Sermon August 14, 2011

9th Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 15:21-28
Rev. Harriet Kollin

When I left home at sixteen to attend college and nursing school in Manila, the prejudice I knew growing up as a member of the indigenous people of northern Philippines became even more apparent. Although my hometown is now only a six hour drive from Manila, the mountains had confined the Spanish colonizers to the lowlands. So the mountain region where I am from was not colonized until the Philippines were “liberated” by the United States at the turn of the 20th century. It was at this time that the United States assumed control of the Philippines after defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War.

Of course I knew Americans while I was growing up. Americans operated the mines in the mining town where I spent my early childhood, and Americans occupied a military outpost in Baguio City just, which was only two hours from my home. However, for better or worse, the Americans were seen as our benefactors. They provided jobs to those in the area who worked in the mines, and they also provided food and other amenities to many families in the mountains. I remember my family receiving flour, powdered milk, wheat and other sorts of supplies from the Americans. My family was also closely tied to American missionaries who provided some of the better schools and hospitals that my brothers and sisters as well as friends attended.

I think, looking back on it, most of the people in the mountains were accepting of the Americans and were actually grateful for their presence. I never thought of the Americans as being prejudiced against us. But somehow, we accepted that they were superior to us. For example, my mother longed for American-made products because they were seen as superior to products made in the Philippines. This dynamic impacted my self-image and led to a condition I would come to understand in my adulthood as “internalized oppression”—a condition of believing that one is of less worth than the other.

I began by saying that the prejudice against the indigenous people from the mountains of northern Philippines became more apparent when I went to college in Manila. This owed to the fact that I was now considered a minority by other Filipinos who came from the lowlands and had the “benefit” of centuries of Spanish culture and “cross-fertilization,” so to speak. This was a painful experience because it meant that my people were regarded as lower than those who had a longer colonial pedigree than we did. (Spain occupied the Philippines for almost 400 years.)

I share this part of my life experience because, surprisingly, I think this experience is what makes Matthew’s account of the Canaanite woman (Mark calls her a Syro-Phoenician woman) so significant, at least for me. The story of the Canaanite woman is gospel to me—it is good news.

In this story we are presented with a very unflattering picture of Jesus, at least by our contemporary standards. The Jesus Matthew presents is bigoted against the Canaanite woman. He mockingly refers to her and her daughter as dogs, who should not receive the food reserved for the children. The “children,” by Jesus’ reckoning, are the “lost sheep of Israel,” who Jesus sees as his mission field.

Given his time and culture, Jesus’ attitude toward the Canaanite woman is completely understandable. He is traveling in a traditionally pagan area outside of Judea. Thus the Canaanite woman has no connection to Jesus and she has no basis to make a claim on him. In fact, Jesus has every reason, as a Jew, to dislike her. Thus his response is in keeping with the attitudes he has heard from his fellow Jews all his life. Consequently it is not Jesus’ initial attitude that is surprising. It is rather surprising that he could see past his conditioning and prejudice, and understand the humanity that confronts him in the person of this Canaanite woman.

As the story unfolds, the Canaanite woman prevails and receives from Jesus healing for her daughter. To my recollection, this is the only time in the gospels where Jesus concedes the point to someone who challenges him. And significantly, the person who changes Jesus’ perception is neither Jewish nor male. In fact, this woman not only convinces Jesus to heal her daughter, but, if we follow the progression of the Matthew’s gospel to its conclusion, she may have been responsible for helping Jesus to understand his ministry and mission to extend beyond the Jews. For this, all of us should be grateful to this unnamed woman.

So what enabled the Canaanite woman to prevail in her encounter with Jesus? Certainly she is persistent, and she is humble. She is willing to endure insults and humiliation at his hands in order to secure her daughter’s health. I am struck by her willingness to be vulnerable and to take risks to get what she so desperately wanted. How many among us would get out of our comfort zones and take risks and think outside our boxes?

One commentary I read claimed that she won favor from Jesus because she understood “her place.” I think this is incorrect. It was not because she understood her place; that is, her subservient role, that the Canaanite woman was able to persuade Jesus to help her. It was rather that she helped Jesus to understand that she, too, is a child of God. In other words, she helped Jesus understand that his prejudice was wrong and that this woman, who he despised for no reason other than that she was Canaanite, was as worthy as anyone of receiving his favor. In fact, according to Matthew Jesus ascribes to the woman “great faith.” We should see this claim about her faith in contrast to the “little faith” so often displayed by the apostles.

In short, I admire the Canaanite woman for her courage. She willingly accepted Jesus’ rebukes, and yet in doing so she rises above them. But I also admire the Jesus I find in this story. In this account, Jesus is no plaster messiah; we see his human limitation in blindly accepting the prejudice he had learned from his youth. But we also see his divinity—that which enabled him to rise above these limitations. We see him admit his mistake and give the woman what she sought.

As I see her, this woman is someone who did not allow the labels imposed on her by others lead her to give up on herself or her daughter. And similarly, I see Jesus’ ability to overcome his prejudice as no less a miracle for his time, and for ours, as his feeding the five thousand or walking on water. I hope we can learn from this story to see the prejudice that we turn on others, and, as in my case, even ourselves. By seeing how this story relates to our lives and situations, we may take a small step towards healing our fractured and divided world. Amen.