A Terribly Disturbing Reality

This week’s Gospel (Mt. 15:21-28) ought to be terribly disturbing to most of us, those of us who have come to faith in the God of Abraham and Sarah as Gentiles.  We must never forget that we are included in that family by grace and not by right.  And perhaps we should give thanks to Paul for that (see this week’s New Testament reading, Rom. 11:1-2a, 29-32).   Left to himself, Jesus does not necessarily share the same openness to non-Jews as Paul does. 

Once while traveling in the land of the Gentiles, Tyre and Sidon, he encountered a Canaanite woman, a Gentile, whose daughter was possessed by a demon.  The woman implored Jesus to help her.  Jesus ignored her.  His disciples asked that he send the woman, who was annoying them, away.  Jesus agreed.  “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he said.

The woman persisted.  Jesus rejected her again, only more harshly.  “It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.”  That’s right.  He called her a dog.  It is a disturbing picture of what Jesus really thought.

The woman, however, was not deterred by the insult.  In fact, she used it to get the best of Jesus.  “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.”

And with that comeback, she not only bested Jesus, she brought him back to his senses. “Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’  And her daughter was healed instantly.”

It ought to give us Gentiles pause about our proper place, such special friends of Jesus as we sometimes imagine ourselves to be.  Maybe we could  learn a little about humility in that.  Maybe we could learn a little about the very special place in his heart Jesus had, and therefore must still have for Jews.  There is no reason to think, after all, that the resurrected and ascended Jesus continues his priority for God’s original people, the Jews.  And maybe there are times when that reality bests us and has the possibility of bringing us to our senses.  Terribly disturbing realities often do.

Peace,