Matthew 15:21–28
Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
The story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman has some resemblance to a court tale, but I won’t be skipping to the end.
When you sit down in front of the television, you probably turn on a familiar type of show, one you’re comfortable with. Maybe you like mysteries, romantic comedies, action, or police procedurals. (Or maybe you want to watch a romantic-comedy-action-police-procedural!)
Regardless of what you enjoy watching, you know what to expect. The mystery gets solved, the mismatched couple ends up madly in love, the bad guy is arrested.
One of the more popular story types in the ancient world was called a “court tale.” Keep in mind it was dangerous in the real world for anyone to criticize the king, but in a court tale, everyone laughs. Typically, the ruler is surrounded by evil aristocrats. These evil aristocrats are jealous and want to destroy the good-hearted hero. They tell lies and deceives the king. The hero, however, stands up for the truth. Ultimately the hero is acquitted while the evil flatterers go to their doom.
Court tales are both funny and treasonous. And they occur in scripture. The book of Esther is a good example. The Persian ruler Artaxerxes is crazy. He holds a six-month drinking party, gets rid of Queen Vashti for refusing to parade before his nobles wearing only her crown, then holds an empire-wide beauty pageant to replace her, which is won by Esther the Jew. Meanwhile his evil nobleman Haman is jealous of Esther’s uncle Mordecai, also attached to the court, and convinces the emperor that all Jews must be killed. Queen Esther defies court protocol, engages her emperor’s curiosity and ultimately exposes Haman, who is executed on the same gallows he meant to use for Mordecai.
The book of Daniel features several court tales in which the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar is charmed by Daniel’s ability to interpret dreams and then duped by his jealous advisers into ordering the death of Daniel’s countrymen. Daniel and his friends wend their way through several crises, but they always come out on top, and Nebuchadnezzar is restored to good sense. (At least until the next episode, anyway.)
It’s one thing for an earthly king to be decieved, but what about the King of Kings, Jesus Christ? He’d never do anything that makes Him look bad, would He?
Now what has all this to do with today’s Gospel reading, about Jesus and the Canaanite woman? Well, Jesus is the King. He’s not just a king. In Revelation, He’s identified as “King of kings and Lord of lords.” Despite the crown of thorns, despite the cross, despite the exclamation, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me,” Jesus is the King, revealed in Revelation as both the Lion of Judah and the Lamb bearing the marks of slaughter.
Despite this, King Jesus is perceived as a threat to the other kings. We see this when Jesus is born, during the reign of Augustus Caesar, who styled himself the son of a god, the prince of peace and the savior of the world. But Jesus is the real Son of God, Prince of Peace and Savior of the world. And He favors the poor and oppressed, which is demonstrated when God chooses to announce the birth of Jesus to low-class shepherds instead of Caesar.
There’s King Herod’s murderous rage, and the slaughter of the innocents. There’s Herod Antipas, hoping to see Jesus perform a miracle to gain His freedom, his disappointment giving way to rage when Jesus refuses to perform for him.
Then there are Pilate’s pleading questions, as Jesus explains that His kingship is not of this world. Because Jesus is on the side of the oppressed and the outsiders. This is a different kind of royal court.
At His final supper before His death, Jesus washes the feet of His disciples, a menial task that shocks them to the core, and then He tells him, “I have called you friends.”
In the passage just prior to today’s reading, Jesus redefined the idea of what is clean and unclean. It’s not what you touch, or what goes in our mouth. It’s what you say or do that makes you unclean.
In His ministry, Jesus touched the unclean, a woman with a flow of blood, a blind person and a leper. And when it comes to the Samaritan woman, He not only teaches but He listens to her, and she, an unclean outsider among the unclean outsiders, becomes an apostle to her village.
Despite all of this, in the account in today’s reading, Jesus rejects the plea of a Canaanite woman whose child is sick unto death by claiming “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” even though it was He who chose to step into Gentile territory.
This is after His disciples, His court officials if you will, give Him bad advice. “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” In the typical court tale, the king, when given bad advice, follows it.
Is that what King Jesus is doing when He insults this woman even as she continues to plead for her daughter? He says, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Referring to outsiders as dogs involves repeating the insulting language of every group of insiders that looks disdainfully on outsiders, minimizing and dehumanizing other human beings.
But she persists. She calls Jesus on His behavior: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
And, as in any good court tale, that persistence against opposition wins the day. Jesus says, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And the scripture tells us “ … her daughter was healed instantly.” The king changes His mind. That sounds like a happy ending except what we’ve seen seems to go against everything we think we know about Jesus!
In life as we know it, it’s not always safe to talk back to those in power, even though good rulers worth their mettle must be open to those who contradict them. So, talk back to God? Yes.
This Gospel story reminds us, the outcasts, the sorrowful, the ones suffering with depression, the ones who have not been able to get a break, that we have a king who can be approached.
Abraham talks back to God, heartbroken that the divine promise doesn’t seem to have been fulfilled. Moses argues with God and insists that destroying the people in the desert is a bad idea because other nations will think this was God’s intent all along. Job argues with God and accuses the divine court of being incapable of providing a fair trial. The prophet Habakkuk not only reprimands God about the injustice in the world, but when God replies that none of this will matter because the Babylonians are going to destroy rich and poor, oppressed and oppressor together, the prophet scolds God for being immortal and unable of understanding human sorrow.
We’re in this together. That’s what prayer is all about. The King of Kings lays aside the crown, comes down to our level, to learn about our pain and suffering and to listen to us. In the story of the raising of Lazarus, Jesus delays His arrival upon hearing of the sickness of His friend and speaks theologically of using this death as a teaching moment. This all goes out the window when Martha chews Him out and her sister Mary cries at the tomb. That criticizing and those tears lead to Jesus’ weeping as well and maybe feeling sadness at putting His good friends through all this, before Lazarus is restored to life.
If the King of Kings isn’t a listening God and a responding God, then prayer is an exercise in futility, for everything is predetermined and no amount of pleading will change a thing.
In this Gospel story, we have a court tale with the kind of happy ending we’ve been taught to expect, and yet, as with any good story, there’s an element of surprise. The woman’s faith saved her daughter. Our prayers of faith, regardless of their outcome, are a sign that God is listening, and that we’re part of the action.
The best advice I’ve ever received, was from my professor at the seminary, “Don’t skip to the ending” that is, stay in the present. As we pray and live faithfully, as we argue with as well as serve the King of Kings, there’s no need to skip to the ending. Let’s live in this moment, love in this moment, pray in this moment and hope in this moment. We are, after all, in the most magnificent court tale of all, one in which we can approach the King of Kings and change things through prayer and action!
Now that’s a great story.