The Canaanite woman is all of us

Jesus and the woman of Canaan, Codex Egberti, Fol 35v. Wikimedia Commons.

My dear churchy friends.

If you think the story of the Canaanite woman of Matthew 15 is likely to scandalize your congregation, you need to have more conversations with people marginalized from your church. Women. Black people. Foreigners ("who join themselves to the Lord", as it says in Isaiah today). Jews. Divorced people. Gay and lesbian people. Christians from other churches who worship with you every week and never receive communion. Their parents, spouses, children, and friends. These people aren't scandalized by the Canaanite woman or shocked by Jesus's response in this gospel. They recognize those dismissive words and feel emboldened when she demands the scraps from the table of God's people. Yes. If I keep speaking, someday, they will see. This Sunday's readings are for the marginalized, not for the scandalized.

Today I was reminded instead, in the homily, that there are people, that each of us knows someone, who find it difficult to maintain faith because God seems not to hear their prayers. Even, perhaps, the apostles, that is, God's church, seems to send them away!

It was a good attempt. I know the homilist had to work hard to get to that point, to feel and to say these things. I love him for the effort. But it wasn't enough today.

It's not enough because I have been, I am, the Canaanite woman. I've been marginalized and asked to leave by my own faith community. My children's needs have been dismissed as unimportant. I too have been told I'm asking too much, too soon. Today, it was her voice I needed to hear, and not the voice of the apostles.

The Canaanite woman says:
I hear you, those whose voices are ignored, whose priorities are considered not important. You people who go to God today seeking healing for a loved one who is sick, or a reprieve from violence, or a windfall that will pay one of the bills that comes due tomorrow. It seems today that God has not heard you, that the church has not heard you. But I have heard you -- I, the Canaanite woman, the foreigner, the Gentile, the dog, the woman of great faith.

This woman reminds us that Jesus was not only God, but also a human being! Like every human being, he learned by listening to others. This gospel is not a scandal, but a treasure: it reveals that the Wisdom of God humbled himself (Phil. 2) even to take correction, even from a Gentile woman! From her, not from him, we hear the truth that the other readings today are careful to lift up: that the prayers and offerings of foreigners will be accepted in the house of God, that all the nations will praise God, that God will have mercy upon all peoples. Jesus, confronted with the woman's reminder of this truth, demonstrates metanoia.

To you Canaanite women, those who have been unheard and disdained, we know you have been dismissed by those who claimed to speak for God. Don't just perservere: preach! Clamor. Cry out! The church needs you.

To you who are ministers for Christ: listen! The church must be awakened to the knowledge that God is speaking today through the woman, the Gentile, the foreigner. Like the apostles, like even Jesus, if only this once, we must humble ourselves to hear the truths we've ignored, and respond, fiat, let it be so.

We are all the Canaanite woman, but we are also all human and so in need of conversion, of hearing the truth that cannot be seen from the place where we live. It is only all together that we can become the true Body of Christ.

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Having recently decided to leave the PrayTell blog, I'm resurrecting my personal blog. In honor of the Canaanite (or possibly the Syrophoenician) nameless woman, I've decided to give it a new name.