There
is a final approach to this story that we need to consider, one that does not
characterise Jesus as a racist misogynist, but also takes seriously the
faithful complaint of the marginalized Canaanite woman. This understanding of
the story compels the Church to acknowledge real socio-political barriers to
community, and to overcome these barriers for the purposes of inclusive kingdom
fellowship and mission. In this reading, the Canaanite woman and her request
are not out of place in the presence of Jesus; rather they are located in the
heart of the Jewish biblical tradition of prophetic argument and Psalms of
Lament.
This
approach reminds us that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, and places his ministry
and his interaction with the Canaanite woman within the broader scope of
Israel’s role in salvation history. Matthew is not embarrassed, as we might be,
to highlight that Jesus retains a focus on ethnic Judaism, which was still a
part of the Church at the time the gospel was written.[1] It is likely that growing
tensions existed between the Matthean community and the local synagogues, and between
Jewish Christians and the increasing number of Gentile believers within the
Matthean community. This story is remarkable therefore in that it names the
divisive issue, thus helping to dispel its power and offer a way forward.
Jewish Christians needed to know that they were not being dismissed or
replaced; Gentile Christians needed to know that there was a place for them in
the presence of Jesus and the Christian community.
Jesus speaks to this by
highlighting the importance of Israel, but then naming the great faith of the
Canaanite woman. The woman speaks to this by displaying great faith and
asserting that the children and the dogs both eat of the master’s food, an idea
that took the power out of certain social taboos and hierarchies.[2] The Canaanite woman also
stands alongside the women noted in Jesus’ genealogy, not just as a sexually
dangerous outsider, but as a Gentile woman who requests the protection of
Israel’s God. Just as Tamar fought to be included in Israel’s family blessing;
and Rahab relied upon the protection of Yahweh from the destruction of Jericho;
and Ruth sought covenant protection from her Jewish kinsman-redeemer; the
Canaanite woman is ultimately permitted to seek the blessing of God by aligning
herself with the covenant community of Israel. Tamar, Rahab and Ruth were all
portrayed as righteous, though their actions were morally ambiguous. Likewise,
the Canaanite woman finds herself described as faithful, someone who could
receive the blessing designed for Israel, though her actions were considered
inappropriate. She is a faithful recipient of the covenant blessing, a true
daughter of Israel, in part because she is not offended by Jesus (Matthew
11:6), unlike the scribes and Pharisees in the story before. Their hearts were
far from God, but her heart was with her daughter, and with the Son of David
who she knew could bring her daughter healing.[3]
It
is possible that the Canaanite woman’s identification with Israel goes even
deeper still. Gail O’Day insists that the woman’s honest and painful cries are
“a narrative embodiment of a lament psalm.”[4] A lament psalm involved
Israel formally addressing God with a complaint and a petition; giving God a motivation
for action; and expressing the belief that God would hear and respond with mercy.[5] Isolating the woman’s
words in this story, her address to Jesus forms the very pattern of lament:
“Have mercy on me” is the opening petition; “O Lord son of David” is the formal
address; “My daughter is severely possessed” is the body of the complaint;
“Lord” is another formal address; “Help me” is another petition; and “For even
the dogs eat the crumbs…” is the motivation for why Jesus should act.[6] Matthew deliberately puts
the “traditional, candid speech of the Jews before their God” into the mouth of
the Canaanite woman.[7] This helps frame the
response of Jesus in the story, as he stands in the place of Yahweh receiving lament.
It also evokes the biblical prophetic tradition of arguing or negotiating with
God, seen in the stories of Abraham, Moses, Job, and Jeremiah.[8]
Importantly, God permits
and even encourages this type of dialogue and petition in the Hebrew Scriptures,
just as Jesus permits it in the Matthew 15 story. God is moved by the cries of
his people throughout Scripture, and Jesus is moved by the pleas of the
Canaanite woman to respond with healing. This leads O’Day to conclude that
though this woman is clearly not a Jew, “she is, nevertheless, fully Jewish.”[9] This affirms the
continuing place of Jewish Christians within the story of God, but also
includes the new Gentile Christians of Matthew’s community within Israel’s
covenant blessing.
This
reading of the story challenges our community to consider what social divisions
we need to name and overcome. We do not struggle with Jewish-Gentile tensions,
but our neighbourhood contains many who feel out of place in Church because of
historic abuse and discrimination, mental illness, addiction, or gender,
ethnic, and socio-economic divisions. We do not want to be an exclusive
community that “truncates redemption in assuming that only people ‘just like
me’ go to heaven.”[10] So we need to learn to
lament together, acknowledging each other’s suffering and fear as we
intentionally welcome one another into the heart of the kingdom community.
One
of the most important stories in our Church’s history illustrates this
possibility. We were meeting for prayer, and asking one another if our
marginalised friends were really in the heart of our community, or if they were
still on the margins of our supposedly incarnational fellowship. Did we really
expect to hear the voice of the Lord through the cries of the oppressed and
broken in our midst? We decided to take some time in silent, communal prayer to
consider the matter. As we began, we heard the loud, obnoxious cries of our friend
Leena, newly released from jail, who had decided to attend our gathering. As
she walked up the stairs, noisily crying, complaining and inquiring, we knew
there would be no silent prayer. She crashed into our meeting room and began
approaching each person in the room to give them a hug and yell: “I love you!”
Ten full minutes later she finished by sitting down in the very centre of our
circle. Leena is the most marginalised woman we know, the least welcome
everywhere. That night, however, she came to us with her brokenness, her need,
her lament, her insistence, and her love. She spoke the words of God over us,
and showed us what it means to have a heart close to Jesus. May we always find
our place in the presence of Jesus, alongside the Canaanite woman, and
alongside Leena.
[1]
Levine, “Matthew’s Advice,” 40.
[2]
Levine, “Matthew’s Advice,” 40.
[3] David
McCracken, The Scandal of the Gospels:
Jesus, Story and Offense,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 19.
[4]
O’Day, “Surprised by Faith,” 119.
[5] O’Day,
“Surprised by Faith,” 120-121.
[6]
O’Day, “Surprised by Faith,” 122.
[7]
O’Day, “Surprised by Faith,” 122.
[8]
Gench, “Back to the Well,” 20.
[9]
O’Day, “Surprised by Faith,” 124.
[10]
Josiah Ulysses Young III, No Difference
in the Fare: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Problem of Racism, (Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 47.
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