The Higher Law

Matthew 15: 21-28 

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.

This is certainly not an easy passage to deal with but, as in all scripture passages, reading it out of context with the rest of scripture as well as with the culture of the times can make it seem harsher than it really is. In our day and age of heightened awareness of the destructiveness of racism and religious elitism, it can read as though Jesus was being unnecessarily cruel by comparing the pagan woman to a dog, even if the dogs referred to were beloved house pets.

The more I pondered on this story, the more it seemed to me that it was really the disciples who were receiving an object lesson through Christ’s interaction with the Canaanite woman and that Matthew included it in his gospel because he was passing along the same lesson to the Jews to whom his Gospel was directed. Of course, we all need to pay attention to this lesson because it’s too easy to fall into a distorted understanding of knowing when rules are good and when they need to give way to something higher.  

Just prior to this story, Matthew wrote about a conflict Jesus had with some scribes and Pharisees who were challenging him about eating with unwashed hands. Jesus berated them for being so assiduous about rules but forgetting about love and mercy, saying that it’s what comes out of the mouth that makes a person unclean, not what goes into the mouth and his statements deeply offended the Jewish authorities . After this incident Matthew goes on to write about the Canaanite woman, which at first glance would seem to have nothing to do with the previous scripture. However, what we actually see here, when the two passages are juxtaposed, is that the ‘clean’ Jewish community that Jesus was sent to was more likely to reject him than the ‘unclean’ pagans and Gentiles were.

The Canaanite people were polytheists and when the woman came to find Jesus, he was in her eyes perhaps just one more prophet of the strange Jewish God, someone who might have some sway with his God. In a society where multiple gods were worshiped and many of those gods were so capriciously cruel and demanding that the offering of children as a sacrifice to appease them had been common in their history, she obviously did not feel castigated or belittled by his words referring to dogs. His words were probably pretty mild to her. Coming from the society she did, she surely would have reckoned that the Jewish God would frown upon her religious allegiances yet she had the courage to hope that Jesus would be open to healing her daughter even though she wasn’t a converted follower. She wasn’t ignorant of barriers on both sides between the Canaanites and the Israelites but all she wanted to ask for were crumbs of compassion for her beloved daughter. Since she was devoted to her own gods she wouldn’t have been seeking the whole meal of Christ’s friendship or even have suspected it could be hers for the asking. She simply came; she somehow intuited that Christ’s quality of mercy would not be constrained by human made boundaries. Jesus could not resist that kind of faith. 

Her faith in what mercy should look like contrasts sharply with the scribes and Pharisees who could not and would not look beyond the rules even when mercy and compassion cried out that they do so. Christ is filled with joy when he comes face to face with people who ask for the sake of merciful love and don’t think they deserve to be blessed simply because they are affiliated with the right group and have always followed all the prescribed rules to the nth degree.

 

Notice that Jesus doesn’t even lay down any conditions on the Canaanite woman. He doesn’t say that he’ll heal her daughter if she’ll give up her pagan beliefs and convert to the Jewish religion or agree to follow him. Jesus knows that she has to make the journey to him of her own volition and not because she was held hostage to her fears for her daughter. When she left Jesus, her heart was doubtlessly overflowing with the image of a prophet who could have made harsh demands, but didn’t; instead he responded in compassion to knees bent in humility and a courageous heart motivated by love. Her encounter with Jesus as God was not only the beginning of her own spiritual journey but also of a life story which would have a powerful ripple effect, alluring and changing many of the Canaanites she would have contact with over the years, beginning with her own daughter.

There is another aspect to this story that echoes of the story of the wedding in Cana (no connection to Canaan) where the host runs out of wine and Mary asks Jesus to do something about it. Here, as with the Canaanite woman, Jesus stated what might be called a Prophetic Law. To Mary, he said that the prophetic time to begin his ministry had not yet come. To the Canaanite woman he proclaimed the prophetic law that he was sent to redeem the lost sheep of Israel. In both cases he stated the circumscribed expectation arising out of prophetic law but when both women argue for the sake of compassion and mercy, he defers to a higher and holier law: the all encompassing Law of Love.

 Meanwhile, if all the disciples were paying as much attention as Matthew was, Jesus had once again made the powerful statement that if laws, boundaries, taboos, prophecies and common expectations ever dictate that we need not or should not engage in compassion and mercy for everyone and anyone, there is some other agenda being played out.

And it’s not his.