10th Sunday after Pentecost

Jesus’ action with the Canaanite woman in Matthew’s gospel is troubling for us who experience the universalism of the Church, and the belief that salvation has been offered by God to the entire world. However, the church of Matthew’s gospel were Jews, and the Canaanites were well outside God’s covenant to the Jewish people, and it seems Jesus sided with the popular understanding of such a separation. Although this story is also present in the Gospel of Mark, the change in Matthew to a Canaanite from a Syro-Phoenician woman speaks of Matthew’s desire to emphasize how much outside God’s covenant she was. Add to this Jesus’ words of rebuke and the stage is set rhetorically for what comes next.

The woman’s response to Jesus’ rebuke of “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs” with “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters” is a coup of a well-tempered response that upends Jesus’ harshness; it is a moral drama being played out in front of a crowd who sides with Jesus. So what does Jesus do? He proclaims her daughter is healed because of her great faith to see beyond what the crowd saw: an insurmountable barrier to God’s grace. This event is on the heels of Jesus proclaiming in front of the Pharisees and scribes “…it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles” The Canaanite woman is yet another instance of Jesus proclaiming God’s reign isn’t localized, or dependent upon the traditions of “the elders”, but upon compassion and justice, making a strong connection with the first reading from Third Isaiah, which asserts that God’s justice and mercy is also a function of allowing “foreigners” to serve at the Temple if they agree to keep the Sabbath and the Law of the Covenant. To do so would be a great act of faith not only for the foreigners but also for the Jewish people.

Contempt for “the foreigner” is a cultural characteristic, it seems, for many. Most recently, children and young adults seeking refuge in this country have had to endure not only exile from their home and families, but also the contempt born of fear from many in our country, and some in our church. Jesus’ morality drama played out to staunch the flow of animosity for the Canaanite who represented the consummate foreigner. Jesus’ clear message to the crowd: faith trumps creed because faith is the foundation of creed, not the other way around.

We worship a living God, not a living document. Too often text takes the place of a living faith. Where the community’s faith is strong, the “traditions of the elders” is always held accountable by living faith. When creed runs contrary to the living faith, it is discarded or altered to reflect the current reality. Ours is a living relationship with God, not a relationship with a text; that is simply another more insidious form of idolatry. Our true worship is as old as Isaiah in establishing justice and righteousness and calling brother all who nurture faith in a living God.