Listening to women

“…Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ (Matt 15:28)

Matthew 15:21-28 (Year A: Tenth Sunday after Trinity 20th August 2017)

This Sunday’s Gospel story presents a challenge on two fronts. In the first place, we find ourselves with Jesus in what would have been considered as a foreign place among foreign people. Remember that in the running order of Matthew’s 15^th chapter we have just read about an argument between Jesus and some Pharisees and Scribes who were taking issue about the Law including ritual cleansing practices.

Now, in the district of Tyre and Sidon a Canaanite, a foreigner, came forward and ‘started shouting’ at Jesus, a Jew, in search of help. Why would a devout Jew respond to a foreigner for help?  Was Jesus trying out the patience and trust of others around him by deliberately not answering this Canaanite (in other words ignoring her)? Even then, he provided, according to Matthew, what might be considered an abrupt and rude response by declaring ‘it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs’.  If ever Jesus might be accused of political incorrectness and Ethno-religious discrimination here was a prime example! (Canaanites would have been regarded, generally, in Jewish society as a sinful and godless race to be shunned if not exterminated).

But, the Canaanite persisted and, this time, on her knees. She had a daughter who was seriously ill. And mothers, as we all know, will go to any length when it comes to their children – child or adult.  We may note that the woman persisted without being presumptuous. She did not presume that Jesus would perform a miracle. And, she did not argue with his blunt parable about giving food to the ‘dogs’. She used the parable to continue pleading by suggesting that even the dogs can eat the crumbs that fall from the masters’ table.  How often do we see an honesty and realism in those outside our comfort circles?

There is, however, a second challenge. Not only was a foreigner shouting at Jesus but the foreigner was a woman. Not for the first or last time, women feature prominently in stories about Jesus – albeit within the overall cultural constraints of 1st-century culture in that part of the world.

Consorting with women – especially the racially and religiously unclean not to mention those of fallen behaviour – was a big ‘No No’ for a 1^st century Rabbi.  Yet again, Jesus is turning the tables on aspects of religious thinking and religious practice. Before we might dismiss this observation as irrelevant and of no consequence to 21^st century Christians reading the Gospels, we might reflect on the very real phenomenon whereby not a few Christian gentlemen and women organise breakaway congregations or change of church membership because the tradition from where they come has started to ordain women as deacons, priests or bishops (Frankly, this blogger could think of better reasons for starting an ecclesiastical schism than over these matters!).

Being in a foreign place with ‘the others’, Jesus was confronted with a pleading mother for her sick daughter. She addressed him in the following terms: ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon’.  So often, in the course of his short three-year ministry, Jesus is confronted with pleas for help, mercy and curing. In the culture of the time, long-term debilitating sickness, sin and blame were pretty much all of the same in the minds of most devout people (and, lest anyone succumb to Arian heresy) Jesus, as well as being God, was also ‘fully human’ meaning that He didn’t know everything about 21^st century neuropsychology, Astro-physics and nanotechnology (not that 21^st century scientists, theologians and other specialists know it all, either).

The sick, the blind, the lame, the troubled, the sinful and others knew two things about Jesus:

1. Jesus literally took ‘pity’ on people
2. Jesus had power to perform extraordinary healings.

 (The words ‘Kyrie Eleison [Ἐλέησόν] from the Greek or ‘Lord have mercy’ used in the Eucharist means the same).

But, there are two other points that arise in the context of this unusual encounter that we should be sensitive to.

First, it appears that Jesus was very much of the understanding and view that he was sent by the Father to the ‘House of Israel’, only.  It looks as if he modified his stance when this foreigner pleaded with great simplicity, trust and, above all, anguish because she wanted nothing more than the healing of her very sick daughter. The mother had heard the pleas of her daughter and Jesus had heard the pleas of the mother. The Gates of Heaven were opened to a miracle as Jesus acted on the plea of mercy. Did the foreigner play a vital role at this point in the ministry of Jesus in helping Jesus – who was fully human as well as divine – to broaden his understanding and revise his mission plan?  Is there a lesson for us today?  Are we really listening to an anguished world?  Are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit trying to tell us something today in the anguish and needs of others around us including those very different to us by reason of creed, race, sexual orientation or political affiliation?

Second, the one who did the pleading was a woman. How often, are the voices of women excluded from the realms of politics, theology, government and family life. It may be that much progress has been made in the last century in parts of the Northern hemisphere. However, many cultures treat women as second class citizens without rights to representation, property and participation.  Christian churches in their governance and ministry practice – even in the assumed liberal regions of the globe – act and theologise blind to the cultural biases they have inherited.  The story of the Canaanite women in Matthew 15 is a challenge to such mind-sets.

in this story, compassion rather than convenience and set-in-concrete tradition seized this moment when confronted with a pressing, persistent, humble, trusting request arising from human suffering the God of compassion worked a miracle.

Put another way, the story of the foreigner and the woman from Canaan in Matthew 15 tells us that:

• Faith works
• People matter
• & God rules

The following or similar words might help as we approach the Eucharist or Table of the Lord this Sunday:

We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness but in your manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.
But you are the same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy.
Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ,
and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us. Amen.

 (taken from the Book of Common Prayer used in the Church of Ireland)