When I served in a Christian community in Vancouver, each Sunday we would declare that “all cultures, nations, languages, communities, races,
genders, classes, and ages are made in the Creator’s image; all are filled with
dignity; all are welcome here.”
This declaration was lived out in our midst, as
so many different tribes, tongues, and backgrounds were represented in our gatherings, in our homes, in our neighbourhood.
Which
is why the story of Jesus and
the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28 is one of the most disturbing and
confusing passages with which we had to wrestle:
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out,
“Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
A desperate woman begs for Jesus’ help to heal her daughter, and Jesus ignores, rejects and insults her because of her ethnicity; she seems “out of place” in the presence of Jesus and his disciples. Jesus’ eventual relenting does not excuse his behaviour, which would be entirely unacceptable within our fellowship.
Different interpretations of
this story either leave us with Jesus praising the woman’s faith as she grovels
before him and allows herself to be compared to a dog; or with Jesus being taught
by the woman to overcome his misogynistic, racist worldview. Both
interpretations are important, but neither tells the whole story.
So how do we make
sense of Jesus’ response to the woman, especially in the light of Matthew’s inclusion
of Gentile women in his gospel? And how we can apply this story today, as we
continue to encounter marginalized women who feel out of place in Christian
community?
It is my belief that the Canaanite woman faithfully stands in the
Jewish tradition of the Psalmists and Prophets, and that she challenges our
understanding of who may find their place within “the lost sheep of the house
of Israel.”
Part 2 tomorrow...
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