Brief synopsis of the readings: We begin in Isaiah where God commands us to “observe what is right, do what is just.” Furthermore, we are called to welcome foreigners who “join themselves to the Lord.” Those foreigners will be brought to the holy mountain and their sacrifices will be acceptable on God’s altar. Matthew’s Gospel speaks of a Canaanite woman who asks Jesus for healing for her daughter who is tormented by a demon. Jesus’ disciples told Jesus that she had been calling out after them. Jesus then told her that he was sent only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The woman persisted only to hear Jesus tell her: “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied: “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Pleased with her response Jesus praised her faith and healed her daughter.
Most of the time we find Jesus’ behavior predictable, and indeed understandable. He is harsh toward pharisees and other leaders, particularly when they use their power and influence to demean other people. And he is almost always kind toward the poor and the marginalized. But here he is downright rude to a woman who asks him to heal her daughter. It was a simple request and Jesus has done this type of healing before.
But here he essentially calls her daughter a dog. Really? Today we have nothing but affection for dogs: we call them “fur babies” and sometimes think of them as children. But back in Jesus’ time we had different relationships. Dogs were useful as hunters and herders but they were far from pets. To suggest that healing this possessed girl takes food away from those who are more deserving demeans her and her mother.
They are identified as Canaanites. They were non Jews and while they lived in the same area as Jesus and his disciples there wasn’t much communication between them. Jews didn’t intermarry or even share meals with them and Jesus made it clear to her that he wasn’t called to heal Canaanites. I think most people would have walked away, stung by his rebuke. But amazingly, she didn’t.
Instead, she went toe to toe with Jesus and gave as good as she got. If we see the food that Jesus talks about as a metaphor for his ability to heal, he is telling us that he has limited ability to heal. Any power that goes to the Canaanite girl lessens the power for the “lost sheep of Israel.” But the Canaanite woman responds that there is enough food for the table, and still scraps that fall on the floor. In other words there is enough healing to go around.
Was Jesus pleased that this woman went toe to toe with him? Or that she gave the right answer? Well, we don’t know but Jesus praises her for her faith.
We don’t think of faith as being intellectual prowess or the ability to give a sharp answer. And I don’t think that’s what Jesus admires here. Instead I think he admired and blessed her resolve. When asked what they would do to help heal their child, parents will nearly universally say they will do anything. They will pay any price, make any sacrifice, do whatever it takes. Perhaps Jesus didn’t respond to her cleverness as much as her tenacity, her advocacy for others.
Today, when we ask the question “who did Jesus come to save” the answer is obvious. He came to save all of us. We take for granted that nobody is excluded. Not Canaanites, not foreigners, not even people we don’t like. And it’s a hard pill to swallow at times.
It must have been a hard pill for Isaiah’s audience. After their escape from Egypt they were told time and again how they were different from the pagans. They had rules that governed marriage, diet, sacrifice and set them apart. During their exile in Babylon (described earlier in Isaiah) they learned that they could only depend on themselves and each other. But here God is telling them that foreigners who join themselves to the Lord are also welcome and blessed by God. At the end of Matthew’s Gospel we are told to go to all nations and baptize everyone. Not just those who look like us, not just those who agree with us, and especially not just to those who respect the places of honor we give ourselves.
It is still a lesson we are learning. There was a joke during World War I that British and American soldiers were praying to God for victory. When someone asked if God also heard German prayers one of the soldiers responded: “Of course not. Everyone knows God doesn’t speak German.”
If we believe what we say we believe about faith we need to be as tenacious as the woman who encountered Jesus. There will be times when we feel our advocacy is dismissed with a stinging rebuke, or even worse, when we fear loss of social status. There will be times when we feel the pressure to slink away and abandon what we feel called to do. There will be times when we are told that love and compassion are finite quantities and they need to be preserved. But all that isn’t true.
If we want a faith that exclusive, that’s just us and those like us, we picked badly in following Jesus. Believing that love, loyalty and healing must be rationed goes against all that we’ve been taught. Believing that our comfort zone encompasses all that God cares about demeans not only those outside our comfort zone, it also demeans God and God’s ability to heal (and feed) infinitely.
Finally there is good news here: whenever we step outside our comfort zone we expand it. The foreigners in Isaiah, the Canaanites in Matthew haven’t disappeared. They live among us. Catholics of previous generations who were warned against marrying non Catholics now cheerfully welcome non Catholics who marry their children. In the 1800s the United States the “Know Nothing” party that opposed European immigrants and Catholics has largely disappeared. As Christians we are ultimately not called to live outside our comfort zone, but to make everywhere our comfort zone.