Readings (Year A):
Isaiah 56:1, 6–7
Psalm 67:2–3, 5, 6, 8
Romans 11:13–15, 29–32
Matthew 15:21–28
Reflection: What can we learn from Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman?
There is a lot about today’s gospel that is discomfiting, not least of which is the apparent disregard Jesus has for a woman in need. To make matters worse, this exchange takes place just a few verses after Jesus proclaims that what defiles a person is not what they eat or what washing rituals one does or does not practice: “But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile” (Matthew 15:18). How are we to make sense of Jesus’s ostensible callousness and dismissiveness? What are we to think about the Son of God so casually insulting a desperate woman, calling her a dog unworthy of his attention and assistance, even as she pleas “Lord, help me”?
This is one of those passages from scripture that many Christians are quick to explain away or relativize in order to make Jesus look better or to make us feel better. But what is conveyed in the Gospel of Matthew is rather straightforward and quite plain: Jesus understands his mission to be limited to other Jews like him. As a Canaanite and as a woman, she was doubly disadvantaged in Jesus’s initial outlook given his own religious practice and patriarchal culture. Despite everything stacked against her, this unnamed woman persists and performs something of her own miracle, which leads to Jesus’s own transformation and results in a biblical narrative that is ultimately as instructive as it is initially unsettling.
First, this Canaanite woman has a privileged, if not always appreciated, perspective as an outsider with regard to Jesus’s orbit. Of another cultural context and gender, she is somehow able to see Jesus for who he actually is. This is a common thread in the synoptic gospels. In Mark’s account, it is never those closest to Jesus who understand his identity and mission, but the demons, the narrator, and the readers who get it. His followers are the ones who consistently misunderstand and run away in fear. Here in Matthew’s telling, this woman from the outside likewise sees the truth and professes her belief.
This is a reminder to us in our own time that those who are different, those who are unwittingly pushed to the margins, those who do not have access to power or resources—they may have an underappreciated yet privileged perspective, able to see the world as it actually is. Rather than dismiss the experiences, perspectives, and knowledge of the minoritized and marginalized, perhaps Christians would do well to prioritize such insight over self-justifying narratives and practices.
Second, we cannot simply explain away or brush past the hard truth that Jesus of Nazareth actually changes his mind here and appears to learn something new! This is hard for many Christians to accept because of the widespread assumption that Jesus’s full divinity somehow overtakes or corrects for his humanity, and therefore Jesus knows everything and does everything perfectly. But this is not orthodox Christian belief. Jesus is as human as he is divine! In Luke’s gospel, we are told that Jesus grew in wisdom as a young man (Luke 2:52), which certainly sounds like he didn’t know everything and have all things figured out from birth. Why would that capacity for learning and need for growth stop in adulthood? This exchange reenforces our belief in Jesus’s full humanity and that he continued to learn and understand more deeply his divine mission as time went on and he encountered people, especially those quite different from his own community.
Finally, this exchange shows us how Jesus models what it means to be people of faith who can—and ought—to change over time. While initially resistant and apparently set in his ways, an unexpected encounter with a stranger expanded the horizon of the Son of God. Why is it that we are so often such absolutists when it comes to what we believe, what we think, and how we treat other people, especially those who are different from us? Why do so many self-professed Christians insist on a static and unchanging worldview, quick to assume that what they think or believe now is what must always be the case? If Jesus Christ can have his worldview revised and expanded, especially by someone so unexpected and outcast, then so can we.
This gospel passage is discomfiting, but in the best way possible. May we be unsettled as Jesus was, open to learning from all those we meet, and remember that to grow, learn, and change our mind is to be like Jesus.
