PaddlingPadre

This deliverance of the Canaanite woman’s daughter is one of those episodes in the gospels that, at first blush, might cause us confusion, as Jesus seems to behave strangely. Yet whenever Jesus challenges us in the gospels, whether it be by his words or by his actions, there is, within that challenge, always an invitation to go deeper. Scripture does not always surrender its treaures on a cursory reading, and so if we want to truly understand what is happening in these challenging or obscure passages, then we have to resist any temptation towards knee-jerk reactions, and instead exercise one of those very virtues which the Canaanite woman exhibited in her continual crying out for help, namely perseverance, as we wrestle with the scriptures.

And so what is it that strikes us as odd in this story? Surely it is the silence of Jesus, who returns not a word to the Canaanite woman’s pleadings, until at last, once his disciples have asked him to send the woman away, he tells her that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and then follows this up by saying that it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to dogs. Now, its important that whenever we consider Jesus and what he does in the gospels that we not forget who he is. Jesus, in every moment, is both fully God and fully man; we never see the one without the other, a merely human Jesus or a merely divine Jesus. And because of this, there is always, in everything that Jesus does and says, a prophetic element. Jesus is, in every moment, revealing the Father and teaching about the kingdom, and remembering this prophetic element often helps us to understand more deeply what is happening in the gospels. Thus, for example, I talked a couple of weeks ago about how the feeding of the five thousand is not just a case of Jesus providing for the hunger of the crowd, but is also a prophetic action that looks ahead to the eucharist. Or, to take another example, when Jesus drives the money changers out of the temple, he is not merely acting out of human anger, but is making a prophetic statement about who he is, about his authority, and about the sanctity of the temple.

And so here as well, and on several levels. First, there is the silence of Jesus. He does not, for some time, respond to the Canaanite woman’s pleading. And yet the woman persists. Jesus, of course, is not silent because he does not hear her, but by being silent he allows her this space to persevere in making her supplication, which is such an essential virtue when it comes to prayer, and which is surely a lesson for us not to become weary in our crying out to Jesus. For me, this calls to mind the famous story of Jacob wrestling with the angel of God, refusing to let him ago until he had received from him a blessing, as that story too teaches this same lesson.

Next, Jesus, breaking his silence, says that he was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And this reflects that truth which Jesus spoke to another gentile, to the Samaritan woman at the well, when he told her that Salvation is from the Jews. It was God’s plan to save the human race by calling a particular people to himself, a nation that was meant to be holy and priestly, showing forth God’s sanctity and goodness to the world, and in the coming of Christ this plan is racing towards its fulfillment. By calling back the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Jesus is reconstituting Israel around himself (as evidenced, for instance, in his calling of twelve apostles), so that this restored and transformed Israel can fulfill that ancient calling which, absent God’s help, it was never capable of actually accomplishing. And so Jesus’ mission is, first, to remake and restore Israel, and his words to the Canaanite woman, like those he spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, speak to this dynamic of salvation history, which, as St. Paul says in Romans, is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: for Jew first, and then Greek.

The woman, of course, is not dissuaded, and so she cries out yet again “Lord, help me.” To which, again, our Lord replies by saying that it is not right to give the food of the children to dogs. Now if our Lord’s previous silence had been an opportunity for the woman to demonstrate her perseverance, then this moment is an opportunity for her to demonstrate her humility, which is an element just as essential when it come to prayer. And this the woman does most admirably – she does not bristle at Jesus’ words, she does not insist on her own importance, she does not manufacture for herself some imagined right to Jesus’ attention – but rather with great humility she accepts what our Lord has said, and asks Jesus, by her reply, if it is not the case that even the lowliest are provided for by providence.

And so Jesus joyfully grants the object of her desire, healing her daughter from that hour, a healing which also has its own prophetic significance. For as we heard in our first reading, Isaiah, as well as the other prophets, had long foretold that God’s special relationship with Israel would not always remain exclusionary, and that the day was coming when the house of the Lord would be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Now this moment would arrive definitively with the death and resurrection of Christ, and with the great commission to his disciples to go and proclaim the gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But even before that moment, we have these handful of healings and signs (for instance, Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman, his healing of the Gerasene demoniac, and this episode) by which Jesus, even while still completing his earthly ministry, looks ahead to that universal mission which is the mission of the Church, and of which we are the beneficiaries.             Because ultimately, Jesus hears the prayers of all who have faith in him, as the Canaanite woman had faith, a faith that was manifested in the perseverance and humility of her prayer. Without these virtues, no prayer will be acceptable to God, and so might we be equally humble and equally persevering as we continually cry out to God in our prayer, for ourselves, for the Church, and for the world.