Christ the King Epiphany Church, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

August 16, 2026 / Pentecost 12 (Lect. 20A)

Matthew 15:10-28

One of the recurring themes in the book our book discussion group read and discussed this summer (Jacqueline Bussie’s Love Without Limits) is a concept called “the danger of the single story.”  The concept, developed by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is that when we rely on a single narrative about a person, group, or country, it leads to incomplete understandings and harmful stereotypes.  Adichie spoke about it this way in her 2009 TED Talk.

I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family.  My father was a professor.  My mother was an administrator.  And so we had, as was the norm, live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages.  So, the year I turned eight, we got a new house boy.  His name was Fide.  The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor.  My mother sent yams and rice, and our old clothes, to his family.  And when I didn’t finish my dinner, my mother would say, “Finish your food!  Don’t you know?  People like Fide’s family have nothing.”  So I felt enormous pity for Fide’s family.

Then one Saturday, we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket made of dyed raffia that his brother had made.  I was startled.  It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something.  All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor.  Their poverty was my single story of them.

Years later, I thought about this when I left Nigeria to go to university in the United States.  I was 19.  My American roommate was shocked by me.  She asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language.  She asked if she could listen to what she called my “tribal music,” and was consequently very disappointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey. . . .

What struck me was this:  She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me.  Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity.  My roommate had a single story of Africa:  a single story of catastrophe.  In this single story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.

Is this not a huge problem in our world today?  We often see much more clearly the differences that divide us rather than the many, many things that we have in common.  We rely on incomplete stereotypes to judge individuals, and frankly, entire groups of people.  This idea of the danger of the single story made such an impact on me that I have been looking for a way to share it with our larger community.  And I found the opportunity in this week’s gospel lesson.  Because the way I read the story, it seems to me that Jesus almost falls victim to the danger of the single story in his response to the Canaanite woman.  Let me just recap the Gospel for you so you understand where I’m coming from.  A foreign woman with a different religious and cultural background comes to Jesus for help.  And first, he ignores her, which seems very unlike the Jesus that we know and love.  Then, he talks about her, but not to her – also hard to swallow.  And then finally, he speaks to her using a racial slur – calling her, albeit it indirectly, a dog.   Is it possible that the single story – that this woman is a Canaanite, and therefore not a friend to the people of Israel – is it possible that this single story almost overrides Jesus’ customary compassion?  Is it possible that, in his full humanity and in his upbringing as a first century Jew, Jesus was just acting in the way that any of his contemporaries would have?  I suspect that it feels uncomfortable to think this way about our Savior.

But remember:  that’s not all she wrote, so to speak.  As the Canaanite woman continued to ask Jesus for help for her sick daughter, she revealed herself to be much more than just the single story that her first century audience would have perceived.  She wasn’t just a Canaanite.  She was also a mother who was sick at heart over her daughter’s condition.  She was also courageous in her approach to Jesus, expecting that Jesus could, and perhaps according to cultural expectations should, turn her away.  She was perceptive enough to understand that Jesus was Lord.  She was also clever in the way she turned Jesus’ racial slur into her own argument that she should be heard:  “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  And (and this is the big one), she had faith to persist in asking because she trusted Jesus’ power to make her daughter well.  Now seeing her beyond the cultural blinders that told a single story, Jesus saw her in all her beautiful and complex humanity and had compassion on her and her daughter.

How much more like the kingdom of God would our world be if only we could see others not just for that one thing that really bothers or annoys or troubles us, but look deeper to see the whole person, to see as God sees.  Because even the most MAGA of Republicans and the most liberal of Democrats are more than their politics.  Even the most conservative policy makers and the most radical of protesters in the streets are more than their ideals.  Even the richest 1% of the population and the poorest recipients of public assistance are more than their bank accounts.  Even the people whose families were on the Mayflower and those who are undocumented are more than their immigration status.  Even the people with the highest IQ and those who are mentally challenged are more than their intelligence.  Even the most law-abiding citizens and the most hardened of criminals are more than their police record.  Even the most devout of believers and the most committed atheists are more than their religious views.  We are all more than any single story that the world could tell about us.  In this beautifully and frustratingly diverse and complex world, there is only one single story that is universally true, and it is this:  God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.  The world – not just people of one race, not just people of one culture, not even just Christians – God so loved the whole world and every created part of it – that he gave his only Son.   While single stories are dangerous, the single story of God’s love and acceptance is not.  It is life-giving.  It is community-building.  It is grace.  Receiving such grace – and then sharing it – we have the power to change the world with the single story of God’s love without limits.

__________________________

1

  https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/the-danger-of-a-single-story-by-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie