St Nicholas

Dear Friends,

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Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In This week Gospel text, Matthew presents Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman, which causes some tension and unsettling moment.

 

Jesus is less than eager to help this woman, explaining that his mission is first to the house of Israel. However, Jesus is the one who has left Jewish territory and invaded this woman’s world. Furthermore, this Canaanite woman – an unclean, outsider – demonstrates that she has a better grasp of Jesus’ identity than the handselected disciples do at this point in the narrative.

 

Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite unsettles boundaries and calls into question definitions of clean and unclean. Jesus ‘withdraws’ in the face of hostility from Jewish authorities. He moves in the direction of Tyre and Sidon, an area of Gentile majority. The destination is significant.

 

Having challenged the ‘clean/unclean’ barrier in his dispute with the Pharisees, Jesus now enacts such a boundary crossing ‘geographically’ by moving into the Gentile region. There, the faith of a local woman breaks through the barrier in a still more significant way. The coldness Jesus displays to this woman, almost to the very end, understandably troubles many.

 

It is not easy for modern readers to grasp the immensity of the barrier being broken through here. The woman stands in for all of us Gentiles. We must learn from her faith, to persevere in our faith and trust in Christ.

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Shalom

 

Fr. Christo