Posts Tagged ‘Canaanite woman’

Everyone has a place at the table

August 19, 2017

Pentecost 11 – 2017

Matthew 15:21-28

Marian Free

In the name of God whose goodness and mercy include all who seek it. Amen.

Movies/TV shows are a great way to learn about the culture of another country without having to go there. For example, there is a movie simply titled “Water”. It is set in India and follows the lives of two widows – one who appears to be only twelve years old and the other who seems to be in her twenties. In Hinduism widows are reviled; their husband’s assets revert to his family and any assets the woman might have had become the property of her family. As a result, widows find themselves destitute. At the same time they are considered to be bad luck – as if their husband’s untimely death has somehow tainted them. It is little wonder that, when it was legal, some widows willing threw themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre. Those who choose life are confined to an Ashram in which they are expected to live a religious life and never to remarry. They are totally dependent on the charity of others and often live in quite impoverished circumstances.

The older of our two widows is very beautiful, even in her simple white garment. It is hard to imagine that she is an object of disgust who must be avoided at all costs, but this is her fate. One of the more confronting moments of the movie occurs when someone accidentally brushes up against the young woman, immediately recoils and hurls a string of abuse at the widow whose responsibility it seems is to remain invisible and to steer clear of those who do not share her despised status. (It is her job to ensure that she does not contaminate them, not theirs to avoid her.)

It is easy to cast judgement on what, to us, appears to be the inhuman and insensitive treatment of widows and indeed of the caste of “untouchables” within the Hindu religious and cultural system. But before we pat ourselves on the back for our “enlightened” attitudes it is important to remind ourselves of our own heritage. Most cultures and religions have holiness or purity laws that serve to distinguish and separate people and things into holy or profane. This was certainly true of the Old Testament people and of the Jewish culture into which Jesus was born. Some of these regulations are spelled out in the book of Leviticus that identifies the holy and profane, the clean and unclean. This was important in a religious sense because those who were contaminated by the unholy and unclean could not enter the Temple (the place in which God met with the people of Israel). In some instances that which was profane or unclean were considered to be in some way contagious – that is that contact with the person or item rendered the other profane or unclean[1].

Fear of contamination explains why, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Priest and Levite avoid the injured man. If he is in fact dead, they will become unclean and will have to purify themselves before they enter the Temple (to which we presume they are walking). Gentiles (non-Jews) were considered to be unclean and to have unclean practices. This was the reason that their inclusion in the new community caused so much dissension (as is attested especially by Paul’s letters to Galatia and to Rome).

Purity and holiness laws served to set the Jews apart. By observing the rules and by engaging in prescribed behaviours and by avoiding those who did not observe them Jews in the first century could maintain their sense of difference and their belief in their own distinctiveness and holiness. When Jesus enters the picture he blows all those constructs apart and makes it clear that holiness is not a matter of external behaviours, but is entirely dependent on the state of one’s heart.

We can see this in the context of Matthew’s account of Jesus encounter with the Canaanite woman. Matthew places the story immediately after the Pharisees and scribes challenge Jesus with regard to what is clean and unclean. In response, Jesus redefines the concepts making it clear that it is not externals that make a person clean or unclean, but their acceptance of and faith in Jesus. That Matthew’s placement of the story is not accidental is suggested by the fact that Jesus (without any particular justification)– Jesus travels from wherever he is into what is very clearly Gentile territory – the region of Tyre and Sidon. The woman who approaches Jesus is clearly (from the Pharisaic perspective) an outsider who is also unclean. Jesus doesn’t recoil. Engaging with the woman will not contaminate him. Instead (after initially ignoring her) Jesus allows the woman to engage him in debate and then accedes to her request. The woman’s recognition of Jesus as “Lord, Son of David”, confirm to the reader that no matter how the Pharisees might view her, she is no longer an outsider and as such no longer unclean. Following this meeting, Jesus returns to Galilee (of the Gentiles) where he heals, without discrimination, all those who are brought to him. Like the woman they too make it clear that they are no longer outsiders by praising “the God of Israel”.

Through the way in which he has organized the material available to him, Matthew seems to be describing a progression from a ministry and mission that was directed solely to Israel (10: 6, 15:24) to a ministry and mission that is directed towards and fully inclusive of the Gentiles (28:19). An essential part of this programme is a re-framing of the concepts of clean and unclean, holy and profane. In the new economy, the barriers between the sacred and profane have no meaning and the divisions between Jew and Greek have been broken down.

From the genealogy, through the coming of the magi, Matthew has been making it clear that through Jesus the rules have changed – the definitions of holy and profane have been recast. Holiness no longer refers solely to those who were born Jews, to those who observed the purity laws and maintained a comfortable distance from the unclean and the profane. In the new economy, holiness/purity knows no boundaries. Inclusion is no longer determined by race or gender, class or skin colour. Everyone who recognises Jesus as Lord has a place at the table.

[1] (The use of iron tools to cut a stone altar made it unfit or unholy – Exodus 20:22, contact a corpse would exclude a person from the Temple until they had purified themselves and so on.)

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Moving the boundaries

August 16, 2014

Pentecost 10. 2014

Matthew 15:21-28

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who is constantly breaking down barriers and opening new possibilities for existence. Amen.

The account of the Canaanite woman is perhaps the most confronting story in the New Testament. Our familiarity with the Gospels means that we are not at all shocked by the way that Jesus befriends sinners and eats with them. Nor are we surprised that he allows a woman of the street to wash his feet. It seems perfectly reasonable to us that Jesus should heal on a Sabbath. But this story is shocking Jesus is rude and unsympathetic. He refuses to respond to a mother’s agonised cry for help. Worse still, not only does Jesus ignore the woman’s pleas, he adds insult to injury when he justifies his refusal by likening the woman to a household pet that does not deserve the same food as the children.

This hard, uncompromising Jesus is almost unrecognisable. Is this, we might ask, the same Jesus who only a short while ago had such compassion for the crowd that even though he needed to be alone he healed the sick and fed more than 5,000 people?

What is going on here? Such an unflattering and unexpected description of Jesus demands further explanation. Why would the Gospel writers include an account in which Jesus is so uncompromising, so rude? What is it that causes Jesus to withhold healing in this situation? Did he think that he would find the peace he was seeking outside Israel’s borders and did the woman interrupt that peace? We may not be able to find a satisfactory answer to those questions, but we can draw the conclusion that the purpose of this story in Matthew’s gospel is to explain how it is that the Gentiles have come to faith in a Jewish Messiah. – why it is that the faith community consists of both Jew and Gentile.

There are two versions of Jesus’ encounter with a Gentile woman in Mark and Matthew. A comparison between the two accounts shows that Mark’s record of the meeting is much less confrontational. Matthew has heightened the contest in a number of ways, which makes the outcome even more surprising. He elevates the position of the woman and he emphasises Jesus’ refusal to help. The woman recognises Jesus as the Son of David and falls down and worships him. This makes her a more formidable combatant than the woman in Mark’s account as she knows who Jesus is at a time when Jesus’ disciples have not yet made up their minds. The battle lines are more clearly drawn In Matthew, Jesus ignores the woman’s request not once but twice and his refusal to acknowledge her is supported by the disciples who urge him to send her away. Jesus’ response to the woman is strengthened by the assertion that his responsibility is only to the lost sheep of Israel. Matthew makes the woman stronger, Jesus harsher.

The basic elements of the story are the same in both gospels. Tyre and Sidon are on the Mediterranean Sea – a long way from Galilee and in territory that is primarily Gentile. It is Jesus, not the woman, who is out of place. The woman who seems to appear out of nowhere is desperate. An evil spirit oppresses her daughter. When Jesus rejects her plea for a second time she is not deterred. So confident is she in his authority and in his ability that she informs him that the crumbs will be enough. In her wisdom (or humility) she has understood that there is more than enough to go around and that even the left-overs will be more than sufficient to meet her need[1]. By helping her daughter, she suggested Jesus’ ministry to Israel would in no way be diminished.

Jesus is outside his territory on the woman’s home ground and she demands that he take her faith seriously. Consciously or unconsciously, the woman foreshadows the future. After Jesus’ death, the gospel will be preached in the regions beyond Israel. There the Gentiles will recognise Jesus and will demand their place in the community of faith.

In the final analysis, this account is much more than a story about one woman’s faith. It is in fact a reflection about boundaries, boundaries that turn out not to be rigid and immovable but fluid and ever-changing. The world into which Jesus was born was very clear about who was in and who was out and the lines between the two were fiercely guarded. Belonging was more than a birthright it also required adherence to strict purity laws. One could be born a Jew but still be an outsider. Anyone with a disability or skin disease was considered unclean, tax collectors and prostitutes were excluded. Temporary exclusion could result from contact with a corpse, a flow of blood or a failure to observe the purity laws. It was close to impossible for anyone from outside to be given admission to God’s chosen people. The woman’s insight and her refusal to be denied made it clear that the boundaries were moving and that Jesus’ message was intended not just for a few, but for the whole world.

Our readings today remind us that God doesn’t observe conventions or maintain strict boundaries. Genesis tells us that by default Joseph, the Hebrew slave of Pharaoh, becomes the ruler of all Egypt. In Romans Paul reminds us that, contrary to expectation, wIld olive shoots (the Gentiles) are grafted on to the rich root of the olive tree (the Jews).

The faith that grew in Jesus’ name shattered all previous boundaries and admitted as full members those who were previously on the outside or who were languishing in the shadows.

The Canaanite woman demanded and received recognition for her faith. She challenged Jesus’ narrow mind-set and forced him to think differently. In a world in which boundaries are becoming drawn ever tighter or being raised against perceived threats or new fears, perhaps it is time for us to consider where we stand and to ask ourselves whether our fences represent the mind of God or whether they are simply there to separate ourselves from others and to protect the ways of the past.

[1] An interesting insight in view of the quantity of leftovers from the feeding of the 5,000.

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