Reflection by The Ven. Dr Deborah Broome

Is tradition good or bad? 

Then [Jesus] called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

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’ 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. 

Matthew 15:10-28

Has the Lectionary erred in giving us these two episodes in Jesus’ ministry on the same day? Or is it onto something?  It starts with a conflict scene between Jesus and some Pharisees and scribes about the keeping of the traditions of the elders – here a dispute about hand washing (the context incidentally is ritual defilement, not hygiene: please do keep washing your hands!)  Then it progresses to Jesus’ critique of their focus on food and purity laws while failing to treat others with respect.  Jesus isn’t suggesting the tradition of the elders simply be laid aside, but he does put it in its place behind more important issues of the law.  So, is tradition good or bad?

The Greek word for tradition is strangely ambiguous.  Sometimes it’s used positively, as in the passing on of the gospel message, and sometimes it’s used negatively, in the sense of betrayal.  Where Paul writes to the Corinthians about handing on to them what he received from the Lord and where Matthew talks about Judas’ action in handing over Jesus to be crucified it’s the same word.  When is tradition a faithful handing on, and when is it a betrayal?

Traditions shape not only our understanding of faithful practice but also our perceptions of other people.  Indeed, they often train us in how we treat other people.  Growing up, I can remember getting messages about people from certain other ethnicities being regarded as “dirty” and “less than” compared to who “we” are.  Maybe that’s what’s going on in the encounter between Jesus and the Canaanite woman.  Let’s be honest, though: this scene is problematic.  On first reading, Jesus doesn’t come across that well.  He seems reluctant to heal the woman’s daughter, because they are foreigners, Canaanites, because they’re not from the house of Israel.  He comes across as exclusive, inward-looking, there for his own people but not for outsiders.  Lacking in concern for the woman begging for healing for her daughter.  As someone once said about this passage, “Jesus was caught with his compassion down.”  Some people, unwilling to see anything in this story that makes Jesus look bad, read it as an account of Jesus testing her, trying to work out how badly she wants her daughter’s healing, assessing the extent of her faith.  Except that just makes it worse – after all, does anyone with any compassion really set out to test a desperate mother who wants her child to be well?   

This woman was a Canaanite, and Canaanites were the ones who had to be driven out so that Israel could take possession of the land they were promised as they left Egypt.  Canaanites were a rival people, the enemy, and there were centuries of tradition about how they should be treated.  And at first, it seems that Jesus is going by an old script for such interactions.  And is tradition good or bad?

Another approach is to see this encounter as an acted parable.  Jesus articulates the “insiders-first, outsiders-last” views of his disciples – of his tradition – and then, when the disciples relax and think he’s on the same page as they are, he pulls the rug out from under them by healing her daughter.  The disciples learn a lesson about God’s all-embracing love, God’s welcome to all, a lesson taught by Jesus and the woman together.  Jesus isn’t just hope for Israel but hope for the whole world.

Matthew begins his Gospel with the gentile Magi kneeling before the infant Jesus, just as this Canaanite woman kneels before Jesus, and ends it with the command to make disciples of all nations.  This woman calls Jesus Lord, she understands something about who he is and what he has come to do: she gets it – at a time when the record of the disciples, who’ve been travelling around with him for quite a while, is patchy at best.  Maybe Canaanites are bad – until they’re not.  Maybe what we see here is Jesus reworking the tradition right in front of our eyes. 

Image credit: Bazzi Rahib, Ilyas Basim Khuri. The Canaanite Woman asks for healing for her daughter, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, Tenn.