A Dogged Faith
Scripture Reading: Matt. 15:10-28
When I moved into the manse back in May I didn’t realize that it came with a couple of tenants. From the day we moved in there were two street cats who came to the back patio each morning as if they were expecting breakfast. Sandy and I began feeding them each day. I suppose word spread because now we’re up to seven cats. Three of them are actually living with us inside, but the others show up every morning bright and early. Sometimes it feels like we’re running a cat bed and breakfast.
All of this is a bit of a shift for us. For years Sandy and I had dogs—two little Malteses, not much bigger than cats. We first got them when I was still working as a copywriter. They came with me to seminary, and then we brought them with us to Korea. One died there, sadly, but Phoebe came back to the States with us and saw me through another year of seminary. Well, she didn’t see me, because Phoebe went blind before she turned five years old, and she lived well into her 13th year.
Despite being blind for most of her life, Phoebe had a keen sense of smell, as dogs do, and also sharp hearing. Most mornings I would have a bowl of yogurt for breakfast. Phoebe was able to discern, by my scraping the bowl with my spoon, that I was about to finish. She would perk up and move closer, knowing that she would be allowed to lick the bowl.
No matter what I was eating, Phoebe always anticipated my giving her some. Although blind, she could lick a plate so clean that it looked like it had been washed. And she was not picky. The only foods she ever turned down were shrimp and black olives.
To share food with a dog comes with the territory of having a dog. It’s not insulting to the dog; in fact, the dog is all too happy to eat the scraps from your plate. But in today’s reading, Jesus shocks our sensibilities by essentially equating a foreign woman’s appeal for mercy for her daughter to sharing a plate of food with a dog.
We will get to that particular passage momentarily, but before we do Jesus has other people to offend. As the passage begins, the disciples inform Jesus that the religious leaders were none too happy with what Jesus had said to them a while earlier. “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” they ask. “Let them alone,” he replies, “they are blind guides of the blind.” I don’t know about you, but I kind of like saucy Jesus.
What the disciples are referring to is the interaction that Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees just before this passage. The scribes and Pharisees had come all the way from Jerusalem to Galilee—a journey of several days—to question Jesus. “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?” they ask. “For they do not wash their hands before they eat.”
As religious authorities, the scribes and Pharisees were interpreters and keepers of Jewish traditions. So when they got word that Jesus, a rabbi, was breaking with tradition, they naturally became concerned and set out to confront him. Jesus’s response that so offended them was to call them out on their hypocrisy, for he knew that they they were willing to part with tradition when it was convenient for them to do so.
For example, rather than financially supporting their parents in their old age, in keeping with the commandment to honor your parents, the religious leaders would make a show of presenting that money as an offering to God. Sorry, Mom and Dad, I gave your money to the temple. Also, look how holy I am, everyone, as I conspicuously place my offering into the treasury!
You may ask, why did the religious authorities care so much about Jesus and his disciples not washing their hands before eating? It wasn’t about good hygiene. Ritualistic purity was an important concept in Judaism. Some things were considered clean and other things unclean, and they were to be kept separate at all times. To come in contact with something unclean meant that a person had to undergo a ritual of purification.
Somewhat related, hand washing before meals, although not prescribed in the Bible, arose as a ritual of priests in the temple and was then expanded to all Jews. Separating clean and unclean and maintaining the rituals and practices around purity helped organize and give meaning to Jewish society.
Thus, the scribes and Pharisees, kind of like good Presbyterians, were concerned with ensuring that all things were done decently and in order. But Jesus is turning that order upside down, which is what makes him so threatening. Jesus redefines the whole concept of purity and impurity not as a matter of what goes into us but rather of what comes out of us.
But Jesus is turning that order upside down, which is what makes him so threatening. Jesus redefines the whole concept of purity and impurity not as a matter of what goes into us but rather of what comes out of us.
However, like Denzel Washington’s character in the movie Philadelphia, Peter essentially says Jesus, “Explain it to me like I’m four years old.” (Don’t you just love Peter? He’s like that student in class who asks the question that everyone’s thinking but is afraid to ask.)
Amazed that Peter still doesn’t get it, Jesus explains what he means in plain terms. “Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
I quoted Jesus in full here because this context is important for understanding what comes next. Jesus and the disciples leave their home region of Galilee and enter the district of Tyre and Sidon. This means that they have, in effect, crossed the border of ancient Israel and entered a foreign land. Tyre and Sidon were once city-states in ancient Phoenicia. In Jesus’s day they were part of the Roman province of Syria. Today they would be in Lebanon.
Let’s note that it’s curious that Jesus would lead the disciples beyond the borders of Israel. Why is it curious? Well, earlier, when he had sent the disciples out on their own, he gave them explicit instructions not to go into any Gentile or Samaritan territory but to “go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Now he’s bringing them into Gentile territory himself.
Something else that’s curious is that the woman who comes out to seek Jesus’s attention is referred to as a “Canaanite woman.” In Jesus’s day, the word “Canaanite” was an anachronism, a word from the past that no longer fit in the present day. It would be like calling a native New Yorker a “knickerbocker.”
The Canaanites were the ancient inhabitants of the land that would later become Israel. Whenever they are mentioned in the Old Testament, it is not favorably. First, the Israelites are warned not to intermarry with them, and later the Israelites go to war with them for control of the land. Once the Canaanites are defeated, they are seldom mentioned again. In the New Testament, the word “Canaanite” appears just once…here in this passage.
Once the Canaanites are defeated, they are seldom mentioned again. In the New Testament, the word “Canaanite” appears just once…here in this passage.
By referring to the woman as a “Canaanite” Matthew is calling to mind the ancient fear and loathing that Jews instinctively had toward their onetime foe. That’s what makes the woman’s desire to meet Jesus truly remarkable. This Canaanite woman approaches Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.” She humbles herself before him, calling him “Lord,” and even uses the title “Son of David,” which for Jews was reserved for the Messiah, the anointed one of God.
Surely Jesus will look with kindness on this poor woman and heal her daughter of the demon that has her in its grasp. But no, he doesn’t even acknowledge her presence.
The disciples most certainly notice her, and they urge Jesus to “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” Can you imagine the nerve of this woman, shouting in Jesus’s face, causing a spectacle, and making a nuisance of herself?
At last Jesus responds, but it’s not the response we might expect. He tells this Canaanite woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” These were the exact words with which Jesus had earlier sent the disciples. You can almost sense their satisfaction with that answer. Jesus can’t help every foreigner with a sad story. We have to stick together and help our own kind. After all, he’s Israel’s Messiah, not hers.
But the Canaanite woman has a persistence that is born of desperation. She is more than willing to cast aside her dignity and kneel at Jesus’s feet. “Lord, help me.”
Surely now Jesus will be moved with pity and grant what she asks. But no. He says to her, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” I imagine the disciples nodding approvingly.
Undeterred, and with dogged desperation, she responds, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
What do we do with this exchange? How are we to interpret Jesus’s initially dismissive attitude toward the woman’s plea? Some scholars and pastors, eager to defend Jesus, argue that the Greek word for “dog” that Matthew records Jesus using refers to a little dog, even a house dog, a pet, like one of my Malteses. You see, it’s really not so bad of an insult!
What do we do with this exchange? How are we to interpret Jesus’s initially dismissive attitude toward the woman’s plea?
At the opposite end, others, all too eager to reckon Jesus a sinner, see him as a man of his time, i.e., a man who shares the prejudices of his fellow Jews toward foreigners. In fact, they argue that it is the Canaanite woman who expands Jesus’s consciousness and persuades him that his ministry is meant not only for Jews but for Jews and Gentiles alike.
There’s a word I want to use, but this is a church, so I’m going to use the family-friendly equivalent…nonsense! Jesus doesn’t need us to come to his defense, and he certainly should not be subject to our moral scrutiny. The key to understanding what Jesus is up to lies in noting what he did just before leading the disciples into Gentile territory.
What did he do? He taught the disciples that tradition is an empty exercise without the transformation of the human heart. He taught that faith is less about observing external practices but rather practicing mercy. Peter wanted it explained to him in plain terms, and like any good teacher, Jesus won’t simply explain the lesson in words, he will give him a real-life demonstration.
And who better to demonstrate this lesson than an unnamed Canaanite woman…a Canaanite woman who worships Jesus, the Jewish Messiah…a desperate mother determined that her daughter receive mercy? Rather than feel insulted for this woman, we ought to see ourselves in her, for we are her. We were all outsiders who have been brought into the circle of God’s love and mercy through Jesus Christ. And through this woman’s dogged faith we learn that faith in Jesus Christ is not about the righteous and their rituals; faith is about sinners who cry to Jesus, “Lord, help me!”