I really appreciate the Lutheran pastors
(and one Episcopal guest) in my conference Bible study group. Some of them are
young enough to be my kids, but I have to say they often seem a lot smarter
than me. Still, even with the aid of their magnificent and theologically
trained young minds, this week’s Gospel lesson (Matthew 15:22-28) was something
of a stumper. You’ve heard the story: Jesus encounters a Canaanite woman with a
sick child. He calls her a dog and refuses to heal her little girl. Then, when
she gives a pithy comeback to his rather insulting rebuke to her, he changes
his mind and heals the child. My young colleagues and I agreed that there were
a few things about this passage we found jarring.
First, let’s assume that Jesus intended to
heal the foreign woman’s kid all along, but he was using this episode either to
test her faith or to teach his followers a lesson about inclusivity. This
interpretation might fly in the face of our understanding of grace since the
healing seems to depend on the woman giving the right reply to Jesus’ nasty
comments about her. Also, the fact that Jesus basically calls her the “b-word”
kind of ruffles our image of a loving and compassionate Savior. I mean, this
lady is suffering enough with a demonically possessed daughter. Does she need
to be insulted, too?
Of course, we could take the opposite tack
and assume that Jesus—who was true human as well as true God—was just doing
what any rabbi in his culture would do when he denied the request of a gentile.
We could conclude that he was won over by the foreign woman’s faith, and so
decided to change his mind about the healing. The problem with this
interpretation is that it doesn’t square up with our Trinitarian understanding
that Jesus is one with the omniscient God. We’re left with two alternatives: Jesus
is either omniscient but rude to the point of being cruel, or he’s not omniscient and is figuring it out as
he goes just like the rest of us.
Part of me likes the idea of the human
Jesus having an epiphany. It’s kind of like the wonderful moment we have when
we discover that someone we assumed was a total jerk turns out to be pretty
decent after all.[i]
All the same, if I had to pick an interpretation, I guess I’d go with the idea
that Jesus was teaching us a lesson about loving our neighbor—even if that
neighbor is someone with whom we wouldn’t normally associate. Matthew’s Gospel
seems to lean in that direction. He starts his story with a genealogy of Jesus
which includes foreign women like Rahab and Ruth. He goes on to introduce a bunch
of foreign astronomers who hail Jesus as a king. He depicts the Holy Family as
refugees in a foreign land, and ends the whole story with Jesus sending his ambassadors
out to make disciples of all nations.
So what does this story about inclusion
say to us as we’re trying our best to avoid
everyone during a pandemic? With which of the characters in this story do
you identify? I’ll bet it’s pretty easy to feel sympathy for the disciples who
just want this weird, nagging woman to put a sock in her pie hole and leave
them alone. With all the misery and conflict in our world right now, do you
really have time to listen to someone else’s problems? Can’t you just hear
Peter or Andrew or one of the guys saying, “Look, lady. The Lord has enough
sick folks to worry about among our own people.
We don’t have time for your foreign brat. So beat it!” In a time of stress, don’t
we all have to triage our level of concern? But Jesus is still there for everyone. If we’re really serious about
being imitators of Christ, we’re going to have to put up with a lot we think we’re
too tired to handle.
In contrast, we might want to identify
with the Canaanite woman. It’s not hard. Have you ever felt left out? Have you
ever wondered if God was listening to you? Have you ever been made to feel
undeserving of God’s grace? Jesus admires this woman for her faith. With a sick
child, a hostile crowd trying to get rid of her, and a really belligerent
rebuke from the rabbi she’s petitioning for help, she still presses on. What
else can she do?
As we start the sixth month of a pandemic
shut-down, we watch continued protests in the streets of our cities, and we wait
for our government to do something meaningful, we’ll accept any crumb of grace
that falls from God’s table, and even a crumb
will be enough.
God’s peace, my friend. Take care and
thanks for reading this week.
[i] A
1999 made-for-TV movie by Trimark simply called Jesus took the interpretation that Jesus changed his mind when
moved by the faith of the Canaanite woman. A church member said she really liked
this depiction as it made Jesus seem more relatable.
No comments:
Post a Comment