The Canaanite Woman’s Prayer
These various reflection on Gospel characters hopes to show the importance of deep personal prayer.
In some examples, the absence of this prayer is also insightful.
I
The Story’s Background in Matthew’s Gospel
All the Evangelists told the story of Jesus out of the context of their own community. Matthew’s community was a group of Jewish Christians struggling for their own identity as both Jews and followers of Christ.
They saw themselves as the true Jews. They accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah fulfilling the hope of centuries of Jewish longings for salvation foretold to Abraham and Moses. Matthew’s faithful Jewish community understood God’s saving action in the Law of Moses and the teachings of Jesus. They recognized one consistent message of deliverance from evil.
However, they faced a two-fold dilemma. First, the majority of the Jews rejected Jesus and, in fact, rejected them in their commitment to Christ. They had been dismissed and persecuted as unfaithful to the common acceptance of the Jewish faith. Secondly, great numbers of Gentiles were accepting Jesus as the t rue Savior of all humankind.
Matthew wrote his Gospel for the community in the midst of a massive identity crisis. Were they true representatives of the Jewish heritage? Was Jesus the true Messiah and leader? Were they called to leave their Jewish heritage and join the growing numbers of Gentile followers of Christ now called Christians?
Matthew offers an answer to this dilemma in his Gospel. He portrays Jesus, first and foremost, as the fulfillment of the Law and longings of the Jewish people. Matthew is unequivocal. The hope rooted in the stories and tradition of the Patriarchs, Moses, David and the prophets was fulfilled in Jesus
At the same time, Matthew offers an opening to the universality of God’s saving power in Jesus. Matthew’s development of the Gospel has a gradual opening to the Gentile world. At the very beginning, there are four Gentile women in the genealogy. Then there is the presence of the Magi in the infancy narrative. This is followed by the miracle healings in the stories of the centurion’s servant and the Canaanite’s daughter. At the foot of the Cross, we again have a centurion speaking the truth of Jesus’ identity. Finally, at the conclusion, as Jesus prepares to ascend to the Father, we have the final mandate to preach the Gospel to all the world.
Matthew presents a very sensitive and insightful image of Jesus that addresses this opening to the boundless gift of salvation for all. Matthew’s guidance to his Jewish brothers and sisters was not the centuries old choice of “us or them”. It was a clear and joyful declaration of the reality that all humanity are truly children of God.
This was an answer to the people who were grappling to interpret a God-given, centuries old identity as the Chosen People. The story of the Canaanite woman captures that struggle of the people in the story of Jesus’ own struggle with the awesome woman of faith and courage.
II
A Woman of Faith and Courage from the Gentiles
A Brief summary of the Text (Mt 15:21-28)
There are three characters in the scene:
- Jesus had just finished a conflict with the Jewish leaders stressing that the Law was about the heart not legalities. He was moving toward a Gentile area to seek some rest and quiet.
- The disciples were anxious to get rid of the woman and her annoying determination to get help from Jesus.
- Then there was the Canaanite woman. Her insistence was rooted in her pain and driven by compassion for her daughter. She saw in Jesus the true answer to her immediate prayers. At a deeper level, she perceived a true savior.
In the woman’s first cry for help Jesus completely ignores her anguish. The disciples plead with Jesus to dismiss her. The benign interpretation of this plea is the removal by healing the daughter. The more realistic view would be in tune with the common prejudice of the day. She was a Gentile. She was a woman. She deserved no attention.
Jesus’ first response is to the disciples. He told them his mission was the Chosen People not the Gentiles.
Next, there is one of the most touching scenes in all of the Gospels. The woman acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah, kneels before Jesus in total vulnerability and says, “Lord, help me.” (Mt 15:25)
Jesus is still resistant. He says, “It is not right to take the bread of children and throw it to the dogs.” (Mt 15:26)
There has been an enormous amount of ink spent over the centuries trying to give a gentle and satisfying interpretation to Jesus’ use of the accepted Jewish word for Gentiles: dogs. Whatever the true explanation, the woman wins the day with her brilliant response, “Please Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” (Mt 15:27)
In a critical point in all of Christian history, Jesus accepts the plea of the Gentile woman and reveals God’s love for all humankind in his words. “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that time.” (Mt 15:28)
Much more than most Gospel passages, the story of this special Gentile woman has received seemingly countless interpretations. One of the most insightful and sensitive is Matthew’s kindhearted understanding of his community’s problems with the Gentile issue. Matthew has Jesus mirror the struggle of his community in addressing the tortuous issue of accepting the Gentiles. In Matthew’s construction of the story, Jesus is shown in his own uncertainty. Yet he changes and accepts the faith of the woman. He shatters the Gentile barrier. His example encourages and supports his Jewish followers to both castoff their own resistance and to embrace the deeper world of God’s love for all.
III
A Woman of Prayer
Upon deeper reflection, the wonderful person of faith that is the Canaanite woman in Matthew’s Gospel, offers us some excellent traits needed to be a person of deep personal prayer.
- First and foremost, she moved beyond herself. Her emphasis was service.
- The complaint of the disciples, whether benign or ignorant, could easily have led her to see herself as a victim. She stayed the course, stressing not her personal hurt, but the urgent need of her daughter.
- She was in a Jewish world. She was a foreigner. She was a woman. Nevertheless, she maintained her dignity.
- With all these truly burdensome obstacles, she always kept her eyes on Jesus.
Her determination drove her beyond the labels of the situation. She did not get lost in her being a woman or Gentile or a victim. She did not let the label of Jew or Gentile, saved or lost, Chosen People or pagans, impede her determination to express her concerns before God. Stripped of all labels, she stood free in the ultimate reality as a creature before God. She accepted her helplessness and expressed her trust and faith as a child of the all -loving God.
If we reflect on her simplicity and helplessness, we have a marvelous model as we seek a life of deep personal prayer.
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