Genesis 45:1-15; Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15:21-28
Ordinary 20A; Proper 15
The Canaanite woman has been on my mind lately, well before this story rolled around again in the lectionary.
When situations perplexed me or the comments of readers felt hurtful, I started asking myself: WWTCWD? What would the Canaanite woman do? This season of wicked problems, of too many occasions where it feels like Jesus does not acknowledge the cries of the suffering and of many of us showing our stress through anger toward others, the Canaanite woman felt like a good role model in the faith, the saint whose wisdom seemed most applicable. I need to call upon her tenacity and persistence, her humility and strength, her stalwart commitment to seek help on behalf of those unable to seek it out for themselves. I need to remember her unwillingness to be dismissed, even by God.
While I admire Joseph in this week’s readings (his willingness to be reconciled to his brothers who hurt him and his ability to see God’s providence in the most horrendous of hurts), right now the Canaanite woman’s resolve to get Jesus’ intervention speaks loudly to my soul. Like Jacob’s refusal to let go until he is blessed, the Canaanite woman will not slink away in shame or be silenced until her daughter is healed. That kind of relentless faith-work is what we need to summon in this season of racial reckoning and pandemic devastation. Access to a seat at the table may still be denied, but those on the margins and those standing with them, will not turn back until we are seen and heard and our daughters’ lives matter. Right now, WWTCWD?
What would the Canaanite woman do about families with no health insurance?
What would the Canaanite woman do about the children lost to gun violence?
What would the Canaanite woman do about the impending eviction crisis?
What would the Canaanite woman do about crushing student debt? Mass incarceration? The fact that Black families have one-tenth of the median net worth that white families have?
The Canaanite woman begs Jesus for help and he responds with silence. She persists. She keeps following and shouting out to the point the disciples urge Jesus to send her away. Jesus turns to her and tells her that she and her daughter are not his concern. He has come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Still she persists, taking the insult, flipping the script and telling the Messiah of Israel that she will settle for his cast-offs, less than the leftovers, the crumbs that fall from his table. Say no to that, Jesus? He can’t.
Her faith in the crumbs of the bread of life lead to the healing of her daughter. Like water on a stone, her consistent belief in Jesus’ power to bring transformation upends Jesus’ initial limitations and the disciples’ expectations. We could use more of such astonishing reversals in our world. We could use a whole culture full of Canaanite women who refuse to be left unseen, unheard, who refuse to be dismissed until their daughters, their children, are given the ability to live demon-free.
Audre Lorde in her speech, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” said, “I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” After getting a dire diagnosis that she feared would end her life, she reflected and came to understand after reviewing her life and hopes that “what I regretted most were my silences.” She asked her audience that day in 1977: “What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?”
The Canaanite woman refused to keep silent any longer. She refused to swallow the tyrannies that would kill her and her daughter if she did not speak, shout, persist.
What do you need to say? What do we as the church need to say? What silences do we look back on and regret?
An article in Medium, “Christianity, Ross Barnett, and White Supremacy” notes: “Christianity has been weaponized throughout the ages, and its weaponization undergirds white supremacy. For all of the talk of God creating everyone equal, what do the actions of a lot of Christian churches show?” The author goes on to say, “By ignoring the blood-stained soul of America’s conscience, the burned earth of Jim Crow, and the shut doors of mass incarceration, Christians fall back on Genesis 1:27 that God created everyone in his image. While I believe this, I also believe that this is a copout and deflection away from the issues that affect God’s creations. The greed and prejudice behind such statements uphold white supremacy, twisting the Bible to fit one’s position.”
When have we kept silent or tried to silence others in the face of systems, structures and polices that have allowed the evil to run rampant and destroy the Canaanite woman’s little girl?
As we read the news and watch this pandemic’s impact unequally injure those already pushed to the margins and eating crumbs, what will we say? Who will we be in this story of Jesus’ transformation? WWTCWD? What would the Canaanite woman do? Are we willing to stand with her and do it, too? Will we refuse to be silenced when children’s lives are at stake? Will we persist with those who have the power to make a difference for those unable to advocate for themselves? Will we stop making others swallow tyrannies that will sicken and kill them? Will we, like the Canaanite woman and as Audre Lorde argues, break the silences and bridge the difference between us, “for it is not the difference that immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.”
Perhaps that begins by asking ourselves: What would the Canaanite woman do? And then act upon the answer.
This week:
- Who are you in this story from Matthew? When you imagine the scene, what do you feel? How do you want to respond to the Canaanite woman?
- When have you advocated relentlessly on behalf of another? Who in your community is akin to the Canaanite woman’s daughter?
- What do you make of Jesus’ silence and initial refusal to help? How do you reconcile that with the Jesus we read about in other biblical stories? The Jesus you know?
- Does the woman change Jesus’ mind? Expand his understanding? Why or why not?
- When have you had an encounter with someone that changed your understanding, your mind, your actions?
- What silences need to be broken in your family, church, community, this country?
