{"id":68,"date":"2011-11-02T21:54:11","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T21:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onscripture\/?p=68"},"modified":"2012-03-19T12:45:22","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T16:45:22","slug":"matthew-1521-28-teaching-jesus-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onscripture\/2011\/11\/matthew-1521-28-teaching-jesus-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 15:21-28: Teaching Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Barbara Kay Lundblad<\/a><\/p>\n

This story in Matthew 15<\/a> is very troubling. A Canaanite woman cries out to Jesus to heal her daughter. By the end of the story, her daughter has been healed — but between the crying and the healing, Jesus says some terrible things. He\u2019s arrogant, racist and just plain mean. We may believe that Jesus was \u201ctruly human,\u201d but we don\u2019t want him to be too human.<\/p>\n

So over the years, people have tried to clean up this story. One attempt goes something like this: Jesus was testing this woman to see if she had enough faith. When she passed the test, Jesus said, \u201cWoman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.\u201d That verse has caused plenty of pain because some people have heard Jesus saying, \u201cIf you had more faith your husband or wife, your mother or father or child would not have died.\u201d But the woman in this story doesn\u2019t make any confession of faith. Here\u2019s another option to soften Jesus\u2019 words: the Greek word kunarios<\/span> — translated \u201cdogs\u201d — really means \u201clittle dogs, puppies.\u201d So when Jesus tells the woman, \u201cIt is not fair to take the children\u2019s bread and throw it to the dogs,\u201d he really means puppies. Does that help? There\u2019s one more possibility. Because this woman submits to Jesus and kneels before him, Jesus heals her daughter. Go thou and do likewise. We\u2019ll do almost anything to make Jesus who we want him to be.<\/p>\n

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But Matthew doesn\u2019t clean up this story. Matthew dares to give us a very human Jesus and he paints a specific picture of this woman. She is a Canaanite woman. She is not one of Jesus\u2019 people. Should he be surprised? Jesus has gone into the region of Tyre and Sidon. This is her home. Matthew\u2019s choice of the word \u201cCanaanite\u201d seems a bit strange. By the time of Jesus, people were no longer called \u201cCanaanites.\u201d This name was no longer on the map \u2013 a bit like calling New York New Amsterdam! \u00a0Matthew chooses \u201cCanaanite\u201d on purpose: not only is she the \u201cother,\u201d but she is part of an enemy people.<\/p>\n

Yet she seems to know who Jesus is. She begs him to heal her daughter who is tormented by a demon. She\u2019s desperate and comes out shouting. Some scholars claim that the only women who spoke to men in public were prostitutes. Is this what we do to people who are different? Do we also make them morally suspect? \u00a0Maybe Matthew wants us to remember Rahab the prostitute who is named in Jesus\u2019 genealogy at the beginning of Matthew. (Matt. 1: 5) She, too, was a Canaanite who lived in the city of Jericho (Joshua 2). What\u2019s a Canaanite prostitute doing in Jesus\u2019 family tree? The disciples don\u2019t want to think about such questions. They want nothing to do with her: \u201cSend her away!\u201d they tell Jesus. That\u2019s what they tried to do not long ago when faced with more than 5000 hungry people. \u00a0\u201cSend the crowds away,\u201d the disciples said. \u201cYou give them something to eat,\u201d said Jesus. This Canaanite woman isn\u2019t going anywhere. She may not be Jewish but she calls out to Jesus in language of the Jewish prayer: \u00a0\u201cHave mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.\u201d But Jesus isn\u2019t swayed by familiar language. \u201cI was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,\u201d he tells her.<\/p>\n

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She won\u2019t give up. \u201cLord, help me,\u201d she begs. This is where Jesus goes to the dogs: \u201cIt is not fair to take the children\u2019s food and throw it to the dogs.\u201d But the Canaanite woman is feisty and stubborn. The life of her daughter is at stake. She picks up his words and throws them right back: \u201cYes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters\u2019 table.\u201d\u00a0 When Jesus hears this, he says, \u201cWoman, great is your faith!\u201d But she hasn\u2019t made any confession of faith. There\u2019s no sign she\u2019s been born again. She simply spoke the truth: <\/strong>the children have been fed \u2013 5000 men, besides women and children. (Matt. 14: 13-21) Twelve baskets of food were left over, twelve baskets for the twelve tribes of Israel. Surely there\u2019s enough for me and my daughter. That\u2019s what Jesus finally heard and came to believe. \u201cFor saying that, you may go \u2013 the demon has left your daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Watch the Video: “Today, I am a Muslim Too” <\/strong><\/p>\n

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Last March, some 150 organizations and interfaith leaders rallied in New York City against Rep. Peter King’s Radical Islam hearings before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Rally participants included Daisy Khan, Executive Director, American Society for Muslim Advancement; Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Cordoba Initiative; Rabbi Marc Schneier, president, The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding; Imam Shamsi Ali, Islamic Cultural Center of New York; the Rev. Dr. Katharine R. Henderson, President, Auburn Theological Seminary; media and fashion mogul Russell Simmons; and the Rev. Chloe Breyer, Interfaith Center of New York. A counter-rally held by supporters of Rep. Peter King several blocks away, included protestor Andy Sullivan, founder of the 9\/11 Hard Hat Pledge.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Jesus was converted that day to a larger vision of the commonwealth of God. Jesus saw and heard a fuller revelation of God in the voice and in the face of the Canaanite woman. The woman\u2019s truth is evident in the way Matthew tells this story. At the end of this chapter there is another feeding story. This time 4000 men are fed — besides women and children — and there were seven baskets left over. Seven is the number of wholeness, completeness, a number encompassing the nations. Matthew has placed the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman between these two feeding stories. The Canaanite woman taught Jesus that she and her daughter deserve more than crumbs. After this encounter Jesus went on to feed those who had not yet been fed.<\/p>\n

If Jesus could be changed, can we? Every generation sees some people as \u201cother\u201d and puts them under the table. We could make a long list of people we see as different \u2013 different race, different customs, different religion. Two summers ago at one of the raucous town meetings, a white woman who looked a bit like me spoke through her tears, \u201cWhat happened to my<\/span> America? I want my<\/span> America back.\u201d\u00a0 I guess she meant an America where people look like her and me. Over the past ten years, many in the United States have come to see Muslims as the other.<\/p>\n

They are the Canaanites \u2013 not only in this country but in Europe and Scandinavia. In protests against a proposed Muslim Cultural Center in lower Manhattan, people carried signs that read: \u201cAll I need to know about Islam I learned on 9\/11.\u201d Really? What if someone protested outside the church I attend with a sign saying: \u201cAll I need to know about Christianity I learned from Rev. Terry Jones.\u201d Muslims have become Canaanites to many in our country. One candidate in the presidential primary race has called for a ban on building mosques in the U.S. Three states have enacted statutes against Shariah, though there is no evidence that Muslims have proposed Islamic law for this nation. (Andrea Elliott, New York Times, July 30, 2011<\/a>) This week I went to get coffee at the deli across the street from Union seminary. \u201cI\u2019m a little dizzy,\u201d said the kind man who always works in the afternoon. \u201cYou know it\u2019s Ramadan,\u201d he said, \u201cand I haven\u2019t eaten all day.\u201d I realized that I had never asked him his name. Perhaps we will behave like the disciples: \u201cSend the Muslims away for they are ruining our country!\u201d Or maybe we will be as willing to learn as Jesus was. Maybe in this month of Ramadan we will catch a larger vision of the commonwealth of God.<\/p>\n

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By Barbara Kay Lundblad This story in Matthew 15 is very troubling. A Canaanite woman cries out to Jesus to heal her daughter. By the end of the story, her daughter has been healed — but between the crying and the healing, Jesus says some terrible things. He\u2019s arrogant, racist and just plain mean. 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