This story about Jesus and the Canaanite Woman is one that used to really bother me, but has become one of my favorite stories in the New Testament. It starts out just like so many other miracle stories in the Gospels, somebody needs help, and comes to Jesus. Now, ordinarily, we expect Jesus to respond, to demonstrate God’s great love for us, by healing the person or providing for their needs. Isn’t that what he usually does? But this time, he doesn’t. First, he ignores this woman, and when she persists, he tells her he can’t help her. When she still persists, Jesus makes a very denigrating remark about her ethnicity. Is this the Jesus we know? The One who came to show us God’s love? What’s going on here?

This story is unique in the way it shows both the humanity of Christ, and the ways we can approach God. And to do this it uses a woman – an undesirable of the times, a woman whose undoubtedly shady past must surely have caused the demonic possession in the family; a woman brazen enough to initiate conversation with a man.

Jesus is silent in the face of her. The disciples, however, have their prayer shawls in a knot: Get rid of her, they urge, "Do what she wants, so she’ll get out of our hair."

But Jesus responds, "No; I wasn’t sent for her." Then, this "dog" who is satisfied just to be under the table proceeds to change his heart. She is not beholden to the "official rules” or even to Jesus’ understanding of his own vocation, but insists that she and her daughter have a right to healing. And then Christ insults her, pointing out that he is here for the Jews, God’s chosen people, not her. "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

I have to admit that my first reaction when I read this part is one of anger. Now,  such a reaction would probably never have occurred to a woman in her day, in that world. But it still astounds me how well she takes Jesus’ insult.

But on reflection, I’m glad that the woman doesn’t respond to hostility with more hostility. That doesn’t solve anything. It just creates a cycle of anger and hurt, violence and more violence. It’s not going to do her any good, and it’s not going to heal her daughter. No, this woman is wiser than I. Even after having that insult thrown at her, she is not daunted.

Maybe this is why she was so persistent. She had faith in Jesus as the Lord. She allows Jesus the freedom to speak and act as the Lord. Maybe because of this she is not offended, like I am, when he calls her as a dog. Maybe she decides that before the Lord of the Universe we all are dogs, and that we are all dependent on free scraps from the table. She has the faith to fire back at Jesus. This is the kind of faith that seems to move Jesus to give a second look.

I imagine she gets up, and dusts off her skirt a bit. And she answers him, not with anger, but in a respectful tone, with dignity, “Yes Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” She’s debating with him now, in true rabbinical fashion. With wit and ingenuity she catches him in his own words. “O.K.,” she says, “if you want to call me a dog, call me a dog, but the dog can be fed without taking away what belongs to the children.”

She is reminding Jesus of the truth that he knows. The gifts of God’s Kingdom are limitless! There is enough bread for everyone at God’s table. Healing, forgiveness, peace, joy, love: these aren’t precious, limited commodities that we need to hoard. NO! God’s love is boundless, the more we share, the more there is. Isn’t this what Jesus taught us when he multiplied the loaves and the fishes? The bread of God’s kingdom is an unlimited resource, spread it around! Feed it to the children, the men, the women, the young, the old! Throw it to the dogs! Throw it in the air to feed the birds! Give it to everyone!

And Jesus answers her joyfully! “Woman, great is your faith. He recognizes her as a member of God’s family, welcome at God’s table. And her daughter is healed. That’s why Matthew tells this story. His community is in conflict over the whole concept of a mission to the Gentiles. How can they take this precious Gospel and give it to unclean people? Matthew says, Jesus struggled with this, too, and here is the answer. The gifts of the Kingdom are for all! Spread them around, share the bread! All who come to Christ with honesty and trust are welcomed at the table!

Jesus engages her in argument and Jesus gives in. He loses the argument. He changes course at this woman's word, and commends her for challenging what he said. “Great is your faith!” Everyone else has heard “Oh you of little faith. But not this one. This woman hears “Great is your faith!”

I've heard people say that Jesus didn't really mean what he said in this story, that he knew precisely what he was doing, and he was testing the woman's faith to see whether she was worthy of the miraculous healing she requested for her daughter. But I have trouble with this idea for a couple of reasons. First this isn't how the crowd who witnessed the historical evidence would have interpreted it any more than Matthew's readers would have. They would have instead seen Jesus put the woman in her rightful place before changing his mind and healing her. Second I have trouble believing that Jesus would play mind games with a woman desperately seeking a cure for her daughter that she goes out of her way, breaks several taboos and cries out in pain. And for what?  To make a point so obscure that nobody in his culture was likely to pick up on what he was doing.

I think we're on more solid ground in thinking that Jesus was changed in that encounter. Jesus chose to listen to someone whom others would have ignored, engaging in argument with her. And Jesus chose to act in compassion in a situation in which no one would have faulted him for moving on. His choosing to listen and to heal, to change his mind when doing so would cost him honor in the sight of others, demonstrated for us how a true leader discerns mission.

In a sense, it is Jesus’ own awakening, one that takes him far beyond first-century Palestine’s "honor culture." Jesus does not save face. The woman challenges him on his own terms—by her living, pushy faith—to make room for outcast and alien. It’s a profound conversion for him: continue reading in this gospel, and watch how his encounters have a shifted nuance, his stories a new and pronounced bias for the poor and the outsider. There is an insight threading its way through the rest of Matthew that traces back to the argument of a Canaanite "dog."

Being a faithful people is all about changing the table rules and getting changed yourself! It’s about who gets to be at the table, and who will be at the table in spite of us; and thereby about the social implications for relations between poor and non-poor, genders, orientations, abilities, pedigrees. It is about a banquet for dogs.

We have a lot to learn from how this woman appealed to the Lord. Too often we come before God demanding. Asking for things and expecting God will give them to us because we asked. We often come with lists of requests that we expect to have answered, as if we were going grocery shopping. We sometimes think we deserve special treatment ahead of others and demand it. Is that any way to come before our Savior?

And too often we come before the Lord with shame and fear in our hearts. Knowing all we have done and knowing that we are so far below what the Lord should love and help. Have you ever had a time when you were ashamed to pray?  Yes, we have sinned. Yes, we are separated from God and in need of healing for ourselves and our human family. But that does not give us an excuse to look on ourselves as worthless. Christ did not come to live with us and die for us because we are worthless. We are called to be God’s people, to love and to serve God, but please note that there is a difference between serving and being servile. Sometimes self-sacrifice is necessary, but that’s not possible if you don’t have a self to give.

There is a third way. The way the Cananite woman took. We can come in hope and in trust, seeking a relationship where we can come to Christ with our whole selves, our minds and our hopes, our dreams of wholeness. “Come, let us reason together,’ says our God. God made us beings with free minds and free hearts, because God wants to be with us in a relationship of love. Who knows better than God that love can’t be compelled? And so, God made us free, knowing the risk of sin and brokenness. And when we fell, God came to us in Jesus Christ, who came to show us our true place as women and men.

That place is in mutual fellowship with Christ and one another, learning and growing together. And together, we will heal our broken relationships, our broken families, and our broken world. The Canaanite does not order God around, yet she still asks for the crumbs from her master’s table. She still asks for healing for her child, as what her child deserves.

This unnamed woman gives us a wonderful example of how to approach God with both humility and confidence, deference and boldness, a grounded trust in God’s grace despite all the human obstacles that stand in the way of relationship. We have a lot to learn from the Canaanite woman’s relationship with the Lord.

The grace of God is for all. The proud and the lowly. The outcast and the ones sitting in the pews. It isn’t a question of what we deserve, or what they deserve. No, there is grace enough for all, deserved or not. We are called to live as Christ lived, sharing with those who don’t belong and allowing our hearts to change by another’s plea. May God grant us all the courage to follow him. Amen.

Rev. Cara Gee

August 14, 2011