July 7, 2024
Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’[f] table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.
“It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.”
Well, gosh…what a comment to contend with. A preacher’s work is never easy, but it’s made even harder when we’re cast in the role of defending Jesus. I could tell you that Jesus is exhausted. In just the two previous chapters of Mark, he’s calmed a storm, healed a demon-possessed man, witnessed the woman with the hemorrhage claim her own healing, fed five thousand people, and walked on water. I could tell you that Jesus is emotionally worn out. In Mark’s last two chapters, he’s been rejected by his hometown, learned of his cousin John’s death, and had a major run-in with the religious leaders. He’s so in need of quiet time he’s come to this house in Tyre secretly so no one will know he’s there.
I could, as a fellow introvert, claim Jesus as part of my tribe and explain to you that introverts love people but have to be alone to fully recharge our batteries. I could cast this woman as too brash, too outspoken, and lacking even the slightest ability to read a room. And though my first instinct is to defend Jesus, I’m not going to.
I’m not going to defend Jesus because, as you’ve surmised by now, I like brave, outspoken women. I’m not going to defend Jesus because he embodies a God who’s big enough and relational enough to handle any critiques we can come up with. And I’m not going to defend Jesus because so many commentators have tried, and their explanations fall hopelessly flat.
Some interpreters have called Jesus’ response “inauthentic” and propose that it was inserted in the text by conservative Jewish Christians. Comparing Jesus’ words with our modern saying, “Charity begins at home” other commentators argue that his comment wasn’t as insulting in its original setting. But easily the most ludicrous attempt at an explanation are those commentators who suggest “that the word ‘dog’ isn’t as harsh as it sounds, [and] that Jesus is merely referring to [the woman] as a pet.” No, as Amy C. Howe succinctly summarizes, “The word is ‘dog’ and dog is what [Jesus] means.” And he doesn’t pick this animal accidentally or at random but quite intentionally because as I learned this week from scholar, professor and Episcopal priest Wil A. Gafney, “Ancient Israelites and Jews in the first century…despise dogs. They [are considered] unclean scavengers that ate dead flesh. An orthodox rabbi once told [Dr. Gafney] he’d even heard of an orthodox rabbi who owned a dog.”
But why? Even if we’re not going to make excuses for Jesus, we’re left wondering “why?” Why would Jesus ever refer to another human being so insultingly? Why would this person who we so often talk about as embodying God’s love treat someone coming to him for help this way? Never, in his interactions with the religious elite does Jesus make such a harsh comparison. Why is this woman the recipient of a verbal slap that’s still ringing over two thousand years later?
There are two reasons I’ve been able to find. First, according to theologians such as Sharon H. Ringe, “The [Syrophoenician woman] is portrayed as part of the group in the region whose policies and lifestyle would have been a source of suffering for her mostly poorer, rural, Jewish neighbors.” Aware that the economic hardship of Jews in the area is due to the abuses of Gentile landowners, it’s possible that Jesus strident snub of the woman is motivated by her position within this group. Jesus is consistently critical of the wealthy and powerful, so if this is part of his motivation, it holds true to what we know of Jesus.
The second reason for Jesus' reaction that scholars agree on and is clear from the text is that up until this point, Jesus believes his ministry to be exclusively for the Jewish people. That is, of course, who he’s referring to as “the children.” And it isn’t until Jesus encounters this Gentile woman that his belief changes.
Or more accurately, it isn’t until he encounters this bold, desperate, fearless, woman who refuses to be cowed, refuses to be insulted into simply going away, that Jesus learns the most important lesson of his life. Make no mistake, the woman’s response to Jesus, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” isn’t merely a whip-smart response, through her words this woman, whose name we will never know, teaches Jesus.
She teaches Jesus that even a Gentile woman is deserving of his time and attention. She teaches Jesus that even though he might dismiss her, she has faith in his healing power. More faith, in fact, than his own people, including the people of his hometown. This mama bear is determined to save her daughter and, in her refusal, to back down she becomes prophetic, calling Jesus to expand his thinking, to move beyond what he’s understood about his ministry up to this point. As Dawn Ottoni Wilhelm says,
“In the light of her words, Jesus does not simply have second thoughts: his vision and vocation are radically reoriented. We do not sense the diminishment of Jesus’ power through this exchange but the expansion of it, as he blesses her heart’s desire and heals her daughter. However unsettling this exchange may be, its resolution reveals that God is not unchanging or unresponsive but compassionate and merciful.”
In his sermon about this passage, my mentor and friend Rev. Dr. Michael Gregg shared the following story that has stuck out to me since I first heard him preach it. I share it with his permission:
“It’s not difficult for me to remember my favorite teacher. Her name was Ms. Rich - a whimsical, boisterous, lovely young lady. Funny, her name symbolizes the wealth of learning and life experience she conferred upon me. She was my fourth-grade teacher…math. I remember sitting at an attached desk in the dimness of a school portable building, cheap tile floors, and the smell of chalk on the blackboards. Our assignment in the textbook was to solve a math problem using real objects, like a farmer has 9 apples and puts them in a basket with 18 apples. Well, this particular math problem used fertilizer for its object. If a gardener has 11 bags of fertilizer and he was waiting for 26 bags of fertilizer to arrive in order to finish the garden, how many bags of fertilizer does the gardener need? At that point, Ms. Rich stopped the lesson, looked up with thoughtful eyes at the fluorescent lights, and said, “Wow, in what other class do you get to talk about bags of manure.”
My friends, with a congregation full of teachers and students, what more important story could we explore than the impact of a teacher? And as we stand on the precipice of so many new things, with so many possibilities before us as a congregation, it’s so appropriate to be exploring the story of the woman who reorients Christ’s entire concept of his ministry. The Good News this morning is that we serve a God who, through Jesus, was human enough to evolve, to grow, to expand beyond his original understanding. The Good News is that we serve a God whose love and welcome are expansive in a way we struggle to understand, let alone emulate.
My prayer this morning is this: that God sends us a teacher to expand our understanding of our ministry. That like Christ, we are surprised by an unexpected voice that will not be silenced. That we’re encouraged and inspired to do that which we previously wouldn’t have considered. And that as a church we exhibit enough faith to surprise the Creator of the universe without determination and willingness to serve others, no matter who they are.
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