would only be for Jews. Jews were, after all, God’s chosen people; and God would send the Messiah to them. Certainly no Canaanite could expect to take part in the salvation that the Messiah was going to offer to the Jews! But that’s exactly what this Canaanite heretic was saying. “Surely, Lord,” she pleaded, “surely there is enough for everyone. Even if the Jews receive the lion’s share of God’s grace, there must be a little left over for me, too.” And because of her objection, Jesus changed his mind! We can almost see him do a double take… look at her more closely… ponder what she has just said to him… and realize that faith is found not just among the children of Israel. Even the least likely person – a Canaanite woman – could recognize the Messiah and call upon him for salvation. It takes a good, outside the box heretic to believe something like that! “Oh, woman,” Jesus replied, “great is your faith!” And because of that faith, Jesus healed her daughter.

Down through the ages, many women have indeed shown great faith. They have had the faith to believe that any religion that excludes a whole group of people isn’t a true religion at all; it’s a cult. They have had the faith to believe that sitting down quietly and keeping your mouth shut never causes any change. Some of them have even had the faith to believe that God is still speaking, even when religious authorities say that what God wants of us was settled long ago. Let me mention just a few of these faithful heretic women.

Christine de Pisan lived in 15^th century France, in an age when churchmen regarded women as evil seductresses or witches. She wrote two books. One illustrated the virtues of women as modest, gentle, and loving. The other argued against the notion that Eve’s behavior in the Garden of Eden brought sin into the world. In her opinion, it was unfair to try to pin all human sin on women. Besides, she pointed out, weren’t women the ones who remained faithful to Jesus during his crucifixion when all the men ran away?

Catherine of Sienna lived in Italy. In Catherine’s day, the church told women that marrying and bearing children was their only proper role in life. Catherine refused to marry her father’s choice of husband, and entered a religious order instead. She ministered to the townspeople when the Black Death swept over the city of Sienna and all the priests ran away to save themselves. She was instrumental in reforming the behavior of those priests. She even influenced the policies of the Pope. She is frequently pictured supporting the ship of the Christian church on her shoulder.

And let’s not forget Jarena Lee, a black woman who lived in 19^th century America, who wanted to preach the word of God. But a woman, preaching? Especially a black  woman! Religious authorities of that day wouldn’t allow it. But Jarena preached anyway. She said that she was powered by the “holy energy” of the Holy Spirit, the source of her voice and her courage.

They were heretics, every one of them! And they are joined today by Roman Catholic nuns who refuse to believe religious doctrine just because the Pope tells them to believe it. They are joined by Protestant mothers who go to Bible study and find out that, in many cases, what they learned as children is not what the Bible says at all! And they are joined by women who don’t belong to any church, but who are convinced that Christians who hate and judge and exclude others don’t have a clue as to what Christianity is really all about. “I don’t believe it,” they say. “I don’t believe that what I am being told is right. I will read the Bible for myself, I will think for myself, I will give my own opinion, and I will not be silenced!”

We don’t have to agree with them! But we should give thanks that their tradition of heresy – of disagreement and dissent and controversy – has helped to reform and guide the Christian faith that we hold so dear. I don’t know about you; but I, for one, am grateful for all the women throughout history who have said, “I don’t believe it!”