'Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then 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 he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.'
--Matthew 15: 10-28
We have a very curious and perhaps confusing Gospel on our hands this week. From Matthew we get two accounts—one of Jesus teaching his disciples about the true nature of cleanliness, and the other of Jesus being confronted by the Canaanite woman. Oddly, our lectionary leaves the first story optional for us, but we really need it to understand just how powerful the second one is.
The first story appears simple enough. Jesus is frustrated by the Pharisees and other religious authorities who seem bound up and guided by tradition more than love. Something that goes into you cannot defile you on a spiritual level because it just passes through you and into the sewer, which is a natural bodily function and therefore ritually clean. It’s what comes out of a person’s mouth that defiles because it is with our words that we often promote injustice, violence, and oppression of every kind. These authority figures—who are akin to some of the more rigid, fundamentalist Christians of our time—are concerned with theological fights akin to how many angels can dance on the head of a needle.
But for Jesus, religious purity and faithful discipleship are not measured ultimately by whether we can come up with the right answer to questions like that, or if we earn perfect attendance in online worship. Faithfulness, for Jesus, is shown ultimately in how much we are being guided by love. If love is your guide, then you will see that all the God of love has made is good and pure, and you will let go of this obsession with ritual cleanliness. This is a teaching of Jesus that, I suspect, we can all get onboard with; besides, how good is it to see Jesus call out the hypocrisy of those rigid religious authorities, huh?
So Jesus leaves that place where he had engaged in this debate about cleanliness with the Pharisees, and he comes to the region of Tyre and Sidon. What’s important about these places being named in the text is that they are not part of Jewish territory. Here Jesus is surrounded by Gentiles, non-Jews. And as if on queue a woman comes up to him, asking for him to heal who her possessed daughter. This woman, who naturally goes unnamed in the story but whom tradition has given the name of Justa, is a Canaanite, which were the indigenous people from whom the children of Israel seized their so-called Promised Land. This makes her a Gentile, and therefore unclean. Here is a chance for Jesus to practice exactly what he has just preached to the Pharisees! Is he going to be guided by love or by tradition?
When Justa asks for help, the disciples tell Jesus to dismiss her, but he doesn’t even speak to her, instead he emphasizes the nature of his ministry by reminding them that he has come only for the lost sheep of Israel—something he had had said earlier in the Gospel when he directed the 12 apostles to go only to those same sheep and not to any Gentiles. Nevertheless, she persists. She comes to Jesus directly and pleads her case. Here is his chance, again, to do the thing, but this time he tells her that it is not appropriate for the children’s food to be thrown to the dogs; that is, for him—the bread of life—to be given to anyone but his own people.
Some preachers might say that this exchange between Jesus and Justa isn’t as bad as it sounds. Jesus was just testing her. But was he though?? He never indicates it’s a test, nor does the Gospel writer say so. Still, those same preachers say, he didn’t mean dog in a really bad way, it’s better translated as puppy. That’s not exactly true, and even if it was, dogs were not valued in Jesus’ culture the way they are now, even if they were small and puppyish. Dogs were scavengers, which is what Jesus equates this woman—and her whole race—with being. It’s as if Jesus had a prime opportunity to do exactly what he warned the Pharisees with doing and instead offered up the biblical equivalent of ‘do as I say, not as I do.’ Why would act in such a manner?
The challenge with this story is that it paints Jesus in an unflattering light, and nearly every good Christian is taught that we should never think of Jesus in such a way. But this way of reading Scripture or thinking about Jesus effectively removes his humanity. We would much prefer to think of Jesus as the perfect human, but here’s the thing: thinking of Jesus as the perfect human can often take us off the hook for our own errors and moments of hypocrisy. How many times have you heard: "What do you expect of me, I’m not Jesus, I’m not perfect?!" It isn’t about Jesus being perfect, though, it’s about Jesus being our model, the pioneer of our faith, as the Letter to the Hebrews calls him. To be a Christian is be be little Christs ourselves, which doesn’t mean trying to be perfect all the time. It means something much more meaningful, and at times much more difficult—being fully present.
For when we are fully present, we can hear someone else when they challenge us. We can better resist the impulse to go to a place of defensiveness, and we can learn and grow. Yes, even Jesus learns and grows in this moment! In spite of the fact that he briefly gives in to his own cultural prejudices, Jesus remains fully present and listens to Justa when she turns his own words on him by saying, "Even the dogs eat the food under the master’s table."
This causes him to pause for a second, as if to say, ‘Well, you got me,’ and Jesus commends her faith—just as he commended the faith of a Roman centurion in Matthew, chapter 8, the only other Gentile to receive healing from Jesus. Remember last week, how Peter fell when he tried walking on water and Jesus commented on his lack of faith? Here is a someone who is ritually unclean, who worships idols, and speaks up at a time when women simply did not do that. This is someone who will not leave Jesus alone, and for that he calls her faith great. I suspect he does so because, believe it or not, Jesus learns something in that moment, that even he is susceptible to the prejudices of his own culture.
There may be some major Scriptural and religious ramifications to the idea that Jesus can learn. To paraphrase David Lose, a cadre of theological police would patrol the long corridors of our imaginations if we dared say such a thing! But if it’s possible for Jesus to learn and grow and move beyond his own culture’s shortcomings around who is and who is not clean or worthy of the bread he offers or fit for the kingdom, then can’t we too be reformed? If Jesus can go from being unclean by his own definition—that is, by spewing an insensitive and derogatory remark toward Justa—to being clean—that is, healing her daughter and commending her faith—then aren't we capable of the same kind of transformation?
And how does Jesus do it? Be being fully present and listening to Justa’s needs. He doesn’t cut her off, tell her what she really wants, or try to explain how he didn’t mean the comment as an insult because he has three dogs at home and loves them very much. He just listened to her. She offers him the pain and grief of her heart and the hearts of her people, generations of institutional prejudice, and he doesn’t get defensive. Instead, he hears her when she comes back to him because in the moment he manages to stay present to her and her needs.
This is a practice in which we are all being called to participate, each and every day. Who is it in our lives that needs us to be fully present? What kind of cultural prejudices do we, like Jesus, need to move beyond? How are we putting tradition ahead of love when it comes to dealing with folks who are not like us, and might we, again, like Jesus, keep ourselves open to the constructive criticism or feedback offered to us, so that we can be changed? This is what it means to be little Christs, to embody Jesus’ full life—yes, even the parts that are hard for us to consider—and realize that if Jesus can do it, then, yes, so can we. We can be fully present. We can listen. We can realize our faults. And we can change. We need only eyes to see those who are hurting, ears to listen to them with the intent to learn, and hearts eager for transformation.
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