I wonder how often, when you’re reading the Bible, or hearing it read, you come across something which makes you feel uncomfortable? Something which doesn’t seem to fit with our ideas of acceptable behaviour perhaps? For me, our Gospel today is one of those passages. I’m shocked that Jesus is apparently rather rude and dismissive to a woman who is clearly in great need. He’s also quite openly racist. And what’s more, at least some of what He says seems to exclude me, as a non-Jew, from the kingdom of God. It seems to suggest that, while I may treasure my own ethnicity, Jesus may see it as second class.
Our readings from Isaiah and Romans help to illuminate this difficult story so I’m going to look at them in turn.
The question about who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ tends to be a perennial worry for some religious communities. We too may have a tendency to want to categorise people in this way. In the Second Temple period, after their return from exile, when the Jews were no longer a nation state but a religious community the question arose as to what should be their attitude to foreigners. Our reading from Isaiah this morning includes some of the most open and welcoming words to those who are not Jewish. It expresses a warm welcome to foreigners who choose to join themselves to Israel and promises that God’s house will ultimately be a ‘house of prayer for all peoples’ (Isaiah 56: 7). At this point Israel is already a community of gathered outcasts; in future God will gather others to join them. God’s love cannot be contained by human boundaries.
In the letter to the Romans Paul wrestles with a similar problem of who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’. Paul’s own people, the Jews, who were previously the ‘in’ people, because on the whole they have rejected Jesus, God’s Messiah, now appear to be the ‘out’ people. Paul seeks to understand this in the light of his calling from God to bring the good news of Jesus to the Gentiles, and the fact that they are responding in large numbers. One could conclude that God has now definitely rejected Israel because they did not recognise Jesus. But Paul maintains that this is not so. God’s love is greater than this. His call and his gifts to Israel are irrevocable (Romans 11: 29). Their temporary inability to recognise Christ provides the opportunity for the Gentiles to be added in to God’s kingdom. This reverses the order expected in Isaiah where the Jews come into their kingdom first, to be joined by other nations.
Our Gospel story is set in the region of Tyre and Sidon – cities of traditionally evil reputation, and where good Jews would not venture for fear of contamination. Immediately before the story, Jesus has had an argument with the Pharisees because his disciples were not carrying out the ritual washing before eating. Jesus states that it’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles, but what comes out of the mouth, that is the evil desires of the heart, as expressed by our words. In this context the story of the Canaanite woman can be seen as playing with ideas about what is ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ or who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’.
Jesus has ventured into territory which is ‘outside’ in terms of Israel. He’s accosted by a woman who is definitely an outsider. A woman would not normally address a Jewish man at all. Perhaps this is why Jesus at first ignores her. As a Canaanite woman, from an ethnic group long feared and despised by Jews as worshippers of other gods, she is doubly an outsider. Moreover, she is shouting at him – hardly polite treatment for a rabbi and a prophet, although what she says also shows that she recognises who He is. When Jesus does respond He appears to regard His ministry as being only to the people of Israel. Anyone else is outside His scope. He does not, however, immediately send her away as His disciples think He should. He continues the conversation. She’s out, not in, she doesn’t belong to God’s chosen people, the ones He came for. But she also persists, finally making a clever reply, which impresses Him. Her faith impresses Him too, perhaps reminding Him of His astonishment at the faith of the centurion, also an outsider, whose servant He had healed (Matthew 8: 5f). Finally Jesus relents. He will have dealings with her after all. He heals her daughter.
One can see this conversation on two levels. At one level it parallels our first two readings. God is doing something new, moving out of His usual territory, including outsiders, responding to the way in which His chosen people have not wholeheartedly welcomed Him by commending the faith of such outsiders and accepting them.
At another level here’s a glimpse of the human Jesus. What was He doing? Was He teasing her? Was He testing her faith? Was He deliberately acting out His disciples’ prejudices rather than His own in order to teach them something? Or did Jesus learn something himself through this encounter. Certainly He was impressed by the woman’s feistiness and persistence. Was this the moment when He realised that His mission was broader than He had thought?
Jesus shows by His actions that God’s love cannot be contained by human boundaries. Despite the unpromising start to this conversation, even the complete outsider is not beyond the scope of Jesus’ concern. No one is so unclean that they can defile him. There are no longer any ‘in’ people or ‘out’ people. As we shall be singing later:
“For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of man’s mind;
And the heart of the eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
But we make his love too narrow
By false limits of our won;
And we magnify his strictness
With a zeal he will not own.
If our love were but more simple
We should take him at his word.”
Amen.