Matthew 15:21-28 (NRSV Updated Edition)
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 from that moment.
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"There are several clues to this reading. The first is seeing that Matthew might be doing something intentional here by changing Mark’s “Syro-Phoenician” woman to a “Canaanite” woman, which is an anachronistic term in the first century - like calling a modern Norwegian person a Viking. But “Canaanite” fits well to the time of Joshua and his conquest of the Promised Land. Is Matthew’s Jesus reconstituting that conquest?
"... [A] second important clue appears through what comes next in chapter 15 of Matthew’s story of Jesus: healing of Gentile crowds (Matthew tells us they are Gentiles by remarking that “they praised the God of Israel”; Matt. 15:31) and then a repeat of the miraculous feeding, this time with Gentiles. In the first feeding with Jews (14:13-21), there is a hint of reconstitution by the gathering of twelve baskets leftover, for the twelve tribes of Israel. In the second feeding with Gentiles (15:32-38), there are seven baskets leftover. If we look for a similar symbolism of reconstitution, we might look to the time of the “Canaanites.” As the people of Israel stand poised for conquest of that land, Moses says to them:
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations — the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you — and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.” (Deut 7:1-2)
"In the first encounter with the seven nations of “Canaanites,” they are to show no mercy. But Matthew’s Jesus has come to teach them something different, to learn what this means, “I desire mercy not sacrifice” (with Matthew’s Jesus twice quoting Hosea 6:6 in Matt. 9:13 and 12:7). ...
"[T]he “Canaanite” woman ... seems to remind Jesus of what the promise to Abraham and Sarah is really all about. She doesn’t begrudge Jesus the fact of his mission with his own people who have lost their way (Jesus himself calling them “lost sheep”). But she knows that if he is successful with his own people in helping them to find their way again, that she will at least receive scraps from their table. For the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham and Sarah is not for Jews to be blessed for their own sake but that they might become a blessing to all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:1-3)."
- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from discussion on this passage on the Girardian Lectionary page (link below).
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"And now i wonder whether Jesus isn't actually going to do something much smarter than seems to be the case. He listens to the woman shouting, he hasn't intervened, he hasn't made any determination on whether she's of the demonized or of the prophetic sort. He sees the disciples are fed up he sees they want to get rid of her, so he answers them something which is strange enough - he is playing to their feelings: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” That, of course, is what he's been doing, he's been re-enacting Joshua in you know, [crossing] the sea, putting right the things that Joshua hadn't quite completed.
"So ... she's come up and knelt before him. Now please notice, she wasn't there when he told them, “I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” that was for ... the benefit of the disciples, and I suspect that it's at least as much how they are going to react to all this and what they are going to learn from this that this story is about. But she comes and she kneels before him. So what we're talking about is something very peaceful very respectful saying, “Lord, help me.” And it's a much simpler word: it's not to have mercy on me, which might be drama-queen, it's Lord help me - it's a very simple, very humble word.
"[Jesus] answers, and it's not clear that he's half saying this for the disciples and half saying this for her: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house puppies.” The translations will always say “dog.” It's a very special word for little domestic dogs - house puppies. In other words, ... he's making a reference that she might get to the relationship between Israel and the nations. It's recognizing that they're not dogs, they're “house puppies.” They're insiders, there's a certain sense of being an insider, in being one of the nations whom Joshua allowed to stay. So he's saying something, yes to her, but very much in the hearing of his disciples.
"And this is where she gets it right with an extraordinary turnaround of what he's saying, and maybe, as I say, again this is as much for the benefit of the disciples as for anyone else. She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Actually, the word is not crumbs, it's swabs. We have napkins or serviettes with which we clean our mouths after being at a table. Not so in the ancient world, they would use swabs of bread to clean their mouth after eating, then throw the swabs on the floor. And of course the house puppies, the domestic dogs, would love that and would be very grateful. So she's referring not to accidental dropping but to deliberate discarding of something that's a sign of being satisfied and having come to the end of your meal, and therefore there is leftover for the dogs.
"And so she's saying she's taking the image of the house puppies and running with it, and she's running with it in a very elegant way - even the dogs eat the swabs, even the little house puppies eat the swabs that fall from their master's table. In other words, she reveals that she herself is very much on the prophetic side rather than the demonized side. She knows what she's asking, she's asking respectfully, and she's actually playing David back to David's son because she's almost quoting, certainly paraphrasing Psalm 17 [v 14], in the Septuagint version ... “Oh Lord from few things from earth separate them in their lives and with your hidden things their belly was filled they were fed with sons and they left the remains to their infants.” She's playing back: You are the Son of David, this is what David said, rather than treating us as enemies, as those who should be thrown out, you actually fill them. So fill me, let me be one of those who's being fulfilled, and my daughter as well.
"So Jesus is very struck about this, he makes no secret at all that one of the 'house puppies' has spoken up and is beginning to break through, hopefully in the presence of the disciples so they'll get this and they'll remember that he came to the house of Israel, [but] the house of Israel has house puppies also. Israel's 'house puppies' are beginning to come in. It's for the disciples not to have a 'get rid of these people, yeah sort them out and get rid of them' attitude. They're going to have to learn to discover that there are many people like the Syro-Phoenician woman who are going to become insiders in the house of God, because they know who it is who is amongst us and who it is who is setting us free from our co-dependencies, our demonized relationships, our inability to be good and holy by purity and by ritual. In the midst of all of this our Lord is allowing us to be filled and to go away free and whole.."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 20 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBGFTXHTr3c)
[For analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper15a/]
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