This week’s gospel is among the most challenging in Scripture. In it, Matthew recounts the story of Jesus’ visit with his disciples to the Gentile towns of Tyre and Sidon. There, Jesus is approached by a Canaanite woman seeking healing for her daughter who is tormented by a demon. Jesus’ response makes us profoundly uncomfortable: It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs, he tells her. Does he mean it as a racial insult, or is he merely echoing what would have been the common sentiments of his time? Or is he perhaps testing his disciples in order to provide them with a profound and important lesson?
What should amaze us in this story is the woman’s response: Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters. On her knees before the Lord, a position of homage, the woman is determined to find help, and her faith is stronger than their prejudice. She believes past any limitations; as a Gentile, she ostensibly has no claim on Jesus, and assumes a position of profound humility before him, a position that allows her to maintain her human dignity. There is no demand for equality; she would be content with mere scraps of assistance. She understands the equity of God’s rule; even the dogs eat scraps from God’s table, for God loves all he has made. Jesus will ultimately acknowledge her: O woman, great is your faith!
The Canaanite woman in Matthew’s Gospel is one of the most profound figures in scripture, a perfect illustration of Isaiah’s admonition that the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, ministering to him and loving his name, will be accepted in the presence of God. God’s house is indeed a house of prayer for all peoples. We may assume we know God’s mind; we set parameters believing they are God’s boundaries, when in fact they are only our own. Psalm 67 clearly echoes the Lord’s desire that his way be known upon earth, among all nations, Gentile or Jew, servant or free.
The fidelity of God’s people is crucial to bringing about salvation. Paul writes to the Romans because of reports that they are scoffing at the Jews for not believing in Jesus. To accept Jesus is to do the will of God, Paul reminds them, for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable, and therefore they must remember their own disobedience and the mercy God showed them. Paul hopes that the conversion of the Gentiles – like that of the Canaanite woman in Matthew’s Gospel – will ultimately be the mechanism by which God brings the Jewish people, Paul’s own race, to belief in Christ. In the end, the second coming will arrive when all are united; this is the kingdom in its fullness. Salvation comes when all – you, I, all – participate in God’s justice; Christians are to allow their boundaries to be stretched and expanded, receiving all nations and serving as an inspiration to all nations, that they might find Christ.
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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