In his encounter with the Canaanite woman, Jesus repeats then repents of Joshua’s policy of no mercy. (Listen.)
Good to know: Jesus’ name is the English rendition of the Greek version of a Hebrew name which in English is rendered Joshua! Yeshua – Iesous – Jesus – Joshua: they’re all the same name.
‘I’m from one of the oldest families,’ he said. ‘We’ve been here since the beginning.’ And with that he effectively erased 60,000 years of continuous living culture, just as his Irish ancestors had tried to erase the people from the land. He’s a lovely guy, straightforward and well-meaning, and totally oblivious to what he had just done.
This is what happens when you’re raised in a colony. You become blind to the colonised and your own complicity; you defend your own righteousness and vehemently deny your racism; and you justify yourself through contempt for those dogs who can’t get their lives together.
‘They should be grateful,’ said someone else. ‘Without us, they wouldn’t have proper food or medicine or housing or technology, or even the Bible. It’s just pathetic how they keep asking for handouts.’
‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon,’ cried the Caananite woman. Maybe the torment was addiction or poverty, or profound dislocation from living off country. Maybe it was PTSD or rheumatic heart disease, or the scars caused by imprisonment or sexual violence, or some other demon of the colonised. Whatever, the girl desperately needed healing and her mother was driven to beg.
But he did not answer her at all.
Maybe he was thinking, I’m from one of the oldest families. A son of Abraham, from the tribe of Judah, descended from King David himself. This is the promised land: we’ve been here since the beginning. And with that he effectively erased tens of thousands of years of continuous Canaanite culture, and dismissed this woman from his awareness.
But she persisted. And his disciples came and urged him, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ He replied, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ He still wasn’t talking directly to her; perhaps he was confused or even offended by her demand.
For he knew that his namesake, Joshua, had carried out a holy war against people like her. And he knew this had been justified through Torah. As it is written in Deuteronomy :
“When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations — the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you — and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.” (Deuteronomy 7:1-2).
And hundreds of years before tonight’s episode, his namesake had tried to fulfil this. Enter, drive out, and destroy the seven nations living in the land; show no mercy. Yet here was this woman, very much alive, forcing herself into his consciousness as she shouted and demanded mercy.
She came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’
And the reason most scholars think this is a genuine story is that it’s so damn offensive. We’d prefer Jesus to be infinitely loving, infinitely compassionate, infinitely kind. But perhaps that’s the Jesus at the end of the story: but he’s certaintly not there yet. Instead, he threw a gut-punch, saying, ‘It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’
In Mark’s version, she’s the Syro-Phoenician woman. The Peek Whurrong woman, perhaps, or the Wurundjeri-Bunurong woman. But Matthew uses what was by then an anachronism: the Canaanite woman. He’s reminding his Jewish audience exactly who she is in their history. Someone who should be driven out, destroyed, shown no mercy. Someone who tempts Israel to forsake their god and go after idols. Someone for whom no true blue Israelite ever has compassion or a kind word. A filthy dog, a contaminating bitch, a louse-ridden scavenger to be avoided at all costs.
She said, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Whatever. ‘But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’ Yes, Master, but who made me a dog? Who took my land, my language, my means of production, my children? Who sets the rules and limits on my life and sends my men to jail even now? Who keeps me poor and dependent, who afflicts my daughter with demons? You’re the master, you have power: just look what you have wrought.
And in that moment, he repented. Like God once repented of sending the flood, or of planning the destruction of Nineveh, this is a story of conversion and change.
Maybe it was her mention of mercy which got him, a quality he kept harping on about. ‘Blessed are the merciful,’ he’d said (5:7); ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ he’d said (9:13): and here he was denying mercy to someone who demanded it.
Or maybe he heard the filth spewing from his own mouth: the racist taunt which revealed the state of his heart, the vile words which defiled him. Maybe he realised that his first thought was simply cultural conditioning, as was his second and even his third: but at last he heard himself, and paused, then chose a better way.
Or maybe it was her verbal jousting, vanquishing him in debate. His namesake conquered Canaan, but this Canaanite woman bested him: and so at last he was overthrown and healed her daughter, praising her faith as he did.
And I suggest that in that moment he was healed, too. Healed of the racist ethno-centrism which always leads to violence. Healed of his arrogance and self-righteousness; healed of prioritising scripture and ancestry over love; healed of his narrowness of vision for God’s mercy, generosity and grace.
For then he stayed in the Gentile region for some time. Great crowds came to him and he lavished God’s healing upon them, and they were amazed and praised the God of Israel. And when he fed the hungry crowd, there were seven baskets left over, signalling the seven gentile nations that Joshua had once sought to destroy.
At an earlier feeding in Matthew’s story, there were twelve baskets left: one for each tribe of Israel. Shaped by his ancestry, culturally conditioned, My bread is only for Israel, he’d said. Dog, he’d said. Twelve baskets. But changed by his encounter with the Canaanite woman, now he found plenty for everyone.
Long ago, Joshua had led an invasion, hunting down the peoples of seven nations to disperse and destroy. He used every weapon available and unleashed countless demons; in God’s name, he showed no mercy.
But his namesake went among them to minister, and was open to challenge and change. Eventually he caught the vastness of God’s mercy, driving out his own demons and those of the colonised; and it led to bread and healing. The coloniser decolonised and healed. The people of the land healed and fed. Communion between all peoples, all praising God, as a living reality, a picnic.
Around us now, voices are calling for mercy. Voices are seeking an end to demonic possession and an end to poverty, racist policing and incarceration. Voices are calling for healing and hope for their children. Voices are demanding to be seen, to be heard, to be acknowledged, and for the truth of our history to be told. Voices are lobbying for justice, and for legislation which heals not harms. Voices are calling for the transformation and increasing maturity of our nation. And gathering up so many of these voices is one Voice offering a generous, humble way forward, a small step towards healing the wounds of a nation founded on violence, theft and lies.
And I wonder: Will we listen to the elders, and to Aboriginal Christian leaders, and to the many, many allied organisations calling for Voice? Can we admit the colonisation of our own hearts, and the cultural conditioning which shapes so many of our first thoughts? Will we renegotiate our family histories and change how we tell our stories?
Can we be like Jesus: open to repentance and change, and to the possibilities of our own healing? Do we want to participate in the vastness of God’s mercy and generosity, sharing land and resource, access to power, fish, and bread?
She said, ‘My daughter is tormented …’
She said, ‘Even the dogs eat the crumbs …’ Even the Minerals Council has access to Parliament. Even universities, even media titans, even the big four banks. Even … the consulting firms.
Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly. Ω
Reflect: “You are not responsible for your first thought, but you are responsible for your second thought, and your first action.” What do you think about this? What does it mean to have a flawed saviour? How is this reading good news?
Note: This is a pragmatic reading for whitefellas in this time and place. Ideally, neither the Canaanite woman nor anyone else would need to ask for healing, and the dominant culture would not have the power to facilitate or block it. Also, Jesus was both coloniser and colonised. Just as Israel had invaded the lands of the seven nations, so too Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome and others then invaded what became Israel. Sometimes we read him as a coloniser, sometimes as the colonised.
A reflection by Alison Sampson on Matthew 15:(10-20), 21-28 – also much of chapters 14 and 15 – given to Sanctuary on 20 August 2023 © Sanctuary 2023 (Year A Proper 15). Photo by Stewart Munro on Unsplash. This is a free use database, but if by any chance this is you in the photograph and you object to its use in this way, please get in touch. Sanctuary is based on Peek Whurrong country. Acknowledgement of country here.
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