Whenever I select choral anthems whose texts don’t quite make sense on the surface, I try to explain the text to the choir, and then to the congregation via a note in the bulletin.
Take that strange story of Jesus basically calling a Canaanite woman a dog when she asks him to heal her daughter. What on earth, Jesus???!
I thought of that story when we sang about another unsettling story a few weeks ago.
It’s the story of Jacob wrestling all night long with “a man.” (Is the “man” God? An angel? The Scriptural text in Genesis 33 says “a man” and later Jacob describes the encounter saying, “I saw God face to face.”)
Here’s the story:
Jacob’s twin brother Esau is coming with his soldiers to massacre Jacob and his family. Meanwhile, Jacob wrestles with the “man,” who eventually pops Jacob’s hip out of socket. Yet Jacob hangs on—and demands a blessing.
The “man” blesses Jacob and gives him a new name: Israel. And Esau does not massacre Jacob and his family. Instead, the brothers are reconciled.
Pretty strange, right?
Why struggle all night and demand a blessing from God? Doesn’t God give generously? Frankly, what kind of monster wouldn’t rush to help a family in danger of massacre?
The story gets even weirder—or maybe actually clearer? — in John Newton’s hymn text that gives voice to Jacob. (We sang Martha Shaffer’s beautiful setting of it.)
Here are the first and third stanzas:
Lord, I cannot let thee go,
‘Till a blessing thou bestow;
Do not turn away thy face,
Mine’s an urgent, pressing case.
Thou didst once a wretch behold,
In rebellion blindly bold,
Scorn thy grace, thy power defy,
That poor rebel, Lord was I.
Who, in one breath can declare themselves “a rebel” and yet demand a blessing from God? What kind of audacity is this, and why are we singing about it?
Let’s circle back to the story of Jesus calling a woman a dog.
The Canaanite woman also asks for something—a miracle of healing for her daughter. In fact, she “cries out” for it. But Jesus says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
Here’s the rest of the story:
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
Matt 15:24-28
Can you imagine? The Canaanite woman—a Gentile—boldly telling Jesus he’s wrong?
But as I think of God seeming to do something so harsh and so wrong, I also think of what resulted from Jesus’ and the “man’s” actions:
Both Jacob and the Canaanite woman eventually declare something that was true from the beginning, but that they had to say for themselves: I am worthy, my daughter is worthy, my family is worthy.
What I think is happening here is a truly parental move on the part of Jesus and the “man.” The parent knows the answer, the parent knows what to do, what to say.
But instead of rushing in, the loving parent insists the child come to the conclusion themselves.
Maybe Jacob wrestled all night, not because the “man” did not want to bless him, but because Jacob had to come to a place where he could say the words himself: “I am worthy to be blessed. I—the one who stole my own brother’s blessing—am still worthy to be blessed.”
And maybe Jesus wasn’t saying that he himself thought that the Canaanite woman was an unworthy dog.
Maybe Jesus was letting her say for herself what was already true: that she and her daughter were worthy of God’s care.
She and her daughter were not the daughters of Abraham. But they were the daughters of God. And because of Jesus’ strangely parental move, the Canaanite woman was able to declare that truth.
P.S. Speaking of strange, unsettling Bible stories – how about that parable of the fruitless tree?! I’m posting this the day after the fruitless tree was read in the lectionary and I want to highlight Pastor Leah D. Schade’s interpretation here – it’s wonderful: imagine if the owner of the fig tree isn’t God, but us. It changes the whole story!
Image via.
