Going to the Dogs? The Seventeenth Sunday of Matthew

Matthew 15:21-28; 2 Cor. 6:16-7:1; Dan. 7

Today’s gospel reading, at first blush, is a scandal. How is it possible that Jesus could even seem to have refused anyone who came to him for help? Yet, working from the rules that I learned in grad school of contemporary Biblical scholarship, this passage, above all others, has a claim to be authentic even among skeptics. Who in the early Church would fabricate such a story? Who would think of the generous Jesus deliberately limiting his ministry after the time that the mission to the Gentiles had been firmly established by the apostles, and indeed when even most of the MISSIONARIES themselves were Gentiles? No, this story is so strange that it bears the stamp of Jesus himself. No one would have invented it. So what do we make of it? Certainly the dialogue between Jesus and the Gentile woman is high drama at its best. It also presents to us a picture of life as complex, and suggests that God’s plan for the world is also not as simple as we might imagine.

Matthew begins his story with a little word that we encounter most often at the beginning of a vision-account: “Lo! Behold!” It’s the same word that we find in the stories of Jesus’ birth, or when the dove appears at Jesus’ baptism. The gospel writers, and especially Matthew, also use that word to call our attention to a story that has great significance. Here, we can “behold” something about the person of Jesus, about the plan of God being worked out, about reality, and even about ourselves.

A woman from the region calls out, Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, for my daughter is “terribly demonized.” The question that we might ask from a 21st century context is, what is all this business about demon possession? But the question asked by a first century audience would be somewhat different. For Matthew specifically labels her as a CANAANITE! The fourth century theologian and pastor John Chrysostom lived more closely in time to the apostle Matthew than we do. St. John says that by using the term Canaanite, Matthew “speaks in a derogatory way about [against] the woman, so that he may highlight her marvelous act, and celebrate her praise more strongly. For when you hear of a Canaanite woman, you should call to mind those wicked nations who upset from the foundations the very laws of nature. And being reminded of these, consider also the power of Christ’s coming!” (Hom. Matt 52.1 PG 59, 519.)

Think about the pedigree of the Canaanites, from the mindset of a Jewish believer who knows the OT well! The Canaanites came from Ham, that son who looked on his father Noah while he was naked. In Leviticus, God says, don’t be like the Canaanites: then he lists detailed laws against incest, same-sex erotic relations, and other forms of immorality. The implication is that the Canaanites were notorious for sexual irregularities. And there’s more. In their religion, the ancient Canaanites mixed sex with worship: not only the priest and priestesses, but also those offering sacrifices to Baal, engaged in orgies, which they saw as magically powerful to ensure the fertility of the land. We think, too, that they may have been involved in child sacrifice.

So, the word “Canaanite” would evoke the same kind of horror as the term “David Koresh” for us—someone involved in immoral and horrific religion, someone who comes from a pedigree of people in rebellion against God. Indeed, there is a promise in Malachi that assures the faithful that in God’s final day, when everything is made right, there will no longer be “a Canaanite” in God’s house, so that it cannot be polluted, but will always remain pure.
The first hearers of this story would not only be surprised at the cheek of a Gentile woman to come and ask Jesus for help, but they would also have a deep revulsion towards Canaanites. But the story increasingly presents her in a sympathetic light. Her first words show more than just her need; they demonstrate also her deep respect for Jesus. She speaks as briefly as she can, choosing her words with care: “Lord, son of David, have mercy, kyrie eleison.” She addresses him as Lord, a term of reverence, though probably not quite worship, on her lips. (As Christian readers we know that Jesus’ Lordship is deeper than she understands: he is Lord of all, he is God). But she intuits that there is something very special about him. And she begs him, “have mercy,” never suggesting that she is deserving, but throwing herself on his goodness. She also calls him “Son of David,” indicating that she knows something of the promises concerning a Messiah to come, and that she has regard for the Biblical traditions. She assumes that Jesus’ ability to have mercy on her is interconnected with who he is. On top of this, she is not asking on her own behalf, but on behalf of her daughter, whose situation is very bad, indeed. Near to her is a deliverer and a healer who has been known to do battle with the powers of darkness. As Jesus himself suggested, he has come for the very purpose of binding the demonic ‘strong man;” he is fighting Satan by means of the Spirit of God. Surely she is not asking something beyond his will or his pay grade!

Indeed, Christians who know other stories about Jesus will naturally anticipate, despite her Gentile low status, that the Lord might respond, with compassion, “Let her come unto me.” Perhaps the disciples might have a narrow view of God’s reign, but not Jesus! He rebuked his followers when they considered children to be beneath his concern. Already in Matthew’s gospel he has healed the centurion’s son, and even remarked on that man’s faith, beyond the faith of God’s own people! Surely he will also show generosity to this woman, this Gentile.

But he doesn’t even answer her! She is, of course, so persistent that the disciples beg Jesus to shut her up. Instead, Jesus responds, “I am sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Matthew doesn’t make clear whom Jesus is addressing here: is he explaining his silence to the disciples? Or does he expect the woman to overhear him? Perhaps his ambiguity is deliberate. Jesus affirms to his disciples the “ordinary” way of God—his ministry is to Israel first, because they are a holy people to the LORD. The woman, indeed, does overhear: and she doesn’t deny the pattern that Jesus is laying out, even though it seems unpromising for her! She has called him “Son of David” and knows that this means Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. Even knowing this, she continues to be hopeful: perhaps because she knows that the God of Israel is a God of mercy, a God who told the Israelites to leave grain at the margins of their fields for those passing by, whether poor Jews or Gentiles. Bowing low before him, she asks, with simplicity, “Lord, Help me!”

Jesus’ response is startling: “You want me to take the children’s bread and give it to the — doggies? That’s not right.” Wow, we are thinking! Jesus contrasts Jews and Gentiles in terms of children and canines. To our twenty-first century ears, after 20 centuries of the Christian declaration that there is “no Jew or Gentile,” and after two centuries at least of social debate concerning the equality of peoples, this sounds simply racist. What’s going on here? Several things, I think. I cannot pretend to peer into the intentions and mindset of the God-Man, Jesus. But the first thing to notice is the oddness of the term “doggies.” Whatever Jesus is saying, he has here used an unusual term of diminution, almost of affection, that should make us attentive. The common slur for a Gentile on the mouth of Jews was simply “dog,” and they considered THEMSELVES God’s own sheep.

The animal metaphors come from the tradition of literature known as “apocalypses,” which told the story of Israel rather in the manner of Orwell’s Animal Farm: the Hebrew people and their kings were pictured as sheep and rams, and the pagan people and their kings as wild beasts, wolves and dogs. A good example of this strategy is found in the vision of Daniel 7, where Israel’s enemies are pictured as ravenous beasts, and of course there is Jesus’ parable of the flock for which he is the Good Shepherd. God’s people are “domesticated” and part of the divine fold, whereas the Gentiles do not have the Law, are not directly under the protection of the Lord, are often violently resistant towards God, and even raid his flock. Any Jew who had read an apocalypse would have understood if Jesus had said “It is wrong to take the children’s bread and cast it to the wolves, or the wild dogs.” But here Jesus uses a pet word for dog, something like– “doggies”! That one word comes at the very end of his response to the woman: one can imagine her listening with her heart sinking, and then the little surprise at the end – “doggies”—comes. In English, Jesus might have put it this way: it isn’t right to give the bread to little Canine-ites! (Can you hear the similarity between Chananaia, the word for Canaanite and kunaria, the word for little dog?) The play and tenderness in Jesus’ words embolden her. Is he thinking of her little child, in the clutches of the evil one? She nurtures this snatch of hope and fastens upon Jesus’ bizarre little word! “Yes, Lord! But even the doggies eat the scraps that fall from the table.” Of course, we know the story’s end. He commends her for her faith, and her daughter is immediately restored.

Well, were Jesus’ silence and strange refusal simply a trick, a way to elicit more faith? Some have thought that all along he intended to help the woman, and that this whole interchange was simply a means to challenge the closed hearts of the disciples. In such a reading, Jesus keeps silent in order to make the woman cry out, and so to evoke the exasperation of the disciples, whom he knows will ask him to shut the woman up. His comment about his exclusive mission to the “lost sheep” would then be simply a sarcastic comment about what the disciples believe, inviting the woman to argue with him. The disciples are to learn from the exchange, and think about their own limited faith.

While this is a possible way of looking at the episode, I think it is too convoluted. How could Jesus have been sure that his harsh words wouldn’t shut the woman up, or make her lose hope? And there is no indication in the gospel that Jesus is, at the beginning, being insincere, or that he expects his disciples to change their view. If that were the lesson of the story, then we should expect Jesus, or at least the narrator to say, “So you see that the Messiah has come not only for Israel, but for those with faith like this woman.”

None of this happens. It seems to me that commentators who argue this way are trying to get Jesus out of a tough spot, so that we are not offended by his words. Friends, truth is complex. What Jesus had said to the disciples was true: his mission was indeed to Israel. In fact, he is simply following his own rule, the one he gave to the 12 disciples when he sent them out—only “go to the lost house of Israel!” (Matt 10:5-6). And the woman knows it. She doesn’t say something like, “but you know, Lord, that your whole purpose is to come to save the world, not just the Jewish nation.” No, she calls him “son of David”—the term for Messiah, the anointed king foretold in the Old Testament by whom God would restore Israel, even though Israel had been rebellious and didn’t deserve it.

First off, then, this curious little interchange leads us to think carefully of the relationship between our faith and history. Many of us tend to think of religion in terms of timeless truths. But God created time and space, and the Lord works in and through these dimensions. When humanity fell, God did not simply snap his fingers and forgive. No, he called a people to himself, preparing that people for long years, through the calling of the patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob, and then by nurturing that motley crowd of Hebrew slaves during that 40 year period in the wilderness. There was the messy time of the judges, then the spotty time of the prophets and kings, then the two exiles, then the return of only SOME Jews to Judah, then the unthinkable submission of Israel to Greece and Rome: and finally, Messiah comes. All along, of course, the calling of Israel was not for the sake of the Jews alone. Abraham had been told: “By your descendent all the world shall be blessed.” Through Isaiah, God reminded the people that they were to be “a light to the Gentiles.” But God had a plan for Israel FIRST.

Jesus, in both Matthew and Luke’s gospel, sends out his apostles, and his extended group of 70 disciples, to the towns of Israel. St. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, also followed the custom of going first to the Jewish synagogue, and then to the Gentiles. He was following Jesus’ own custom, God’s ordinary way of doing things. In God’s way of working, we see patience, and the use of what we would call both exclusivity and inclusivity. God does not treat everybody the same at every time. God does set apart Israel, but is doing this for the sake of the whole world. As Fr. Ted Stylianopoulos puts it, our faith is “in deep continuity and an essential fulfillment of the Jewish tradition,” (The New Testament; An Orthodox Perspective, p. 52) even while Jesus brings in something brand new, the new creation.

In this story, then, Jesus calls attention to the contours of God’s drama among us. God worked through a single nation that he called to himself, and at the very highest point of the drama, God worked through One who was the anointed Jew of Jews, even while being also God the Son. As a Jew of the ordinary classes, Jesus had been nurtured in the conventions of debate, the push-and-pull of conversation that often goes on among peasants. (We see him do this with the Samaritan woman, as well, don’t we?) In talking to both the Samaritan and the Canaanite, he does not give up the truth that Israel plays a special part in God’s economy. He has a task to call Israel to repentance and back to God. But he does engage with the woman. And in so doing, he hints to her that God’s compassion is not lacking for those outside of the household.
She responds to the challenge, and continues asking, both boldly and humbly, engaging in a fierce but simple exchange with this one whom she knows can help her. Here is a picture of the kind of prayer God invites: a prayer that accepts the way that he works (“Yes, Lord!”) and that acknowledges his greatness. There is ENOUGH bread, there are left-overs for those who come near to the table. God is generous. When the woman says, “even the doggies eat the scraps,” I am reminded of that Psalm of David that declares God’s goodness to all: “Even the swallow finds a place in the Temple where she can lay her eggs.”

What the Psalmist and this woman acknowledge is hard for us in a twenty-first century democratic context to understand: not everybody gets the same thing at the same time. God’s care for every one of us does not mean that “we all deserve the same thing.” There is built into reality, whether we like it or not, and into history, a kind of order or even “hierarchy.” God uses parents and monarchs, pastors and leaders, the Jewish nation—those to whom much has been given—as part of his plan. Of course, there are sometimes surprises. The time came, Paul tells us, when the Gentile Christians were grafted in, while some of God’s historic people were cut out of the vine—and now he is using Gentiles to proclaim the gospel to those who come from historic Israel. Similarly, women, not normally given power in the ancient world, become apostles to the apostles on that morning of the resurrection, or teachers, as Priscilla did alongside her husband Aquila. (We commemorated them both yesterday!)

Here is the point—God’s way of working is infinitely more complex than we can imagine. He doesn’t say to us, “desserts all around for everybody!” No, to Israel he says, “all day long I have been stretching out my hands to a rebellious and stubborn people!” and to those not of Israel, he says, “I will call you ‘my people’ who never were my people!” The woman, in her humility, recognized two great things: first, that God isn’t “fair” in our normal sense of the word, but that reality was a complex thing; second, that it is a really good thing that God isn’t fair, because all anyone can do, no matter what his or her position in life, is to say, “LORD, have mercy!” Kyrie eleison!

The woman’s hunch about God’s nature corresponded to who God is: this is WHY her faith was great! Not that she kept persisting, but because the way that she approached Jesus matched the way God really is, and, how he works in our world. Jesus came to this world and taught us about the nature of God, and also about our own human nature. Though he was himself God, he showed obedience and submission to the Father, not claiming equality. When he spoke of God the Holy Spirit, he explained that this Advocate has a special relationship with both himself and with the Father. The Spirit’s delight is to glorify Jesus, showing deference to him; and the Spirit is not his own boss, or head, but proceeds from the Father! At the very foundations of reality, in the mystery of the Godhead, we do not see a simple democracy, but a mystery of order-with-mutuality. Father, Son and Holy Spirit each recognize each other as God, and receive our worship: yet the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, so there is an order. This is a great mystery. God is neither the mascot of democracy nor of totalitarianism: in the Godhead we see what is TRUE, for God is truth.

If the Son submits to the Father, then how much more should we not claim our rights before God. This woman admitted the truth: we deserve NOTHING, but God is compassionate and generous, and able to heal. What is our heart’s desire? Do we desire the same things that God does? This woman did: she cared for her child, and hated the ravages of Satan on her little one. God, too, cares for his children, and Jesus came, foundationally, to do battle with Satan. All this goes far beyond fairness. Indeed, the very way that Jesus wins over the enemy is hardly FAIR to him: for it is by his own death that he tramples down death. The woman knows very little about all this. But what she does know, she knows well: here is the Son of David, here is one whom she can call Lord, here is One who can heal, and whom she dares to hope will “have mercy!” In Jesus’ eyes, this is “great faith!” For it is a faith that corresponds to who He is. What she acknowledges is true, even though it may seem, at first glance, to exclude her. What she wishes corresponds to God’s deepest purposes—to free and to heal. So, then, Jesus exclaims, “Be it done for you as you desire!”

How do we approach Jesus in worship? Like the woman, like the thief, are we faithfully and courageously begging for bread, and for the life of those whom we love? Kyrie eleison is the most perfect prayer in the entire world, for it acknowledges who God is—in his majesty and compassion—and who we are—in our need. And when we pray in this way, we can be sure that he will give to us the grace that we need to be fit members of the Temple which is the body of Christ—living illustrations of the one who has made us, for others to see, as our epistle reading says. “I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”