Last week, I started a series of reflections on faith. This week, we look at faith in unexpected places. After calling Peter, one of his closest disciples, a man of weak faith, Jesus and his disciples continue their journey. In the next chapter, Jesus is first confronted by a group of Pharisees and scribes and then a Canaanite woman comes to him seeking help. While my focus this week was on the story of the Canaanite woman (verses 21-28), the earlier verses of this chapter help to set the context of the story (see Matthew 15:1-28).
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I have to admit that this story is one of the most troubling accounts in the Gospels to me. This story follows closely after the last story. Jesus and the disciples have made it across the lake and have encountered a group of Pharisees who came all the way from Jerusalem to question Jesus. They have questions about the Law, specifically all the religious rules that Jesus and his followers seem to regularly disregard.
In response to their questioning, Jesus makes the case that the law of God is greater than the ritual laws found in the Torah. God’s law commands us to love one another, but the scribes and Pharisees use the religious laws as an excuse not to love others or serve others as it suits them. Jesus then refers to the Pharisees as the blind leading the blind and tells his disciples to pay them no mind.
Leaving this group behind, Jesus and his disciples continue on their way. As they are traveling, this Canaanite woman we hear about today approaches and shouts toward them, asking for Jesus to heal her daughter. At first, Jesus simply ignores her, but the text suggests that she continues to follow after him, shouting her request. The disciples finally urge Jesus to send her away, concerned about her shouting.
So, a woman begs Jesus for help because her daughter is tormented by a demon and his first response is to not respond at all. This seems odd given the stories of healing we have already heard about. However, this is a small reminder that Jesus is in fact a man, and not only that but a Jewish man.
You see, in the Hebrew texts, we hear that the land of Canaan is the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. They are the ones that lived in the land when Abraham’s descendants entered it. They were outsiders. As far as the Hebrews were concerned, they barely had a right to exist. In fact, several Canaanite cities were completely destroyed as the Israelites entered the land. (Truly, the stories of the Israelite's battles with and treatment of the Canaanites is rather violent.)
This is part of the context of Jesus’ response here. But it doesn’t end with Jesus ignoring her. He responds that he has been sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. It’s not immediately clear in the text if he is saying this only to his disciples or if this is in fact a response to the woman. Whatever the case, he makes it clear that he has been sent to the people of Israel, to bring them salvation.
Undeterred the woman kneels on the ground, pleading before him. Jesus again responds with language that makes it clear he is well aware of the animosity that exists between the Hebrews and the Canaanites.
“It is not good to take the children’s bread and toss it to dogs” (Matthew 15:26, CEB).
It is not right for me to take the healing that has been promised to the land of Israel and offer it to an outsider. And not just any outsider, but a Canaanite.
Think about our world today. Where are the places we hear similar statements today? Think about how you may feel when you hear such language. How surprising is it to hear Jesus respond this way?
But the woman continues to press. Even dogs get the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table. She knows that Jesus is a man of power. She has heard his stories of healing. Surely he has enough power to spare a tiny bit. Surely a mere crumb of his power is all it would take.
At this point, Jesus praises the woman. “Woman, you have great faith.” At that moment, the woman’s daughter is healed.
Now, it should be obvious now why I have such a difficult time with this story. Jesus first ignores the woman who is calling out to him, something numerous others have done and will continue to do. But then he refers to her as a dog. Sure, he meant her people as a whole as he said it, but does that really matter. When we are speaking to an individual person and refer to some group of which they may be a part negatively, it doesn’t much matter if you were referring to the group or the individual. It hurts. Again, this makes clear that Jesus is a human man and a Jewish man. He is a part of the culture that raised him even as he is also something more.
Of course, there is the possibility that the phrase he used was an idiom with a particular meaning at that time that would not have seemed nearly as offensive as it sounds to us today. Imagine trying to explain a phrase such as “cat got your tongue” to someone that has no concept of what you are talking about. So perhaps it is possible that there is a meaning here that has been lost to time.
Perhaps he was playing on his disciples’ assumptions as he sometimes does. He starts with a response in line with what his listeners are expecting before offering a twist that goes in a different direction. He does this in the Good Samaritan story, among others. Not that he openly insults the Samaritan in that story, but it is a teaching method he uses.
And while it is certainly problematic to our ears (and possibly at that time as well), it is this juxtaposition that is key here.
First, we must hear this story in conjunction with what came immediately before. As I summarized above, after crossing the lake, Jesus and the disciples encounter a group of Pharisees who question him about the religious laws. These are Isrealites, Hebrew religious leaders and scholars. Jesus calls them to task for having the form of faith without actually going as far as God expects. If we consider his response to the Canaanite woman, these are the very ones Jesus was sent to heal.
And yet, while he at first engages with them, he ultimately walks away, calling them blind. On the other hand, he at first ignores the Canaanite woman, before calling her names, and finally praising her faith. If those to whom Jesus was sent will not hear him and heed him, there are others that will hear God’s call and seek out a relationship.
While the way he goes about it is difficult for our ears to hear, he does ultimately welcome this outsider and praise her faith.
In addition to this setting, it is also hard to hear this story and not think of last week’s story. Last week, we see Peter’s fear and failure, and then Jesus calls him a man of weak faith. Then today, Jesus calls this person, this woman, this outsider, a woman of great faith.
In our world today, there are still those that look to the external appearance of religion, to certain purity laws and practices, as the way to prove our faith in God. And, while there is nothing inherently wrong with someone following these rules as a practice of one’s faith, there are others that fall outside of these practices, that exist on the margins, that have faith as strong or stronger than those who consider themselves on the inside.
How often do we, like the Pharisees, use our ideas of religious purity as an excuse not to help someone in need or not to include someone in our faith lives? On the other hand, how often do we see those who do not fit our ideas of religious purity and faith doing the very things that Jesus has called us to do and seeking an active relationship with God?
Sometimes those we consider outsiders are the most important part of the story.
It is kind of like the story of King Arthur, at least the Disney version we see in “The Sword in the Stone.” In this movie, we first meet Arthur as a scrawny boy, an orphan in the care of his uncle. He is part of the family but also kept apart, treated differently. Where his cousin Kay is trained as a knight, young Arthur works in the kitchens. He is belittled, berated, called names, and forced to do all manner of chores.
Now, in this story, England is without a king. There is a sword piercing an anvil and a stone that rests in a courtyard in London, and the story goes that whoever pulls the sword is the rightful king. While many have tried, no one has been able to pull the sword. It has been all but forgotten, but the nation still needs a king, so a tournament will be held to decide the new king.
Arthur’s cousin, Kay, is entered in the tournament, but Arthur is expected to remain at home doing chores. He becomes Kay’s squire at the last minute when the previous squire becomes ill. New to his duties, Arthur forgets Kay’s sword. In search of another sword, Arthur spots the sword in the stone and, not knowing what it is, grabs it and takes it to Kay. When people realize that the sword has been pulled, the tournament halts. After a little confusion, Arthur is crowned king.
Sometimes, those we least expect have something important to contribute.
Sometimes those we push to the margins or treat like outsiders have greater faith than the most regular church-goers.
Sometimes we get so caught up in rules, on who is in and who is out, that we miss the very thing that Jesus is trying to teach us.
Sometimes we are the person on the outside desperately seeking a relationship with God.
It is hard for our ears to hear this story play out as it does in our text today. We don’t like to see Jesus ignore someone in need. We don’t like to see him call a woman or a people degrading names. And, maybe, we don’t like being reminded of our modern times and the ways in which we still struggle with who gets included and who gets excluded. We still struggle with the names that we call one another, or the ways entire groups of people are treated as second-class people, barely worthy of existence.
But Jesus includes those we exclude. Jesus turns the tables on our expectations. God can do amazing things with weak faith. And Jesus points us to strong faith in unexpected places.
As we reflect on these thoughts today, I invite you to listen to the song, “Draw the Circle Wide.” This song is a call to action for us, to include those who are so often pushed out of our churches or to the margins of our society. God’s love is big enough for all of us. And often, those who are overlooked and pushed aside have the strongest faith of all.