The Parable of the Teacher-healer and the Canaanite Woman

 

We are confronted this morning with an uncomfortable Gospel.

Commentaries and interpretations of the text take various routes to describe Jesus’ interaction with the Canaanite woman. Dubbed, troublesome for modern hearers, Jesus is labelled racist, sexist, patronizing, and complacent in dehumanizing people through religious perspective, societal norms, and systemic injustice.

Today I am inviting us to consider a different avenue to enter the text.

As you know, I have been on vacation. As I like to do, I spent a lot of time reading- enjoying historical stories, mysteries, adventure, saga, drama, poetry… Each book was read in slightly different ways based on the genre. I read poetry in a rhythmic kind of way so that I ‘feel’ the words, which is different from a mystery where I concentrate on collecting facts to figure out the puzzle before the narrator tells me.

Instead of reading today’s text as an historical story about Jesus, let us explore the text as if Matthew is telling a parable – a short story to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or a moral, spiritual lesson.

A man who was a teacher and healer, went away to a foreign district, that of Tyre and Sidon

In the parable the teacher is confronted by a local woman of that place who gets in his face, yelling at the teacher to have mercy and heal her daughter. The teacher ignores her.

The teacher’s followers, called disciples, come along and ask the teacher to dismiss her – do something- because she is bothering them.  …

 

Hearing the Gospel as a parable, gives the brain and heart a chance to step back from a traditional interpretation of Jesus’ stories where Jesus’ character is seen as flawless, and troublesome passages, like this one, get cleaned up in the preaching of the text. Our understanding of Jesus can disrupt our ability to hear the Gospel being proclaimed.

 

Fenton Communications writes about the power of parable as a communication form. The power of parables is the “Parable Effect.” The parable effect is “the magical quality that allows a reader or listener to be transported into the mind of the protagonist – essentially turning on the empathy switch in our brains. Parables have the power to change the minds of those who fear change.”

 

I will admit that I fear change. My deepest fears are around change that is thrust on me or society as a whole. Changes that are out of my control. Chaos that can not be ordered. Change that happens without room for input or choice.

 

The Gospel at the heart of the parable of the teacher-healer and the woman is a truth that confronts the deepest fear of the hearers. The parable addresses change. Change, in this case, includes choice, order, control. Specifically, the parable pushes for change in ‘the religious,’ and in the culture and system they have created. It pushes for change that is brought about by adhering to and living the covenant, as highlighted in Matthew 22: 37 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ’love your neighbour as yourself.’ Herein the parable proclaims the Gospel, a gospel of good news of the kindom of God.

 

The parable addresses change.

The parable does so by placing a mirror in front of the modern hearer, in front of the disciples, in front of the audience of the time. The parable points fingers at the righteous who have fallen short of living into the covenant by making choices that do not bring God’s kindom to fruition. The parable builds on previous teachings where listeners have been encouraged to expand their understanding of covenant living.

 

Here the disciples come to the teacher – Jesus- urging him to send the woman away because she keeps shouting after them. The teacher’s response, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’’ The teacher is pointing fingers at the disciples. As a parable goes, can we interpret that the comment is not directed at or about the woman? Rather, disciples, see in the mirror that you are included in the lost sheep of the house of Israel? If Jesus is sent to you, the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to whom are you, a disciple, sent? Jesus points to the disciples; the woman is the disciples’ responsibility.

This is not ‘new’ for the disciples to hear. The same finger was pointed at the disciples a few weeks ago in Matthew chap. 14. At that time, late in the day, the disciples asked Jesus to send the crowd away so they could go buy food.  Jesus tells them, “They need not go away, you give them something to eat.”

Disciples, do you still not understand? Covenant  - Law- righteousness, is about living the commandments. And for instances where the covenant has been broken – like with this women, those places of broken relationship -areas of racism, sexism, socio-political barriers, difference of religion, or broken systems that breed suffering and injustice; get on with reconciliation. Disciples this is on you. Jesus has come to you, to teach you, to make you uncomfortable, so that your head and heart change; so that you might change the world.  You are to bring near the kindom of God.

 

And if this was not truth enough, the parable continues by pointing fingers at the larger audience -the original hearers of Matthew’s Gospel - who are of the ‘house of Israel.’ The parable casts Wisdom in the guise of the Canaanite woman. Everything in her words returns the people to God’s covenant and living as covenant people. Pointing fingers she says, Even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table. There are only crumbs -pieces- no wholeness. And this lack of wholeness falls on the shoulders of the people. You, you people, you acting better than others, it is on you that God’s kindom is far away.

The alternative Hebrew scriptures in the lectionary for the summer are from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet who cast God’s vision of what God’s kindom in fullness is. When the house of Israel is living in wholeness they will be a light to the nations, a place of healing and peace for themselves and all nations; people from the ends of the earth will come and bask in shalom, in peace, HEALED and WHOLE.

When followers of Jesus, disciples who have learned from the teacher-healer live in covenant and in right relationship others will bask in shalom, in peace, HEALED and WHOLE.

 

The truth – the point of the parable – is the Gospel at work doing exactly what the Gospel is meant to do -setting a mirror before those who align themselves with God, who venture into relation with God and thus, loving their neighbours….. so the disciples, the house of Israel, us -  are changed …. that is why this parable hits hard, why we cringe when the finger is pointed at us, because the Gospel has touched us such that injustice stirs us. We have changed by virtue of following Jesus’ teachings and healings, embracing covenant living.

 

In Matthew chapter 28, the Gospel finally solidifies for the disciples that the crowd, that the Canaanite woman are not Jesus’ situations and relationships to fix, send away, deal with; such circumstances – the kindom in the world- is through their hands and witness, their responsibility; that loving God and loving neighbour is the Gospel they proclaim  - we proclaim -(vs19-20) Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.