t, I think it’s important to note a bit of context. Even naming this woman as a Canaanite calls back on the complex history of the Hebrews and the people who originally inhabited the promised land. Noting that traditionally they have been enemies. This name is also touching on the history of other Canaanite women who were a gift to the Isreaelites… Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. And it is not just their difference in being Hebrew or Canaanite that is important. Her behavior, especially as a socially marginalized woman, and the way she confronts Jesus would have been deemed an “unacceptable”. And still, here we have this exchange. An exchange some say is the only time in the Gospel someone is able to verbally best Jesus.
This moment is a reversal of the usual roles we see in encounters with Jesus. Here he is held accountable for his own prejudice, and the persistent voice is of the other demanding that her own humanity, and faith be honored. We have this bit of irony here where Jesus is finding himself stuck in this barrier of difference and in the way he reacts. And we know he has just finished speaking on the issue of purity in our first section of the scripture. Naming that what defiles a person is what comes out of their mouth. Inviting folks to move beyond the previous understanding under Hebrew Law that it was what went into your body that defiles. To move beyond what had been.
Jesus tries at first to pretend the Canaanite woman does not even exist. Then, he finds what comes out of his own mouth is harsh and crude. Jesus calls her a dog… a standard slang name to call a Canaanite woman. He doesn’t stop there. Jesus then tells her he is only there to serve people like him. And instead of meeting him with fury, the woman persists, “even the dogs get crumbs”. In her faithful response she invites Jesus to move beyond what had been by way of extending healing to her daughter. I can almost see her now, like the statue of the little girl in front of the Wall Street Bull. Or, like a lioness in one of the many National Geographic specials our family has watched lately.
Jesus accepts this invitation to shift from the individual to communal. To shift to a deeper sense of community that includes more than the folks that are like him. We find ourselves witnessing a move beyond theology of chosen-ness to a universal salvation. Jesus does not insist that she become a Jew, but extends healing all the same as he shifts his own perspective.
We also are seeing a bit of foreshadowing of the Great Commission. To go and make disciples in all the nations. And… perhaps one of the aspects I am most grateful to notice today, like Jesus we too will slip up. And like Jesus there will be voices that bring us to change our hearts to bring about more of God’s kin-dom in the world. As one writer put it, “Faith crosses boundaries, even Jesus’ boundaries, and leads to the manifestation of God’s liberating power”.
Like St. Mary, like Caludette Colvin, like the nameless Canaanite woman…. may we all be called to faithful persistence steeped in love and justice. And like Jesus… may we all open our hearts to being changed by the persistent voice of the other moving us all beyond what had been.
References: Feasting on the Word, Theological Bible Commentary, Women’s Bible Commentary