Tag: Syrophoenician Woman

A Palestinian Woman Schools Jesus (and Us) about small god faith

Readings for 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time: ISAIAH 56: 1, 6-7; PSALMS 67: 2-8; ROMANS 11: 13-15, 29-32; MATTHEW 15: 21-28

Today’s readings return us to the idea explored here a few weeks ago – Big God faith vs. small god beliefs. Today’s selections point to the latter as the root of diabolically deep divides like those separating Jews from Palestinians – as well as the rest of us from those we despise as somehow “foreign.”

This time however, the vehicle for making the Big God point is mildly sarcastic humor. And it comes from a completely unexpected source – a presumably uneducated Palestinian woman schooling a specifically Jewish prophet about his small god beliefs. It’s the only place in the early Christian tradition where Jesus is out bantered and rendered speechless in what can only be described as a contest of repartee. The joke is that the Great Teacher loses!

The woman in question is a Palestinian mom seeking a cure for here mentally disturbed daughter whom the reigning culture considered demon possessed. Within the story’s context, the demon in question seems to be a product of the dominant Jewish culture’s belief in a small nationalistic god who favors Jews over Palestinians. No wonder the child was disturbed; she had been told since birth that she was worthless. That, of course is the same demon that today not merely causes Palestinian children (and a whole list of others in our world) mental anxiety; too often, it costs them and/or their parents and siblings their very lives.

The woman is remembered by Matthew as “Syrophonician.” That meant she was not a Jew. She was a native or inhabitant of Phoenicia when it was part of the Roman province of Syria. She was living near the twin cities of Tyre and Sidon — a gentile or non-Jewish region of the Fertile Crescent where Matthew takes trouble to locate today’s episode. As I said, that would have made Jesus’ petitioner what we call a “Palestinian” today.

(By the way, Matthew’s geographical note serves to remind us that the Jews never controlled all of their “Promised Land.” Instead, they always had to share it with “Palestinians” including Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, Geshurites, Maacaathites, and Philistines.)

In any case, the woman’s daughter is troubled apparently by this culturally imposed anxiety.

So, identifying Jesus as specifically Jewish, the woman petitions: “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.”

Jesus responds by ignoring his petitioner at first and then by disrespectfully associating his petitioner with dogs — almost calling her a b*tch. Disdainfully, he says, “I have been sent for the lost children of Israel . . . it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”

The reply seems out of character for Jesus, doesn’t it? In fact, such dissonance has led many to reject the saying as inauthentic. (On the contrary, I would say that the negative light in which this tale presents Jesus argues for its authenticity. After all, the evangelists were anxious to present him as favorably as possible. Why would they make up a story like this?) Whatever the case, Jesus’ reply only echoes the rabbinic saying of the time, “He who eats with idolaters is like one who eats with a dog.”

In other words, Jesus’ comparison stands in a long line of small godders likening cultural outsiders to animals. If Matthew’s account is accurate, in his initial silence and then in his harsh response, Jesus was showing himself to be captive to his people’s traditional norms.

However, the brave woman in today’s gospel doesn’t take no for an answer. She drolly replies, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.”

The witty answer evidently astonishes Jesus. We can almost hear him laughing as he shakes his head and exclaims, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” In other words, the woman “converts” Jesus; he concedes her argument. The one the gospels present as the master of verbal riposte is vanquished by this simple Palestinian mom.

Even more importantly, the woman’s daughter is cured. The demon that possessed her leaves. That is, by overcoming his reluctance and expanding his own nationalistic understanding of God, that broadened awareness was somehow communicated to the woman’s daughter. No more possession.

The lesson? Transcending small god religious convictions can vanquish even demons with supernatural powers. By comparison, overcoming more pedestrian foes is easy. Small god beliefs are diabolical. Setting them aside heals even at a cosmic level.

Today’s Readings

Notice how that encouraging Big God understanding is communicated by this Sunday’s entirely expansive vision communicated in all four readings. Here are my “translations” of their content. Please read them yourself here to see if I’ve got them right.

ISAIAH 56: 1, 6-7: What separates God’s People from the rest is not nationality, but their embrace of social justice towards everyone else. That’s what unites “foreigners” to our Great Mother. Doing justice makes their landscapes as holy as our own. It renders their altars sacred and their offerings meaningful. It designates their houses of worship as centers of joy. 

PSALMS 67: 2-8: Yes, according to their own customs, all people everywhere (implicitly or explicitly) recognize and worship the same Holy Mother. She is compassionate towards them all, guides them, and showers each with abundant blessings. That’s simply the divine way. All of us can be happy about such universal inclusion.

ROMANS 11: 13-15, 29-32: So, for our Mother there are no “foreigners.” There shouldn’t be for us either. Otherwise, we’re like petty jealous children vying for parental love and “telling on” each other for supposed disobedience. Accepting everyone as God’s gifted and forgiven children challenges every one of us to embrace a new form of living based on God’s universal love.   

MATTHEW 15: 21-28: Even Yeshua had to learn this lesson. When a Palestinian woman approached him as a specifically Jewish prophet, he at first ignored her and then nearly called her an unworthy “b*tch. He did! But she outsmarted him with a clever reply that made him laugh and melt. The demons of religious nationalism recoiled in disappointed disgust.

Conclusion

Off hand, I can think of about 10 conclusions to draw from today’s remarkably “Immense God” readings – and especially from today’s especially noteworthy story about the humbling of Jesus and the forced shift in his small god convictions. Here they are organized into two groups, one particular (i.e. related to our Gospel narrative) and the other a bit more general:

Particular

  • Small gods are seductive: Even Yeshua succumbed.
  • They are bad for mental health: Small god religion can drive people crazy as it did the daughter in the story at hand. (No religion at all seems preferable.)
  • Mother power is unstoppable: Very few need convincing here. Mamma bears will defend their cubs no matter what. Like most mothers, this Palestinian mom wouldn’t take no for an answer.
  • In general, women have much to teach even the wisest of men: To this day under patriarchy, it remains difficult for many to accept that mother usually knows best.
  • Change in consciousness can be miraculous and contagious: Who knows when this schooling of Jesus occurred in his life? If it happened, it probably came at the beginning. If so, it represented a radical and transformative shift in his approach to God.

More General

And that leads me to more general conclusions about Jesus’ conversion. Following the Big God insight that he learned from the Palestinian mom, Jesus’ revised understanding evidently led his most universally admired followers to conclude that:

  • Borders are arbitrary: They were not part of the original divine plan. As the universe comes from the hand of God, there are no borders. (And anyway, they keep changing all the time.) Human beings should be free to roam the earth as they wish.
  • Nationalities are random too: Even in the Jewish Testament, it’s only gradually that humans “fall” from their original unity into the sin of national distinctions. In the divine order, there are no Jews, gentiles, Syrophonicians, or Palestinians, blacks or whites.
  • Laws are entirely questionable: For the sake of human welfare, Jesus easily set aside even the “holiest” of laws (such as Sabbath Law). He recognized love’s law as supreme relativizing all others (Matthew 22:37-40). Those other regulations usually exist only to protect the rich and powerful. That’s who made them!
  • Racial distinctions are equally meaningless: What could be more relevant for us today?  Syrophoenician lives matter. Palestinian lives matter. Black lives matter.
  • Bold humor conquers all: This is perhaps the most important point driven home by today’s readings. Getting us to laugh at ourselves and our petty beliefs can melt hearts, overcome deep-seated prejudice, and restore sanity for everyone.

(Sunday Homily) Jesus Comes Very Close to Rejecting a Palestinian Woman as a “B_tch”

Palestinian Woman

Readings for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time: IS 56:1, 6-7; PS 67: 2-3, 5, 6, 8; ROM 11: 13-15, 20-32; MT 15: 21-28. http://usccb.org/bible/readings/081714.cfm

“Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” Those are the words that a woman remembered as “Syrophonecian” addressed to Jesus in today’s gospel reading.

Jesus responds by ignoring the woman at first and then by disrespectfully associating his petitioner with dogs – almost calling her a “b_tch.”

We’ll come back to that in a moment.

For now note that “Syrophonecian” meant the woman was not a Jew. She was a native or inhabitant of Phoenicia when it was part of the Roman province of Syria. She was living near the twin cities of Tyre and Sidon – a gentile or non-Jewish region of the Fertile Crescent where Matthew takes trouble to locate today’s episode.

That would have made Jesus’ petitioner what we call a “Palestinian” today. In other words, Matthew’s geographical note serves to remind us that the Jews never controlled all of their “Promised Land.” Instead, they always had to share it with “Palestinians” including Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, Geshurites, Maacaathites, and Philistines.

That in itself is significant in the light of Israel’s ongoing brutal war of extermination against Palestinians. There the State of Israel (with supporters often invoking biblical precedent) has adopted the one-state position that is bent claiming all of Palestine for itself. It relegates Palestinians to Bantustans in a particularly brutal Israeli version of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

Were Jesus in Gaza today, millions of Palestinian parents could echo the poor mother’s petition in today’s’ gospel selection, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” And the demon in Gaza’s case would be the State of Israel itself – the latest incarnation of the puppets of Empire whom Jesus opposed so strongly in his own day. [Recall that Palestine in Jesus day was controlled by Jewish puppets of Rome. (Jesus clashed with them again and again.) Today those who pull strings on the marionettes reside in Washington.]

The result is that in Gaza over the last five weeks, more than 2000 Palestinians have been slaughtered by the ones considering themselves God’s “chosen” – 25% of the victims being children, at least another 25%, women like the one called “Syrophoenician” and her demon-possessed daughter.

Daniel Ortega, the President of Nicaragua, recently applied the term “demon” appropriately. He said, “Prime Minister Netanyahu appears to be possessed by the devil, he needs Pope Francis to exorcise it, to become appeased.” Ortega wondered, “Why doesn’t anyone condemn or sanction the state of Israel?” In his opinion, Palestine is the victim of “madness” on the part of the Israeli leader, who seeks to “annihilate the Palestinian people.” Ortega meant that Israel is “committing genocide” in the Gaza Strip, a crime so “terrible that it is only comparable to the crimes of the Nazis,” he said.

You might have been surprised at Jesus’ response to the Syrophonecian woman. As I said, at first he gives no reply at all; he ignores the woman completely. If Matthew’s account is accurate, in his silence Jesus was showing himself to be captive to his own cultural norms. It was inconceivable in Hellenistic antiquity for a strange woman to directly approach a man the way the woman in this story did. Above all was it so for a gentile woman to directly address a Jewish man. In other words, Jesus’ silence was part of his “honor culture.”

But it gets worse. When the woman insists, Jesus implicitly calls her a “b_tch.” He says, “I have been sent for the lost children of Israel . . . it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”

The reply seems out of character for Jesus, doesn’t it? In fact, such dissonance has led many to reject the saying as inauthentic. Whatever the case, Jesus’ reply only echoes the rabbinic saying of the time, “He who eats with idolaters is like one who eats with a dog.”

In other words, Jesus’ comparison stands in a long line of likening cultural outsiders to animals. Most recently, in the case of Gaza, Ayelet Shaked, a member of the Israeli Parliament, compared Palestinians like the woman in today’s gospel to snakes. She endorsed the killing of Palestinian women, like the petitioner in the story before us, calling their children not dogs, but “little snakes” worthy only of extermination.

Shaked said,

“Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

The woman in today’s gospel has a very different voice from Ayelet Shaked’s. She replies, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.”

The witty reply astonishes Jesus. He exclaims, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” That is, the woman “converts” Jesus; he concedes her argument. The one the gospels present as the master of verbal riposte is vanquished by this simple Palestinian mom.

What does the interaction between Jesus and the woman called “Syrophonecian” mean for us today – in the context of Israel’s demonic attack on the Palestinian descendants of the woman in question? What does it mean for Gaza and for us who watch in helpless disgust?

I think it means that:

• The “faith” of the Syrophoenician woman was not “in Jesus” as the incarnation of God, but rather in the inclusivity of God’s love that extends beyond ethnic and religious differences.
• In that sense, she believed in the New Universal Order Jesus referred to as God’s Kingdom.
• More specifically, today’s gospel reading presents the woman as enlightening Jesus – as reminding him of the Kingdom’s complete inclusivity.
• In view of Jesus’ own “enlightenment” at the hands of this poor Palestinian woman, it is no longer possible to blindly identify “God’s People” with any particular state.
• I mean, the State of Israel as such does not represent the biblical God’s Chosen People.
• Today that honor (curse?) belongs to the Palestinians who, as good Muslims, share Jesus’ faith that God sides with the widows, orphans, immigrants and oppressed whatever nation they belong to.
• This means that in the case of Palestine, Jesus’ followers should be one the side of Palestinians rather than the Jewish State.
• Being on their side means petitioning the U.S. government to stop its demonic support of Israel which has moved even further from its identity as “People of God” than it had in Jesus’ day.

As always, this week’s readings invite us to break the chains of our cultural norms – just as Jesus was forced to by the Syrophonecian mother.