What words would you use to describe
Jesus? Humble? Compassionate? Wise? I’d use all those words, and I imagine that
you would, too. But how many of us would describe Jesus as rude? Abrasive? Arrogant?
That’s not the Jesus that we know! But in this little story that you just heard
(Matthew 15:21-28), all those descriptions could apply to Jesus. Now, we
usually clean that story up quite a bit. We soften the tone of Jesus’
responses, and we make his interaction with the Canaanite woman a polite one.
But let’s take another look at that story. It’s actually an emotional
interaction, and a powerful commentary on the fact that we don’t always know
what we think we know!
As the story begins, Jesus and his
disciples are in foreign territory, up the Mediterranean coast to the north of
Israel. That’s not Jewish territory. That’s pagan country! Jesus’ reputation
must have preceded him, because a woman appears out of nowhere. She’s not a
Jewish woman. She’s a pagan. In fact, she’s called a Canaanite. That name is
loaded with negative baggage! In the Old Testament, the Canaanites insisted on
worshipping Baal, the fertility god of that area, even when they knew about the
God of the Israelites. That made the Canaanites worse than dirt! So when any
Jew said the word “Canaanite,” it was said with a curled lip and a sneer. This
person who wanted to see Jesus was not only a Canaanite, but a Canaanite woman, one of the lowest of the low. And
she wanted Jesus to do her a favor! How brassy could she possibly be?!
Oh, she was brassy, all right. She
kept yelling at Jesus until the disciples were sick of her. “Hey, Jesus! Son of
David! I need your help! Hey, you! My daughter is possessed! Hey! Hey! Over
here! HEY!!” Finally the disciples asked Jesus to do something about her. But
Jesus continued to ignore her, this woman who was yelling for help with all the
power of her lungs. And what did he tell his disciples? “She’s not my
responsibility. I wasn’t sent to help some pagan woman. My job is to help the
Jews; and she isn’t a Jew!” Wow! That’s
a rude response! It makes us wonder what in the world Jesus was thinking! The
answer is that Jesus was thinking exactly what his culture had taught him. We
are all products of what we have been taught; and Jesus grew up believing that
the Messiah would be sent to help the Jews! Remember that Jesus was human as
well as divine. And humans believe what they have been brought up to believe. We
do that every day of the week. We believe what people have taught us; and
sometimes those beliefs aren’t very good ones. Five hundred years ago, people
believed that women couldn’t think for themselves; they needed men to take care
of them in every way. Two hundred years ago, people believed that
African-Americans were inferior to whites; and that slavery was ordained by
God. Today, some people believe that every single Muslim man and woman is a
terrorist. All those beliefs are simply wrong! But we seldom stop to really
examine what we believe and why we believe it until something – or someone –
stares us in the face and forces us to take a second look.
That’s exactly what this Canaanite
woman did to Jesus. She made him take a second look at what he had always
assumed. The text says that “the woman came and knelt in front of him.” I doubt
that their meeting was that calm and polite. I think that, instead, when the
woman saw that Jesus was ignoring her and walking away, she ran after him until
she caught up with him. Maybe she even threw herself down in front of him so
that he had to step over her! He couldn’t avoid her; and this time, her cry of
“Lord, help me!” was right in his face. Surely Jesus would take note of her
now! And he took note of her, all right. But his response to her was not only
rude; it was downright insulting! It was so insulting that, quite frankly, I’m
surprised that this story ever made it into the gospel. Jesus called this
Canaanite woman – this mother who only wanted help for the daughter she loved
so much – Jesus called her a “dog.” His exact words were, “It isn’t right to
take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Now, the impact of this
insult is lost on us today. Calling someone a “dog” is no big deal in our
society. Why, some sports fans even call themselves
“dogs” (notably the Cleveland Browns fans who sit in “the dawg pound”). But
in Jesus’ day – and still today, in some places in the Middle East – calling
someone a “dog” is very similar to calling an African-American “the n-word.” The
worst thing that we might call a woman today is the word that begins with “b”
and ends with “itch.” And even that insult pales in comparison with being
called a “dog” in Jesus’ day.
I can’t help imagining Jesus abruptly
turning on his heel and walking away from the Canaanite woman, leaving her
open-mouthed in shame and anger and frustration. But as he was walking away,
happy to be rid of this irritating woman once and for all, she yelled something
after him. She turned being called a “dog” on its head, and made a comment that
was impossible for him to ignore. “Yeah, yeah, well, OK… You can say what you
want to. But even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall off the table!” And
her comment stopped Jesus dead. I can see him in my mind’s eye, frozen in his
tracks, the impact of her words shattering what he has been brought up to
believe. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
When Jesus turned and looked at her, he saw her in a whole new light. This
woman – this person whose ancestors had been Baal worshippers – this person
with no status at all in Jesus’ estimation – had cut through all the rhetoric
and gone right to the heart of the matter. Either all people are worthy of God’s
grace, or no one is. Jesus had believed that he was sent only to the Jews, but
this pagan woman had opened his eyes to a greater truth. “Oh, woman, your faith
is amazing,” Jesus replied. “Your request is granted.” The text tells us that
her daughter was healed from that very hour.
Jesus had the glasses of tradition
firmly in place when he met the Canaanite woman; and those glasses showed him a
woman who wasn’t even worthy of his respect. But after their encounter, Jesus
saw someone very different. He saw a fellow human being who was in need. Jesus
realized that the glasses through which he saw the world were a little bit fuzzy.
Our glasses are fuzzy, too. Are we as willing to adjust our glasses as Jesus
was to adjust his? Every one of us needs to adjust the glasses through which we
see the world every now and then. If we don’t, our vision will become more and
more distorted, and we will wander further and further away from the truth. Now,
it’s hard to adjust our glasses! We all get used to looking through distorted
lenses. But, ah, how much clearer things become when we do that hard work!
Do your glasses need adjusting today?
Did you learn things when you were a child that don’t seem quite so right
today? Is there a Canaanite woman in your life that you are rejecting just
because of something you were taught long ago? I can’t help but remember the lyrics
of a song from the musical South Pacific:
“You’ve got to be taught to be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made,
and people whose skin is a different shade. You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late, before you are six or seven or
eight, to hate all the people your relatives hate. You’ve got to be carefully
taught.” This morning, I invite you to start adjusting your glasses. I don’t
know exactly how you need to adjust
them; but I know that if you ask Jesus, he’ll be glad to help you. He is the
only one who knows the fullness of truth, and he knows how distorted our
glasses really are. After all, he has adjusted his own glasses. And he knows
something else. He knows how very liberating it is to be able to see clearly at
last.
wow!
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