Canaanite Woman and Jesus

Matthew 15:21-28 The Canaanite Woman

[an assignment for preaching class, which was preached in field education placement] 

Sunday 14^th August 2005

 

Let us pray:

 

God,

Who is known to us as creator and redeemer;

Who is known in the breath of the spirit in our lives;

Be present with us as we explore your word

We pray confident of your knowledge of your presence

 

This passage raises some difficult issues for me. There are places where I don’t like what I read, and there are places where I don’t like where it leads me. So if at times you feel a little uncomfortable in what I am saying, please stay with me, hopefully by the end of this time we will all have some point of hope, even if there are still some questions unanswered and some uncomfortable places.

 

There are many ways in which I could speak today about this passage from Matthew’s gospel. A friend is preaching on this passage today as well and she has taken a completely different tack. There are issues of who is an ’insider’ and who is not; issues of race and gender; of crossing boundaries, and these issues still exist in our church and the wider community today.

 

Jesus initially comes across as not being compassionate and the disciples’ response is to get rid of this noisy, annoying woman.  As I said this may not be an easy journey for any of us. 

 

In some ways I can identify with the Canaanite woman. To start with I am also a gentile woman. I am not a Canaanite, but I’m also not a Jew. The Canaanites were originally enemies of the Israelites, then enslaved by them. Interaction was minimal. They were to be stomped on like ants. This woman is more than a non-Jew; she is less than a person because of her race. She is even referred to as a dog in this passage.  While I said I hoped there would be some good news for us, I have to concede, initially it doesn’t look all that promising.

Jesus lets this woman know, firstly by ignoring her, then by telling the disciples, and finally by telling the woman, that she is of no consequence or importance to him. Because of her race she is a non-person. Jesus ignores her pleading and cries for mercy and help. Eventually Jesus does help her, in spite of her race and gender. This is not a picture of the gentle compassionate Jesus we like to think about.

 

Do you know people who are so focussed on where they think they are going, on getting ahead at work, losing weight, or training for sport, that they don’t notice what else might be in their life?  Jesus in this passage reminds me of those people. He is so focussed on bringing salvation to the Jews, that when this woman asks for mercy, he doesn’t respond to her request. Jesus was very aware of what his life was for, bringing the Jews back into relationship with God. But he found that many of the Jews he met, especially those who were in the religious institutions, were not all that interested in what he had to say. Here we have an outsider, an enemy, who knows that Jesus is the one person who is able to help. She accepts that to Jesus and to Jews in general, she is not worth speaking with; that to a Jew, especially a Jewish man, she is a waste of space. But she is also a woman of great faith, and Matthew uses this story to contrast the difference between those who were Jews yet did not recognise Jesus for who he was; and this woman, who wasn’t a Jew, but recognised Jesus as the means of healing and liberation and salvation.

 

While I can relate to the woman, in some ways I can also relate to the disciples. Who does this woman think she is, a gentile, a non-Jew, a Canaanite even, expecting help from the one sent by God to bring salvation to the Jews. I see this response in myself and the church at times. There are people in our community who recognise what God can do in their lives, yet they are not part of any church community. How do we treat such people? Especially when something about them, their life, their background, is offensive to us. Even after Jesus helped this woman, she was still a Canaanite woman, about as low in the status as a person could get.  Yet by recognising her faith and healing her daughter,

Jesus acknowledged her humanity, and in the process challenged the religious assumptions of his time.

 

 There are some things I like the disciples, their lack of understanding, their slowness to pick up on what Jesus is telling them, their inability to see beyond what is happening at the present. They remind me that Jesus, and God, doesn’t only associate with clever people who have it all together in life. They help me feel better about myself when I am slow to understand what God is saying to me. They stick around Jesus even though they don’t understand everything that is happening. And while the disciples stick around and are with Jesus throughout the gospel account, this is the only place we hear about this woman.

 

This woman, who is not even named in the gospel account, is different to the disciples.  I have heard people talk about faith in terms of being passive and submissive. And there are some in our society who think being a Christian is about nice and polite and inoffensive. Now there is a place for submitting to God’s will for our lives, but this woman shows us, that even in our relationship with God, there is room for taking initiative. She is bold. She asks big things of Jesus. She is confident and persistent.  Unlike the disciples who have to have everything spelt out for them, she takes Jesus on. Her life is changed by her encounter with Jesus. In this, while she is not a Jew, she follows a very Jewish pattern.

 

In the book of Psalms, there are some that are known as lament psalms. These psalms record the pleading of Israel with God.  These are psalms that express some very human emotions.  

There is a regular pattern to these psalms. If you would like to look one up, psalm 13 is one of the shorter ones, and shows the basic pattern. The Psalmist addresses God, complains about his or her current situation, and asks God to act to change the situation. The mood of the psalm changes, there is assurance of being heard, the response of the Psalmist and then praise. The complaint is not addressed into thin air hoping that someone will hear and respond.  The person writing this psalm, like the Canaanite woman, knows exactly who they are asking for help.

 If you look at the words the Canaanite woman is recorded as saying, they follow the same pattern as the lament psalm.

 

When we are crying out for mercy, when our lives seem like a mess and we have no way of sorting things out, we can be clear about who we are asking for help. When we pray we can be like the psalmist and the woman, clear as to who we approach, clear in our complaint, honest about our lives and our feelings, our hopes, our dreams, our failures. We can trust that God hears our cry for help. We can be confident that God cares about how we feel and what is happening to us.  I remember a time in my life, when I couldn’t believe that God was concerned about me, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would care about me, and a very wise person told me that God was not judging me, but was wanting to hug me, to sit with me in my despair and to cry with me in my sadness. And the way I looked at my life was transformed!

 

I think we miss a lot in our relationship with God if we think we can’t tell God what we really think. Expressing doubt, asking difficult questions, doesn’t mean lack of faith. It takes faith to be bold, to be honest with God, to risk acknowledging and asking the hard questions of God. I don’t promise you will like the answer.  When we are open and honest with God, we too are changed by the encounter.

 

It takes great faith to challenge the structures of society; it takes great faith to recognise who we are in the sight of God, both sinner and forgiven; it takes great faith to approach God, knowing that God will hear our complaint, our shattered hopes, our dreams and hold them as precious; it takes great faith to believe that God will hear and respond to our cries for help, and that our mourning will be turned into joy.

 

This story is an example to us in our relationship with God and with people. When we are approached by people asking for mercy, grace, healing and inclusion, we can choose to ignore and reject them, or we can offer what we have in Christ. When we speak with God we are able to be totally honest, to be bold, persistent and confident as we approach God with all our thoughts and feelings.

Open to God, open to ‘the other’. Remembering that for some people we are the other. This woman saw that there was a possibility for a new way of living, wholeness, healing, liberating, life. She imagined what others could not. What a model of faith and discipleship, and she isn’t one of us, we wouldn’t find her in church on Sunday morning. Can we learn from her example?

 

Can we be open to ‘the other; can we be open to God?

 

My hope; my prayer is that we be open to the other, the one who is different, even those we name as enemy.

I also pray that we each might be open to God, who knows our name, who hears our cries for help, heals our wounds, and offers us a new way of living, blessing us abundantly.