Outcast woman - 3

Just then a Canaanite (Syro-Phoenician) 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 instantly.

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'Dogs'?! A bit harsh, no? Well, maybe not. It's worth another look. 

We are like the disciples at Emmaus who got it all wrong and despaired until 'He opened their minds to understand the scriptures' (Luke 24:45).  We can only understand what we are reading with His help. So, if I don't understand something at first reading, I pause briefly to ask Him to help me see what He wants me to see, and not what I think I see. 

If I read something in the New Testament accounts of Jesus's words which seems harsh, I remind myself what Jesus is like, and if my reading clashes with that understanding, then I know it's my reading that's wrong. I go over it again, looking for another way to see it, with His help, until I get a glimmer of something more obviously in keeping with what we know about Our Lord.

In this reading, for example, I remember, 'I have other sheep who are not of this fold...'  And that Jesus has a tender heart. And that Faith in Him makes us whole.

I also remember that what we have in the Scriptures of Jesus's saying are merely some remembered (though critically important) snippets from His three years of constant teaching, written down decades later. Just the words, with nothing about facial expressions, smiles, laughs, winks or unspoken communication between His eyes and those of whomever he is speaking to. 

It's always worth taking time to read between the lines. 

Making some space for a few unwritten but hardly unlikely details, then... 

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The Canaanites were definitely 'not of this fold'. For a start, there was ancient enmity between them and the Hebrew people who had taken over their land a thousand years ago. (Not much seems to change in Israel/Palestine.) The Canaanites had their own gods. They had no truck with the Hebrews' Yahweh. Hardly surprising, then, that the two peoples referred to each other as infidels... dogs. And worse. Common parlance. 

Placing myself among the bystanders, I watch this encounter again, and now I see a wry expression on Jesus's face - is that a raised eyebrow? - as He turns round to look into the face of this persistent infidel woman who is annoying His friends. Ah, but soft eyes as He teasingly tests her with mention of the distance between His people and hers. His head on one side, I think He is smiling as He quizzes her: 'Mm-hm? You come to me? To one of those ghastly Jews, those old enemies who call your people dogs - those whom in turn, you'll agree, your people call dogs?'

Tricky. She thought this might happen. But the medical people have tried everything and given her daughter up for dead. She has nowhere left to turn. She is not of His faith, no, but... here she is. What has she heard about Him that was evidence enough to utterly convince her that He has a power to heal, such as no-one else has? And this Jesus looks and sounds... different. It seems that, unlike most others, He does not hate anyone. She is more than ever determined to plead with Him for her daughter. 

But look - she sees that He reads her heart! He already knows everything about her, and about what she needs. The relief is overwhelming and she is warmed enough now to answer His tease with one of her own. With a small shrug she gives Him a small, lopsided smile as she answers, 'Crumbs from the table, sir...' 

He appreciates her wit and acknowledges her courageous determination. They acknowledge each other. She now believes absolutely that He has this power she has heard about. It must all be true, then. Her heart tells her that her daughter was cured the instant He wished it and, touching His feet in gratitude, she hurries home to her girl, rejoicing and with a wholly new faith.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel.

Outcast woman - 2

Jesus was passing her way with Jairus whose much loved daughter was dying.

Now came this woman, pious but an outcast because a haemorrhagic woman was unclean. She had been shunned for 12 years. Her husband would not touch her. He may even have taken another wife. She could not go to the ritual bath with her friends who should not touch her. No hugs. Loneliness as well as illness and pain. A tragic, desperate figure but with persisting faith and hope despite it all. She must have prayed constantly for healing, to get her life back, for readmission to God's community outside which there was no life, merely existence of a sort.

She must have thought herself sinful and punished. Then she recognised the source of her healing in Jesus. The crowd around Jesus and Jairus did not know about her or they would have driven her off. Anonymity gave her this opportunity and she grabbed it.

It worked.

When Jesus said He had felt power go out of Him, she was scared of being discovered and punished but she confessed immediately, in Jairus's hearing - and he an official of the Synagogue, maybe even one of those who declared the woman shunned, probably without even meeting her. How brave she was to touch anyone, let alone the famous rabbi walking with Jairus while he was hurrying, distraught, to his daughter's deathbed.

What was the effect on those who knew her and knew what had happened? How did they think of her now, and of the one who had healed her? Jesus did so much more for her than just stop the bleeding. He restored her to her family and friends and to the people of God. She (and they?) would have recognised in this that her sins were forgiven, too, because that was the way of things.

And Jairus? He experienced two huge miracles in the space of a few hours. His life would never be the same.

Be bold! Importune Him! Especially if you are unclean, an outcast, a sinner. Or a high official. 

Outcast woman - 1

She is a shunned outcast, a woman alone, a foreigner, one of the heathen, 'the enemy'. And a disreputable woman at that, the sort respectable people cross the road to avoid.

He is tired and hot. He really needs the water he asks her for. Does he look into her eyes? Many men have, and do. She is doubly, trebly unclean, yet he will take water from her hand, share her cup. Appalling, to the law-abiding. How could he?

When He speaks of living water, she mocks him. He just repeats and underlines what he said before - ignoring her mockery. He again holds out a strange promise, with echoes of their common prophet Moses. She recognises something of great moment happening, but what?

When finally she stops playing games and asks for the living water, he stops her in her tracks with his knowledge of her private life. But he is not from 'around here' - how does he know all this? WHO IS HE?

He tells her that the awaited time is now here. That neither the Samaritans' holy mountain nor that of the Jews will do, but that from her people's enemies, the Jews, salvation will come, and very soon.

The conversation is serious now. He is talking to her as he would to a Jerusalem Temple doctor. Seriously, respectfully, as no-one else has ever spoken to her, a mere woman, let alone a lower-than-low outcast with a despicable personal history.

She looks into his eyes, in awe. She acknowledges that Messiah will come. He says, I AM HERE, talking to... YOU.

When they are interrupted by his companions, she is embarrassed even though they do not interrogate her, do not even address her. She breaks away, runs home, probably wondering if she had imagined what He seemed to be saying.

Shunned she may be but she cries to anyone and everyone that maybe, just maybe, she has met the Messiah, but surely not? Would MESSIAH speak privately to her of all people? This is NOT how one expects the Messiah to behave, to announce his millennial arrival!  (But... but... Elijah's still small voice...)

He tells the disciples to look around them at the harvest ripe for reaping. Look around at this small Samaritan village. Harvest. In unexpected places like this, He says.

And then some of the villagers came to Him because of her frantic earnest report about Him. They had to see for themselves. They saw for themselves and believed, and told her so.

WHAT exactly did they see for themselves? The Gospel does not tell us. But he stayed with them for two days before moving on to Galilee.

How did the disciples feel about staying in a Samaritan village instead of going home?

'We realised that this was a completely new and huge thing, If we wanted to stay with Jesus, we had to change our thinking and abandon all our preconceptions. Our prejudices.'