The dogged faith of the Syro Phonecian woman
This is a reflection I just shared with Jubilee today on Matthew 15:21-28, the lectionary reading for today:
Maybe every week the news is bad, but this week has seemed
especially turbulent- the riots in Ferguson, MO, ongoing violence in Gaza, the
war in South Sudan, children and families languishing in the militarized zone
of the US Mexico border.
When I read the gospel passage for this Sunday I groaned,
“Oh no, not the one where Jesus seems like a real jerk!” How could I make sense of this passage that
has always left me and lots of others befuddled? How could I even read a passage where Jesus
apparently drops a slur on a foreign woman during this time when relationships
between nations and races are exceptionally tense? Maybe I would just skip it
altogether, it is not like we have to
follow the lectionary or have a thoughtful reflection at every worship service. We could just go heavy on the songs and
prayers, read the psalm about unity and leave it at that.
So, I said to my husband that we would just have a long prayer
service because I didn’t want to tackle the story of the Syro-Phoenician
woman. He said, “Oh, I just read
Kenneth Bailey’s commentary on it in Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes,”
and he tossed me the book that his parents had given us for Christmas. So with the help of that gift, a little book
by Elton Trueblood called The Humor of Christ, and more on-line
commentaries than I care to mention, I seized the opportunity to take on the
challenge. Between visiting with old
friends, getting my kids off on their first day of school, cleaning bathrooms,
peeling pears, snapping beans, hanging laundry and washing dishes, I took some
time to be reminded about just how good
Jesus is. It is now clear to me and I hope to you by the time I am done that Jesus
is definitely not a jerk, even in this story.
Jesus calls all people to unity in him. This is very good news,
especially during a week like this.
Before we tackle the story from Matthew, let’s look at the
context of the other lectionary passages for today. In Genesis 45 we see Joseph forgiving his
brothers in Egypt. The tables have
turned and the one who was sold as a slave now has the power to destroy or help
his starving family. After shutting the
door and weeping so loudly that everybody can hear, he calls his brothers to
him and says, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And
now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here;
for God sent me before you to preserve life.” Joseph’s tears on his brother’s
necks, mingling with their tears on his neck are like the precious oil running
down over the robe collar in Psalm 133; the oil of unity that restored these
men as brothers after circumstances that could have sealed them as eternal
enemies. Today’s reading from Isaiah 56 says: “Thus says the LORD: Maintain
justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my
deliverance be revealed……for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all
peoples. Thus says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will
gather others to them besides those
already gathered."
So, if the Old
Testament themes for this week point to forgiveness, unity, and gathering
people together why are we given this Gospel passage in which a woman
seeking healing for her demon possessed daughter seems to be humiliated? Remembering
that Jesus is the embodiment of compassion and that all scripture points us to
that truth, let’s look at the story together:
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."
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."
Jesus and his disciples have entered a gentile community and
this woman has gone further than even his disciples at this point by publicly
calling Jesus “Lord, Son of David.” She
declares him to be Messiah- which Bailey points out is very unexpected for a
gentile woman. He has gotten her
attention because through her greeting she has shown him that she knows
just who He is.
Bailey sites eleventh century doctor theologian Ibn
al-Tayyib who notes that the mother cries out “Lord have mercy on me.” Bailey
notes “the caregiver is at the end of her rope and also needs healing.”
But he did not answer
her at all.
His silence was typical for a Rabbi in that context. According to the social laws Jesus the rabbi
would not be expected to speak to woman and a gentile. But why did he speak to the Samaritan woman
at the well but not this woman? Jesus,
the one who healed on the Sabbath and touched the lepers was not one to uphold
societal expectations. I wonder if his
silence could have been a time of prayer.
Maybe he realizes that this encounter would be remembered by his
disciples and he was careful about just how to respond. His disciples interpret his silence as
disapproval so they say:
"Send her away, for she keeps shouting
after us."
Just as they asked Jesus to send the children away from him,
they felt the same way about her: she doesn’t belong, they don’t want to be bothered.
So Jesus puts into words what they all must be thinking
"I was sent only to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel."
Thus begins a dialogue that can be seen as an exam. Bailey interprets these
words as the beginning of a test for this woman who has already shown courage
and wisdom. As a good teacher Jesus wants to draw out her strengths even more.
According to Bailey,
Jesus is teaching his disciples by voicing and exposing their deep prejudices.
They interpret his words as “Of course I want to get rid of her! We have no
time for such female Gentile trash.” Meanwhile the woman is challenged to stay
in the conversation and not go away because she believes that Jesus will heal her and therefore he does not mean
what he says.
But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me."
Grieving parents of tormented children will not go
away. Like the mothers of the
disappeared in Argentina or the mother of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri
and all the other mothers around the world whose children are oppressed by
powers and principalities- be that mental illness, demon possession, addiction,
systemic oppression and violence, miseducation- they have already had their
hearts torn open, they have nothing left to lose or fear. Mothers will do
anything to get help for their kids. Whether it means a modern mother sitting
on hold for hours on end as she navigates mental health care bureaucracy, or
suffering through miscarriages of justice that lead to mass incarceration,
sending her kids unaccompanied into the US, and enduring social stigma as this
woman surely did, mothers of hurting children have got to be tough. They also are bearing an incredible burden
that can sometimes feel worse than what their children are enduring. They will humiliate themselves for the sake
of their children. They and their
children have already been treated like trash, they can’t get any lower. Things cannot get any worse. She saw in Jesus hope for healing and she
would stop at nothing to get it.
Jesus says, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
Really Jesus, you said that to her?
In The Humor of Christ, Elton Trueblood says:
“If there is a harder problem than this in the New Testament
interpretation we do not know what it is.”
I take great comfort in knowing that even people who have spent way more
time on this than I have find this to be a particularly challenging bit of
scripture. He goes on, “Taken at its face value the sentence is rude and
contemptuous. Above all, it is at
complete variance with the general picture of Christ which we receive from the
rest of the Gospel, particularly in connection with the poor and needy…..As it
stands alone, the situation is intolerable, but perhaps the completion of the
dialogue can provide us with a clue”
Here, Trueblood points out, “We must remember that words are made
very different in connotation by the tone of the voice and by the look in the
eye of the speaker. There are things
which we can say with a smile, but which cannot be said, without offense, with
a straight face.”
Bailey sees this as part two of the exam. He says what the disciples are thinking,
“Jesus is only for Jews.” Because he trusts, that of all people, this woman has
the wit and the tenacity to prove them wrong and thus make clear his purpose to
spread his healing and love to every corner of the earth. Bailey says “is her love for her daughter,
her faith that Jesus has the power of God to heal, her confidence that he has
compassion for Gentiles and her commitment to him as Master/Lord so strong that
she will absorb the insult and press on, yet again with her request?”
She knows
that Jesus loves her and so kneeling at his feet she
says, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their
masters' table."
She has touched upon a mystery of our faith: The stone that
the builder rejected shall be the cornerstone; from discarded crumbs Jesus is
feeding his people and growing his kingdom; there is healing in a single thread
of his garment, in the spit from his mouth, the sound of his voice and even the
crumbs from his table. His grace, even
if it comes as crumb, is all sufficient.
Then Jesus answered
her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you
wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.
In humble, relentless trust in God’s infinite goodness she
laid her burdens at the feet of Jesus and healing came.
Can we do the same? How does this story speak to our broken world today?
Joseph and the Syro-Phoenician Woman both responded in love
rather than resentment. They
both had every right to hold onto anger and bitterness but instead they chose
the path of love. Joseph’s brothers and
Jesus disciples were forever changed by the love shown in those stories. Our liberation and healing is bound up in the
liberation and healing of our enemies.
By exposing the evil thoughts of his disciples Jesus offers them a path
to transformation. By using and thus
taking away the power of hurtful words to hurt Jesus does far better than
lessons in political correctness that might change language but never expose or
eradicate the rottenness of our hearts and thoughts.
Are we willing to be humble – to face humiliation- before
the Lord and before others for the sake of healing? People that were trained for sit-ins and
freedom rides sat through mock sessions of verbal abuse and ridicule so that
they would have the courage to endure the genuine cruelty they
encountered. Jesus was despised, rejected
and acquainted with grief. He saw in the
Syro-Phonecian woman a sister who felt his pain and the pain that was to come. He offered her healing in that moment but the
story did not stop there. Immediately
following that encounter he told his disciples to feed thousands with a few
fish and small loaves of bread. There
was enough. Later, He said to his disciples
take this bread, and this cup, my body and my blood and let me live in you. In his final hours he endured every insult and
injury so that we would stop insulting and injuring one another. He invites us into a new way of living in and
through his body and blood. Just a
crumb, just a drop of faith is enough.
In her article "A National Shame" in the August Sojourners, printed before the Ferguson
debacle, Ruby Sales exposes the tragedy of unarmed black youth being killed by
police. In 1965, when Ruby was 17 a deputy sheriff in Alabama leveled a gun at her and her friend, a white man named Jonathan Daniels, took the bullet intended for her and died instantly. The murderer was acquitted by an all white jury. After Jonathan Daniels’ murder Ruby could not
speak for seven months. But then she found her voice and went on to seminary,
the very Episcopal seminary that her friend had been attending when he was
killed. She has dedicated her life to
being a voice for human rights.
In her article she asked the prophetic question, “What does it mean to
be church in the 21st century when too many of our black brothers
and sisters are still seen as disposable waste?”
She didn’t offer any easy answers except the
assurance that we are all beloved children of God. Do we believe that of ourselves and our
neighbors both seen and unseen? Do we see and treat ourselves and others as
beloved children of God? If Jesus were to speak and bring to the light all the
prejudice that we try to cover up would we be humbled and transformed. Would we have the courage of his disciples to
write it down even if it makes us squirm? In the face of insults and injury can
we be like Christ? Would we respond like Jonathan Daniels or Jesus Christ and
lay down our life for our friends? When we cry out in prayer and are faced with
silence, do we keep praying? Do we trust that Jesus and his provision are truly
enough? Is there room in our hearts for
a mustard seed or a crumb of faith to take root and make miracles in our own
lives and communities? Are we relentless in our prayers and our pursuit of
Christ no matter the cost?
I have no other hope for this world but the poor, homeless,
rejected man named Jesus who smiled as his healing flowed to that mother and
daughter. May it be so for all the
rejected, hurting souls throwing themselves at his feet. By God’s grace, may we grow closer to Jesus through this story of the faith of the Syro Phonecian woman.