Faith is a Kind of Courage: SALT's Lectionary Commentary for Eleventh Week after Pentecost
Eleventh Week after Pentecost (Year A): Matthew 15:(10-20),21-28
Big Picture:
1) From now until December, we’ll be walking chronologically through the Gospel of Matthew (next year, beginning with Advent, we’ll be walking primarily through Mark). The fundamental themes in this week’s readings - both the tenacious, active character of genuine faith and the ever-opening-outward character of God’s mission - are in keeping with a spirit of summer renewal. They bring us back to basics, pushing us to ask ourselves and one another, "What’s faith really all about?" and, "What mission are we on?"
2) The overall geographical choreography in Matthew provides a crucial key for interpreting this passage. Jesus has been healing, teaching, and feeding throughout the countryside - but here he moves decisively into Gentile territory. In Matthew’s overall storyline, the saving, healing, liberating work of God expands in scope from Jewish circles to eventually include all people. This week’s story is a pivot point in this larger narrative of scandalous, widening inclusion.
3) Tyre and Sidon were both coastal cities in the Roman province of Syria, as well as historic centers of the Phoenician naval empire, an ancient nemesis of Israel (see, e.g., Ezekiel 26-28). Thus for many in Matthew’s early audience, these cities evoked foreign, hostile territory.
4) In the lection’s optional verses (10-20), Jesus declares that “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles” (Matthew 15:11). In this debate with some religious leaders, Jesus doesn’t condemn ritual purity practices outright, but instead strongly emphasizes the importance of action and purity of heart - and this emphasis could cause some listeners to say, Well, if it’s action and purity of heart that matter most, doesn’t that put everyone on a similar footing? In other words, doesn’t Jesus' way of looking at things potentially open up the circle of salvation to all, Gentiles as well as Jews? As if in answer to these questions, Jesus turns and heads deep into Gentile territory...
5) Finally, since August 18 is the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the amendment recognizing that women have the right to vote), this is a great week to reflect on the power of bold, courageous women, Canaanite and otherwise! For more on this centennial anniversary, see SALT’s Theologian’s Almanac here.
Scripture:
1) As Jesus arrives, he’s immediately met by a local woman; the term “Canaanite” signals that she’s a Gentile, and at the same time evokes an ancient enemy of Israel. She is desperate, and has come to seek Jesus’ help: her daughter is possessed by an unclean spirit. But please note: she does not ask politely. She does not wait and make an appointment to plead her case. Rather, she shouts - so much so that the disciples are downright annoyed, and ask Jesus to send her away. Jesus first ignores her, and then says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). But rather than turn away defeated, the woman audaciously presses forward, kneeling at Jesus’ feet, traversing barriers set not only by patriarchy and other cultural norms, but also by religion, ethnicity, and longstanding enmity between peoples. For she is a Canaanite, a Gentile, and he is a Jew.
2) Jesus’ initial reaction is in keeping with this old enmity: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Matthew 15:26). Come again? Did Jesus just call this woman - a dog?
3) There are at least two ways of interpreting this passage. One is that Jesus articulates this proverbial animosity not in order to endorse it, but rather in order to dramatize it, to bring it center stage precisely so it can be conspicuously overturned by a bold, courageous woman - an object lesson for his disciples’ benefit, and for ours. He intuits that the woman will audaciously, insightfully push beyond the conventional view, and so he cues her up to do just that by expressing the prejudice in its popular, folk-wisdom form, perhaps with a satirical gleam in his eye. It’s as if he says, But isn’t it true that we shouldn’t give the children’s food to the dogs? Isn’t that what everyone says? What do you say? And sure enough, the woman adroitly turns the metaphor on its head: even the dogs gather the table’s crumbs; the logic of abundance implies that God’s grace is for all people, right here and right now. Jesus immediately concedes the point (this is the only verbal fencing match in Matthew that Jesus doesn’t win), thus establishing the woman as an exemplar of faith, a model theologian, an outsider who understands better than the insiders do. The Gospel is now officially on the loose, and the Canaanite woman is a pivotal hero in the story, the tenacious mother who helps Jesus open up the circle of salvation to the wider world.
4) A second interpretive possibility is that Jesus is initially blinkered by the conventional thinking of his day, and ends up learning from his encounter with the Canaanite woman. According to this line of thought, Jesus changes his mind when confronted with her insistence - in the tradition of God’s changes of mind when confronted with, say, Abraham’s insistence, or Moses’ insistence (Genesis 18:16-33; Exodus 32:14). Like every human being, Jesus learns and evolves. And the Canaanite woman herself therefore stands in that ancient lineage of lamentation and struggle with God. Like Abraham and Moses, she argues, and stands her ground, and prevails. Like Jacob, she's not afraid to wrestle with God and insist on a blessing (“Israel” literally means “struggles/strives with God”).
5) So which is it? Many interpreters write and preach as if we have to choose between lines of interpretation like these - but in fact Matthew’s account is permanently open to them both. Jesus’ tone of voice isn't specified; it could be satirical or serious. Nor does Matthew comment on Jesus’ motivations. And so a third option is to hold both of these interpretations open and confess that we don’t know for sure what Jesus had in mind - but that either way, for her part, the Canaanite woman is a radiant model of bold, creative, resourceful faith. And either way, her story is yet another example of an outsider seeing and understanding what insiders don’t, a motif in Matthew that continues all the way to the centurion's cry at the foot of the cross (Matthew 27:54).
Takeaways:
1) This is a perfect week to reflect on the nature of genuine faith. It’s not a kind of certainty, as if its opposite is “doubt” - rather, it’s a kind of courage, and its opposite is timidity. As the Canaanite woman demonstrates, genuine faith is bold, daring, and insistent. It puts first things first (a daughter’s health, for instance). And it marshals every resource available, from wit to wisdom, insight to impertinence. It seeks God out with vim and vigor, and is finally unafraid to wrestle, to strive, to struggle with God. In short, faith is living and active. As James puts it, "So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead" (James 2:17).
2) Likewise, this is a perfect week to reflect on God’s living and active mission, the same mission that constitutes the church. Its characteristic mark is that it is always being opened, always surprising us - scandalizing us, even - with its ever-unfolding breadth and generosity. And this begs the question: Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, whom do we fail to include in our working understandings of God’s grace? Whom do we treat as “outsiders”? To whom are we closed off? Those across the political aisle? Those in another part of town? Those who have done unspeakable wrongs? Those who belong to another religion, or culture, or set of values? Other creatures in God's creation? In what ways do we, too, need to hear Jesus’ challenging, liberating, reconciling words?
3) Finally, this story is a case study in how scripture is sometimes best interpreted in ways that leave multiple doors open. A kind of “subjunctive imagination” is best suited to such passages, a “could be this, could be that” approach. The late, great Rev. Dr. Fred Craddock was a master of this mode of thought in his preaching. He would say something like this: Now, wait a minute, what is Jesus up to here? Is he pronouncing an age-old prejudice like a slow-pitch softball floating over home plate, precisely so this gifted, fierce young mother can take her bat and knock it out of the park? Perhaps… Or is he bogged down in what his teachers taught him, as we so often are? Does he learn something in this back and forth? Does she change his mind? Is she the rabbi here, the one who will open his perspective a bit more, a bit more…? Perhaps… Or is there instead a twinkle in Jesus' eye, even from the outset? Does he know very well that God's geometry cannot and will not be contained to one small circle only, but finally must become a great Circle that includes all other circles? Does Jesus in fact know this perfectly well - but takes more pleasure in *her* making the point as only she can, rather than making it himself? He makes so many points, after all - why not make room so that she can make this one? She certainly makes it quite well, and this way, not one but two points are made: about inclusion, yes, but also about the power and wisdom of the supposed outsider, the foreigner, the enemy, the supposedly second-class... I don’t know. I suppose we’ll never know. But here’s one thing we do know: she sure did hit that ball out of that park. Oh yes! And whether or not she opened Jesus’ mind in the process, I’m confident she opened more than one mind among his disciples that day, at least for a fleeting moment, before they slid back into the old fears and resentments. I’m even sure she’ll open one or two of our minds here today if we’re not careful, virtuoso of faith that she is, profile in courage, champion of chuzpah. Do you have eyes to see, ears to hear? Open up, she says. For that’s what grace does. Open, open, open…