Remember that we said earlier--in Matthew's gospel the miracles of Jesus complete his teaching. The miracle makes the teaching "real." That is what happens in our reading for today, where it says "a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, 'Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.' But Jesus did not answer her at all."
The silence of Jesus is always a mysterious thing. The very few times in the gospels when he is silent—see Matthew 26:63—are the moments when Jesus is most distant and perplexing to us. And our instinct is to try to make him warm and familiar—more like us. Political and religious liberals want to make him a liberal like themselves; political and religious conservatives want to make him a conservative. We want to make Jesus "our man"—more modern, more perfect—or less so. It doesn't work. He is God's man. Jesus resists all our categories, and he transcends them all. He was like us. God made himself like us in Jesus, but we cannot use Jesus to mold God in our image. He is always the Other. The silence of Jesus reminds us of the distance between God's man and world he came save.
Yet in many ways the Jesus of the gospels is a man of his time—a male Jew of the first century. And in the story of the Canaanite woman, he is pushed to the edge of his comfort zone. He is in a foreign land, far from home--after his rejection in Galilee (13:54ff), he travels to the predominately gentile region of Tyre and Sidon. And there he is confronted by a hysterical woman. Matthew calls her "a Canaanite woman." In the OT the Canaanites were a sinful and accursed race—utterly unclean and beyond the pale of grace; in order for Israel to possess the Land of Promise the Canaanites must be mercilessly exterminated. Again and again the prophets warned again mixing with them. Yet it says that this woman "came out" to meet Jesus—he certainly would not have gone looking for her—and kept shamelessly begging his help on behalf of her possessed daughter.
In Matthew's gospel Jesus seldom mixes with gentiles—his mission is to the "lost sheep of the House of Israel," he himself puts it. But Jesus admires faith, whether he finds it in Jew or gentile. The centurion who approaches Jesus on behalf of his servant is a gentile, but he obeys the rules. He keeps his distance. And he comes across as a perfect gentleman, a model of courtesy and discretion. Jesus marvels at his manly humility, and remarks that "in no one in Israel [has he] seen such faith" (Matthew 8:5-12). But the Canaanite woman is not polite. She breaks all the rules in the way she approaches Jesus. She ignores the boundaries. He a Jew, she is a "Canaanite"—the worst kind of gentile. He is a man; she is a woman, and in NT times unrelated men and respectable women mixed only under the most socially restricted circumstances. She is "unclean," a source of pollution. By rights she should not approach him at all. The disciples are embarrassed by her desperate cries and want Jesus to send her away. But he says nothing.
His silence is not a test of the woman. Jesus does not play games with people. The problem is the conflict in the man Jesus himself. His aversion for her is deep and instinctive, an aversion based upon centuries of religious and racial prejudice. He has for her that deep instinctive dislike that some people have for cats—foolish, but deeply felt. The good news, however, breaks down those fears and aversions based upon sex, race, and religion. This miracle story is told within the context of Jesus' instructions regarding Jewish dietary laws. What is really unclean? In the course of his teaching he says, "It is not what goes into one's mouth that defiles a person; but what comes out of the mouth that defiles" (15:11). Human beings are more important that religious principles. People become unclean because of what they do, not because of who they are. Now those teachings are being tested by a concrete situation. Now the importunate cries of the Canaanite woman force God's man to overcome his own prejudices and live out the Gospel he teaches.
This woman is an altogether remarkable individual; her boldness on behalf of her daughter is bold and audacious. She has wit and grit and faith in the goodness of God and the ability of his man to cure her daughter. And in her tug of war with Jesus she is triumphant because she is right--The dogs do indeed have a right to crumbs that fall from their master's table. When Jesus laughs and acknowledges his own defeat by healing her daughter, it is the power of the Gospel itself—the good news of God's kingdom--that has overcome his scruples. The miracle he does on her behalf completes his teaching about the things that defile—washing your hands does not put you right with God. Sin defiles us—not other human beings. When it comes to laws and religious principles, people always come first.
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