Now that the Episcopal Church has officially accepted the Revised Common Lectionary, occasional surprises pop up in formerly familiar readings. This week, for instance, we no longer have just the happy tale of a deaf man who is healed, but the story before it: the foreign woman who swallows Jesus’ calling her a dog in order to get her daughter healed. Well, it’s not quite that blatant. When she begs Jesus to heal her daughter, he says to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Rather than leave in a huff, she replies with a twist of her own: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” At that, Jesus heals her daughter.
What are we to make of this? One of my seminary professors insisted that Jesus was just testing her, that he intended all along to heal her daughter. Perhaps. But does that make it any better? Does testing by insult sound like something Jesus would do? Those who are more focused on Jesus’ humanity (and doubtful of his divinity) cite this passage as one that shows Jesus learning and growing in his vocation. The encounter with this Syrophoenician woman, they say, showed Jesus that his message wasn’t just limited to the Jews. She taught him that he was supposed to speak to the Gentiles as well.
Support for that view comes from the next story, in which Jesus takes a very roundabout route home and ends up healing a deaf man in Gentile territory. But this isn’t the first time Jesus was in the region of the Decapolis. He had made a memorable visit there earlier, sending a pile of demons from a crazed man into a herd of pigs that promptly rushed into the sea and drowned. It’s a wonder they let him back in town.
I have an old leather-bound Oxford Annotated Bible I bought when I was fifteen that still helps me out when I end up in a theological corner. Under the parallel passage in Matthew’s Gospel, I find this note: “Jesus consistently said that his primary mission was to call Jews back to God. The Gentile woman’s claim must be based on her own personal acceptance of his message. The distinction is between his mission and his willingness to respond to faith wherever found.” In other words, if she’s second string, she better really want to play if she’s going to get any time in the field. Well, I can buy that, but it still doesn’t explain how Jesus treated her. Yes, I know he was a Jewish male and she was a Gentile woman, lower than low, but this is Jesus Christ we’re talking about here.
So do I long for the good-ol’-days of the prayer book lectionary? No. At least not for that reason. I appreciate Bible passages that continually challenge me. When I think I know who Jesus or God is, or who I am for that matter, a Syrophoenician woman pops up and turns my certainty upside down. Maybe that’s what happened to Jesus. Maybe not. But I’ll bet he did know all along that he was going to heal her daughter.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
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2 comments:
Another seminary classmate told me the other day that a Syrian priest told him that this passage is all about the indirect nature of how people in the Middle East communicate. Supposedly, your mother-in-law will yell out the window and tell the neighbors that their cooking is terrible and she can't live with it anymore, when really she means you. Therefore, Jesus was really reprimanding his disciples, not the woman. I'm not sure about this either, but I thought it was interesting.
I think class and gender divisions were more pronounced then, and being abusive or "mean" wasn't the anomaly it is now. Now, you can't even yell at your dog in public or everyone will think you're being mean. Dogs have it pretty good, now, huh?
Heidi, that is a very interesting idea about the passage: "Jesus was really reprimanding the disciples, not the woman." I will have to think about that for a long time, but it makes sense to me, more so than either of the more usual approaches.
As you may suspect, "Trees," at our parish we heard the second interpretation, wherein Jesus is in this encounter learning his true vocation. Another priest whom you know observed me getting quite steamed up over this as I contemplated the clear teaching of Scripture that Jesus was "like us in every respect, but without sin." She advised me during the peace: "Take a deep breath."
As for Our Lord's supposed racial-ethnic prejudice, I consider St. John chapter four, with the Woman of Samaria, a comprehensive rebuttal.
For me, this passage is vital and much beloved because of its connection to the Prayer of Humble Access: "We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. . . ." Whatever the passage says about Jesus, it says much about us, and about the unmerited grace of God. We serve a Lord "whose property is always to have mercy."
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