Matthew 15:21-28
Dear Friends,It is very hard for us to grasp how deeply the Jews at the time of Jesus cherished their role as the chosen people of God to the exclusion of all others. It colored their reality with a clear vision and acutely guarded set of protocols that defined all social interaction with the Gentiles.
The early Christian Church struggled for two generations to break loose of this bondage of exclusiveness. Down through history the Church and all societies have continued to manufacture a mirror of this of elitism.
Today’s story from St. Matthew’s Gospel is as relevant as the latest blog filling the internet each hour.
Over the centuries, Christian voices have produced some incredible fantasies to explain away Jesus’ harsh language addressed to the Canaanite woman. It still stands for what it is: a statement of the blind prejudice of His times. I especially like those who claimed it was protocol not prejudice.
History is filled with protocols that came from laws that simply hid the prejudice of the time behind a legal façade. In Ireland in 1710, a law said all government and military leaders must receive the sacraments of the Church of England. This was the first of a set of Penal Laws that led to the oppression and poverty of the Irish for over two centuries. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court declared separate but equal was acceptable under the law. This led to the segregation system that dehumanized the African Americans for decades with “white only” and “the back of the bus” set of protocols that were considered legal and righteous. With the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 women finally changed another protocol and won the right to vote. This was a great step in the struggle that continues to this day for equality for women.
When this embattled mother confronted Jesus, she was showing the way for the oppressed of all human history. Her action and her words are a simple declaration of her dignity no matter what the protocols and prejudice of the day has to say to the contrary.
Jesus saw and heard this declaration of human rights and began a long journey that continues for us today. God’s grace and God’s love are for all. It makes no difference how deep and thick the cultural, legal and theological norms are used to prop up the walls of separation and isolation.
In her simple and brilliant response to Jesus, the Canaanite woman was speaking for all of us. We are the children of God. After three confrontations Jesus saw the light and celebrated her truth expressed in her faith. Her daughter was healed and all of us continue the healing every time we go beyond the accepted protocols and legalized prejudice and embrace the humanity of the “outsider.” It makes no difference if the excluded is the illegal, the Muslim, the gay and lesbian or maybe just a mother-in-law.
The human heart has a seemingly unlimited capacity to divide us in “us “and “them”. Today’s Gospel message is an equally unending invitation to move away from the common sense interpretation of reality to the wonder of the gospel message Jesus models for us today.
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