Merciful Savior, your suffering has saved our lives, secured our
future, and restored us to relationship with God. Remove the shame and fear
that cause us to cower in your presence. By the power of your Spirit, open our eyes and hearts to your Word of
love, mercy, healing, and blessing; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Racial identity has been one of the great moral issues of the last hundred years. During the Armenian Genocide from 1915-1918, it is estimated that 1.5 million Armenians were exterminated from the surface of the earth at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. The world was later horrified to learn that six million Jews died at the hands of the German Nazis during World War II. The world watched in horror as the apartheid system in South Africa discriminated against the majority of its population because of the color of their skin. Change finally came to overcome these shameful events through hard work and political pressure. And yet there are still areas of the world today where deep-rooted distinctions still exist between people of different races and ethnicities.
We see it today more and more the challenge in many countries to overcome racism with the belief that all humankind is equal no matter what their race or color may be. The challenge is set before different parts of the world to work toward bringing together different people of different backgrounds to live and work together in peace and harmony. There is much racism and prejudice to still overcome.
So when we hear this story in Matthew about Jesus’ encounter with a Canaanite woman, we may find it quite shocking, offensive and out of place. It appears at first glance that Jesus refuses to help someone in need because she is not Jewish. Imagine if a doctor or nurse refused to treat a patient because of their ethnicity or race. Wouldn’t be right, would it? It would sound so strange. What’s happening here with Jesus?
What’s happening is that Jesus’ mission and purpose are being defined. He has a very specific calling and God was now at last fulfilling those promises; that the kingdom they longed for was coming to pass. It was always aimed at Israel because the people of Israel were to serve as the catalysts to bring God’s word, love, faith and mercy to the rest of the world. If God’s mercy was to come to the world, it would come through Israel. That’s why they needed to hear the message first.
What’s also happening is the future is breaking into the present. It catches us by surprise. Even here it seems to catch Jesus himself by surprise, too. Jesus is reluctant to respond to the prayerful requests of the Canaanite woman. This underscores and emphasizes the priority given to the Jewish people as God’s chosen people. But it is a Gentile woman, a Canaanite woman who understands why Jesus is here and what God is doing through the people of Israel. Her faith is so great that she has come to understand things such as Jesus as “son of David” that the disciples are just beginning to grasp and understand. She understands that the Kingdom of God is a kingdom that is, but not yet; present but not yet fulfilled to its completion.
The Canaanite woman gets the blessing for her ill daughter that she needs for three key reasons. First, she is persistent. She demonstrated great faith and persistence in a situation where she might easily have been intimidated by the Jewish rabbi and his disciples. She refuses to be deterred. The woman perseveres in her conviction that Jesus can meet her needs if Jesus chooses to do so. Her single-minded pursuit of Jesus’ blessing stands in sharp contrast with the legal hoops of the Pharisees and the disciples’ lack of understanding.
Second, the woman has no pretension. She is not arrogant or have a self-righteous attitude. She’s authentic and not putting on a façade or appearances. Jesus scolds her by comparing her to a dog. There were two classes of dogs in Jesus’ time. One was the street rat, scavenger, lean and mean, running wild. The other is a small household dogs that were cared for and treated well. Regardless, the Jews viewed all non-Jews as dogs. This is the old way of thinking, the old views of the world. The woman has every right to take offense at this. But again she knows it is through the people of Israel that God will save the rest of the world. So she is willing to wear the “dogs” label as long as she can share the scraps that fall from the master’s table. She accepts her secondary status as an outsider, a Gentile, but remains a petitioner nonetheless.
Third, the woman ministers to Jesus. She is the pure voice from beyond all racial and ethnic boundaries who stakes her claim on the mercy and generosity of God. She facilitates ministry to Jesus across ethnic borders. She has faith in God’s mission to the world that God’s mercy is long and wide reaching beyond the borders of the Jewish people to all peoples of the world. The woman’s faith broke through the waiting period, the period of time in which Jesus would come to Jerusalem as Israel’s messiah, be crucified and raised from the dead, and then send his disciples out into the world. The disciples are not ready for Calvary, while this Canaanite woman insists it is Easter.
What does this mean for us today? It means the Gospel, originally intended for God’s chosen people, also belongs to all the peoples of the world, to all those on the outside looking in. It means that God’s mercy is at work even in the dark, dismal and destructive moments of life as well as the bright, cheerful and constructive moments of life. It means God’s mercy is for all.
Author Anne Lamott describes it this way: “The mystery of God's love and mercy as I understand it is that God loves the man who was being mean to his dog just as much as he loves babies; God loves Susan Smith, who drowned her two sons, as much as he loves Desmond Tutu. And he loved her just as much when she was releasing the handbrake of her car that sent her boys into the river as he did when she first nursed them. So of course, he loves old ordinary me, even my most scared and petty and mean and obsessive. God loves me; chooses me.”[1]
God loves us and God chooses to show us mercy no matter what we’ve done, no matter where we’ve been, no matter what we look like. So let us in turn be merciful to one another.
May we rise to the challenge to overcome racism with the belief that all humankind is equal no matter what their race or color may be; working toward bringing together different people of different backgrounds to live and work together in peace and harmony. We have the example of the Canaanite woman whose faith and persistence surprised everybody, even Jesus and demonstrates God’s mercy is for all people.
I wish to close with the words of an old hymn: Let your beloved precious blood, be to my heart a cleansing flood; to wash my sins of guilt away, that pardoned by your grace I may; go to my house with peace from thee, be merciful to me. Oh God be merciful to me. Oh God be merciful that we may show mercy to one another. Amen.
[1] Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (Anchor,
2000), 255.
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