Pentecost 12, Matthew 15:21-28
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’[a] table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.
The Canaanite woman appeared outside and she started shouting. She demanded to be seen. “Have mercy on me!” She shouted at Jesus and everyone knew exactly who she was yelling at. The disciples even plead with him to send her away. But Jesus did not answer her at all.
Do you remember the last time you were walking in a public place and someone was shouting? Maybe someone was having an argument and it was getting out of hand. Maybe someone suffering with mental illness was sharing their thoughts and their pain at the top of their lungs. Maybe someone was selling something on the street corner and yelling to get the attention of passing pedestrians.
What did you do when you heard the raised voice, the energy, need, and presence of that person shouting? We all have practiced responses in those kinds of situations. Sometimes, we glance quickly to assess the source of the noise, but then look away so as not to get involved. Sometimes, we adopt an attitude of ignorance, “Shouting? What shouting? I don’t hear anything.” Only a rare few people will go towards the shouting to see what is going on and get involved. Usually, they are first responders or other trained professionals who feel confident to investigate and solve the problem.
Jesus did not feel confident that he could resolve the woman’s pain.
She shouts, “Have mercy on me!”
Jesus looks away.
“Son of David!”
Jesus gazes towards the horizon.
“My daughter is tormented by a demon! Help me!”
He ignores her and keeps on walking.
I have to assume that Jesus does not want to see her, know her, or have mercy on her. He is pretending like she doesn’t exist. It is one of the most un-Jesus like moments in the Gospels. And yet, this experience of Jesus’ rejection of the foreign woman is shared with us in multiple gospel narratives. It certainly was not his best day at the Messiah job.
It is incredibly effective and painful to be ignored or shunned. You are effectively erased by the people who won’t meet your gaze, even as your voice continues to rise in pitch and desperation. The practice of estrangement annihilates you without ever striking a blow or breaking a bone. Without saying a word, it says “You don’t matter to me, your life is not important, I don’t even see you. I will not care for you.” It is a condoned social violence that we participate in every time we ignore someone who clearly needs help but for whatever reason, we pretend they don’t exist. And to make it worse, if one person ignores you, especially an authority, social science studies have shown that it gives everyone else permission to pretend that they don’t see you either. It would be social suicide for anyone to go against the flow and actually see you.
Somehow, the Canaanite woman isn’t deterred. I should not be astonished by her persistence, she is a mother on a mission to heal her daughter. But she shouts louder and finally kneels in front of Jesus. He can ignore her voice, but he cannot ignore her body planted at his feet.
These days, I am learning new tools to cope with social isolation. Sometimes, I find myself in a public place with former parishioners who may or may not want to see me. Since I don’t know if they will choose to acknowledge me, I have developed a posture of “ignorable presence.” I am not so bold as to approach someone and engage them directly. But neither do I hide or run away. I carefully continue to drink my coffee or eat my dinner or stand in line with an open posture: face, gaze, and energy saying, “I am here.” I ask my body to speak presence without needing words. I am not annihilated. And yet, I purposefully stay out of the way so that you have the choice to ignore me. You can look away, get busy on your phone, turn your chair so that our eyes will not accidentally meet. You have my permission to annihilate me… and yet, I still exist. It is a strange and awkward stance that takes a lot of energy for me to maintain. But, it is the only public posture with integrity I have found that allows for both distance and presence at the same time… whatever mercy you need, it is there. I pray we may eventually find healing.
I believe the Canaanite woman’s journey is aimed towards healing… with or without Jesus. She will continue to cry out for her daughter’s wholeness. And the truth is, healing only happens in community. True healing, that is. We need the healing presence of others to see us, really see us with love and honor, naming the wounds and the demons and the brokenness. If that doesn’t happen, well… there are many ways we can learn to live with wounds just below the surface. We develop armor, hardened with anger and resentment to keep from feeling vulnerable. We become invisible, choosing to inhabit spaces that will keep us away from people who will remind us we don’t exist. We can estrange from ourselves and pretend to be someone else, someone we don’t even know so that we can forget who we are. Or we can become addicts to annihilate the pain until the addiction ends us.
In this story I’m beginning to understand that Jesus is the one who is sick. He is infected with a culture that divides people into children and dogs, worthy heirs and expendable animals. We may start the story believing that the woman has come to him for healing, but really, the reverse is happening. She is about to heal him of his estrangement from anyone who is not a descendant of Israel. Jesus is isolated from the wider community of God’s children, he does not know his own siblings from another mother. He cannot heal this wound alone. In fact, he doesn’t even know he is sick until she arrives insisting that he acknowledge her, really see her and know her as a beloved sister in this world. Then, once in relationship, they both find the healing they need. Healing is mutual, it happens in community. Her faith has made them both whole.
Who do you need to see, really see, to begin a mutual process of healing?
Who refuses to see you? Can you stay present while accepting their estrangement, knowing it is the best we can do at this moment?
Where does social isolation and shunning contribute to the suffering and illness of people (including yourself) in your daily life? In your family? At home? At work? In the neighborhood? In the world?
