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Matthew 15:21-28 Susan J. Barnes
St. Matthew’s, Austin August 14, 2004
In our baptismal covenant we pledge to seek and serve Christ, loving our neighbor as ourself. We pledge to respect dignity of every human being. As Christians, we look to Jesus as the model for our behavior, and the gospels are full of stories of Jesus’ having compassion on all manner of foreigners and outcasts. Then we come upon this story that gives us pause. How do we square our usual image of Jesus’ compassionate ministry with this rude treatment of the Canaanite woman, this disrespectful—even insulting--behavior toward a desperate mother?
This is an awkward story, and it requires a closer look.
Here’s a recap: traveling with disciples, Jesus is approached by a Gentile woman, begging him to heal her daughter. Though the woman honors Jesus, calling him “Son of David” and “Lord”, Jesus first ignores her, then rejects her, finally rebukes her, likening her to a dog. The woman humbly accepts that inferior status, kneeling before Jesus as she persists in her appeal. Only then does Jesus recognize her faith and grant her wish.
This is a pivotal moment in Jesus’ ministry, of course: it’s the incident that challenges Jesus to rethink the ground of his identity, and to re-envision his call from God. He does that, broadening his ministry to include the Gentiles as well as the Jews. In short, Jesus’ future is transformed because of the persistence of a simple foreign woman, who was willing to brave anything to save her daughter’s life.
Jesus does an about-face; he honors the woman; he heals the daughter. So, there is a “happy” ending. Nevertheless, the road that leads there is very rough.
We Christians say we believe that Jesus was fully human. Still, it’s shocking when we see base human behavior in him. Shocking. At the same time, could it be kind of comforting? Is there comfort in the possibility that even Jesus struggled with prejudice? That even Jesus had to grow into his ministry? That even Jesus needed to be led---indeed, pushed--to expand his understanding of God’s will for him? That even Jesus had to change his mind?
If that holds some comfort today, chances are it did in the1st century, too. We assume that Matthew’s late-1st century community, for whom this gospel was written, was a group of Jews who became followers of Jesus. Then other people wanted to join them—people of other races and religions. These new people—non-Jews--were encountering the Risen Christ. They were hearing the Gospel message of God’s mercy for the Gentiles (reiterated by Paul in Romans today). They were receiving God’s love and forgiveness. Believing in Jesus, it was only natural for them to come to join early Christian communities like Matthew’s. But that led to all kinds of cultural clashes. It made problems for the Jewish followers of Jesus. For them—the Jews struggling to accept Gentiles--the story of the Canaanite woman would have been a touchstone. Why? Because, in the story, Jesus models the change of heart that they needed, too.
Presenting that model of change may well have been the gospel author’s purpose in telling the story. Andrew Overmann makes that argument in his commentary on Matthew. Overmann’s evidence is his very close reading of the way that the author of Matthew adapted this story from its source in the gospel of Mark. As he points out, the story in Matthew emphasizes and enhances the struggle between two forces: between Jesus’ rejection of ministry to a Gentile on the one hand, and the woman’s faithful insistence that Jesus heal her daughter on the other. The author of Matthew builds the tension by adding two stages: the first is Jesus’ ignoring the woman (“he did not answer her at all”); the second is Jesus’ rejection of her, saying he was called to the lost sheep of Israel. Neither of those things appears in Mark’s account.
Jesus’ disdain and rejection contrast with the woman’s devotion. Again, only in Matthew does the woman address Jesus: “O Lord, Son of David”. Only in Matthew does she kneel before him. These are key elements in the adaptation of the story, because they suggest that she is not just another Gentile whom Jesus meets on his travels. No: she is a believer. She declares that Jesus is her Lord. Like the Gentiles who wanted to join Matthew’s community, she is devout, a believer, a follower of Jesus.
In her appeal the Canaanite woman uses another key word: she begs for “mercy”. In Hebrew scripture, mercy is God’s to bestow: “May God be merciful to us and bless us,” writes the psalmist. The same tradition echoes throughout the epistles of Paul. Calling Jesus the Son of David, calling on him for mercy, the woman calls him to fulfill his destiny as the Son of God—to be, in Paul’s words from Romans today,“merciful to all”. The Canaanite woman is a faithful believer and follower of Jesus. She also knows the Jewish scriptures. She knows the promise that Brian McLaren recalls in his book A Generous Orthodoxy, the promise given first to Abraham that through him “ALL nations will be blessed”. We heard the same promise today in Isaiah 56: the God of Israel will embrace and welcome “all people” who follow God’s law. God’s house “shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples”. Kneeling before Jesus, the Canaanite woman lays claim to that promise.
The Canaanite woman believes in the wideness of God’s mercy and she calls upon Jesus, her Lord, to show that wideness by reaching out to her ailing Gentile daughter.
As she kneels there, the Canaanite woman embodies the devotion that Jesus asks of his followers: the trust in God and the self-sacrificial devotion that the Good Shepherd has for his sheep, for instance. It was risky for her—as a Gentile woman—to approach Jesus at all. Still, she did it. For the love of her daughter, she not only took that risk, she took the blows that followed: first of Jesus’ indifference in not replying, then of Jesus’ rejection (claiming to be called to the house of Israel), then of his insult (likening her to a dog). In her uncompromising, unflinching self-offering, she was a model of the kind of courage that early Christians had in the face of persecution. In her persistence, she was a model of faith. She believed in God’s promise of welcome to foreigners, of blessing to all. She believed that Jesus was indeed the Lord, the son of David, the Messiah. She believed that Jesus could and would show her daughter God’s mercy.
In the end, the story tells us, it was her witness—her unwavering faith--that opened the ears and the heart of Jesus to her plea. Jesus paid tribute to that faith in this version alone. He declared: “Great is your faith, o woman!” And, through her great faith, Jesus saw his own ministry in a new light.
As present-day followers of Jesus Christ we can only be enriched by a close reading of the gospel text. We need to know, to understand as best we can the communities that conveyed these treasured accounts of Jesus life and ministry to us. It’s good to see the stories in context, to imagine how they spoke to people long ago. Then it’s good—no, it’s vital--to see how they speak to us today.
In their struggles to welcome people who weren’t like them, the members of Matthew’s 1st century community could look to their story of Jesus’ transformative meeting with the Canaanite woman. Jesus changed his heart. So could they. So must we. Whenever we are tempted to turn our backs on someone of a different background, race, faith, lifestyle, the Canaanite woman reminds us of God’s promise of welcome and mercy to all. Who will deliver on that promise? As followers of Jesus, as God’s privileged children, we are responsible to deliver. The Canaanite woman spoke powerfully on her own. But this city of Austin and the rest of the world are full of people who cannot speak for themselves. As followers of Jesus and privileged children of God, we are called to seek out and to speak for those who cannot.
A man called Bono, the singer who has devoted his life to speak on behalf of the world’s poor, reminds us that Love your neighbor is not advice, it’s a command. Today, as we roam around the 7 acres of this campus, as we consider how to participate in the bounty of ministries in this parish, remember that each of us is commanded to love our neighbor. Remember that we have carved in stone on the porch of this building the words of Isaiah; this is “a house of prayer for all people”. Remember that each of us is called to be an agent of God’s mercy Remember that we are privileged to be children of God and to be followers of Jesus. Remember, too, that even though Jesus took his time, in the end he was not ashamed to change his mind, not afraid to respond to the call of a poor, desperate stranger, not afraid to step out in faith, answering God’s call to a new and unknown ministry.
