The Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite Woman … a modern icon by Brother Robert Lentz, OFMPatrick Comerford
Next Sunday, 16 August 2020, is the Tenth Sunday after Trinity.
The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, as adapted for use in the Church of Ireland, are in two pairs, the Continuous Readings and the Paired Readings.
The Continuous Readings: Genesis 45: 1-15; Psalm 133; Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15: (10-20) 21-28.
There is a link to the continuous readings HERE.
The Paired readings: Isaiah 56: 1, 6-8; Psalm 67; Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15: (10–20) 21–28.
There is a link to the paired readings HERE.
Detail from the ‘Sarcophagus of the Crying Women,’ from Sidon, now in the Istanbul Archaeological MuseumIntroducing the readings:
Can you recall a moment, a place, or an occasion when you felt rejected? To be rejected I do not need to be an outsider. We can be rejected by our own brothers or sisters, by those who live around us, by those who share our religious or cultural values. We can be rejected because of our lifestyle, our family background, our ethnic or religious backgrounds, our personal habits, our family circumstances … the list is endless.
Can you remember how you feel when you feel rejected, an outsider, sent away? And, have you found yourself blaming yourself rather than those who reject or marginalise you? If so, then you know when it is like to become a double victim: a victim of the prejudices of others, and a victim of the perceptions that are projected on to you.
Joseph has been rejected by his brothers and sold into slavery. But he refuses to accept that rejection. Instead, he prospers and attains the highest office in the land. When he eventually meets his brothers, he gives them an ugly lesson in what it is to be rejected. But then he reveals who he is, and lets them know that they are not rejected, not even for what they have done to him, but have always been part of God’s plans for future generations and for the future.
As the psalmist reminds us, it is good when the members of the same family can live in peace and unity.
Saint Paul reminds the Gentile Christians that they are in the same family of faith as the Jewish Christians and that – despite what they may think – God has never rejected his people. He reminds his readers that he is a descendant not only of Abraham, but of Benjamin – did those readers make a connection with Benjamin who was held hostage as the story of brother rejecting brother unfolded?
In the Gospel reading, once again, we encounter different types of rejection. Some of the Pharisees and scribes reject the disciples because they do not observe the newly-innovated but by now accepted tradition of washing hands before eating. It seems sensible in these Covid-19 days, but that is not the point here. There are other reasons for rejecting what people do: for example, the prejudices they hold in their own hearts.
Despite experiencing this rejection, the disciples still manage to reject the Canaanite woman who is pleading for help for herself and her daughter.
Saint Paul uses the verb ἀπώσατο (aposato) when he talks about being rejected, pushed away, driven away, repudiated, rejected.
When the disciples say, ‘send her away’ (verse 23), they use the word ἀπόλυσον (apoluson), from the verb ἀπολύω (apolúo). But there is a paradox in their rejection of her, for the same word can also mean to set free, to let go, to give liberty to, to release. The same verb is used to set a debtor free of debts, or to allow a woman to divorce her husband by setting her free from or loosening the bonds that tie husband and wife. In wanting to be free from her demanding calls, they – ironically – call for the woman and her daughter to be freed or liberated from their torments.
In our feelings of rejection and marginalisation, how do we find acceptance, liberation, and a place in God’s unfolding plan for his people, for all people?
And, when do we speak up for those who have been marginalised, rejected, boxed in, imprisoned by circumstances, by their background or by other people?
Genesis 45: 1-15:
This story tells us how God acts in history, through special people who may seem special or chosen to those around them.
Earlier in this story, Joseph has risen to power in Egypt. There is a famine in region, and Jacob, or Israel, has sent 10 of his sons to buy grain. However, Jacob has kept Benjamin, son of his favourite wife and full brother of Joseph, at home.
When the 10 brothers seek to buy grain, they are accused of spying. As surety that they will return with Benjamin, the brother they have left behind, they must leave Simeon behind in Egypt. To lose Benjamin would break Jacob’s heart. The old man agrees to his heir joining his brothers on the second journey to Egypt.
In Chapter 44, before the brothers leave for home with the grain, Joseph hides his silver cup in Benjamin’s pack., Joseph has them arrested for stealing: he has had h, where it is found, so Benjamin is detained. Judah pleads for Benjamin’s release, saying that he expects Jacob to die if Benjamin fails to return home, and he will bring his sorrow to the grave.
This provides the context and the setting for this first reading.
Joseph can no longer hide himself from his brothers. He dismisses his courtiers so that he can be alone with his family. He identifies himself and then asks whether their father is still alive. But they are unable to answer.
Joseph then explains to them how God has worked through what his brothers have done to him in the past. By selling him into slavery, he says, ‘God sent me before you to preserve life.’ Now it is Joseph’s management of Egypt’s grain in time of famine and that that will also keep Jacob’s family alive through the famine. His descendants Israel, ‘a remnant on earth’ will survive. God has even made Joseph ‘a father to Pharaoh,’ lord of all his house, and ruler of Egypt, the equivalent of Prime Minister or Vizier.
Joseph now says he is eager to see his father once again; they must hurry and bring him down to Egypt too. He offers them land in Goshen, the fertile area east of the Nile delta. Joseph’s brothers will be near him and he forgives them.
Psalm 133:
This psalm is headed ‘A Song of Ascents.’ It is one of the shortest chapters in the Book of Psalms, being one of three psalms with three verses, the others being Psalm 131 and Psalm 134. The shortest psalm is Psalm 117, with two verses.
Psalm 133 is often known by its Latin title, Ecce Quam Bonum. It has many settings by composers from William Byrd to Leonard Bernstein, who uses verse 1 to conclude the text in Hebrew of the final movement of his Chichester Psalms, an extended work for choir and orchestra that begins with the complete text of Psalm 131.
The divisions being dealt with may be the divisions between the two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, with hope for their reunification.
We can imagine this psalm being sung by pilgrims as they came together on the journey up to Jerusalem or made their way up the steps of the Temple. It speaks of brotherly love among the people of God, exemplified in the brotherly love of Moses and Aaron.
The pilgrims came together from many tribes, with many tribal differences. But when they come together to worship God, verse 2 reminds them, it is like the anointing of the first high priest, Aaron, by his brother Moses. At that consecration, the high priest’s hair and clothes were saturated with oil (see Exodus 29: 7), signifying his total consecration to God and the abundance and generosity of God’s blessings.
Mount Hermon in the north was the highest mountain in the northern kingdom, Israel. It is blessed with copious rain, ‘the dew of Hermon’ (verse 3). If Jerusalem or Mount Zion, the sacred mountain in the southern kingdom, Judah, received the same abundance of rain, it would be a true blessing. God’s blessings are the inexhaustible source of life, and are for ever.
Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32:
The Apostle Paul asks rhetorically, ‘Has God rejected his people?’ (verse 1). And he answers immediately, ‘By no means!’ Saint Paul points out that he too is an Israelite by birth, a descendant of Abraham and a member of the tribe of Benjamin – who plays a key role in our first reading (Genesis 45: 1-15), and the story of the redemption of God's people at a time of great social and economic crisis.
If, in the past, the children of Israel have been seen as unfaithful, they have not been forgotten. Saint Paul reminds his readers that the gifts of God are irrevocable, and the calling of God is irrevocable.
Those Christians who are Gentiles should remind themselves that in the past their ancestors too were unfaithful to God. But, through God’s mercy, they too are counted among God’s people today. God’s mercy is shown to both Jews and Gentiles.
Matthew 15: (10–20) 21–28:
This Gospel reading comes in two parts, verses 10-20 and verses 21-28. In planning Sunday’s readings, there are two options: to read just the second part of the reading (verses 21-28), or to read the full reading (verses 21-28).
Please note there is no option to simply read the first part alone (verses 10-20).
Part 1, verses 10-20:
The context or setting for this reading is provided by Pharisees and scribes who live in Jerusalem and come to Jesus asking why his disciples break the traditions they believe support Jewish law, and they ask him why they disciples do not wash their hands before eating? This is one of several Temple purity practices for priests that rabbinical tradition extended to the household.
The tradition of washing hands before eating bread signifies the sacred nature of a meal, the former Chief Rabbi, Lord (Jonathan) Sacks, explains. He says the table is then like the altar in the Temple, while the bread is like consecrated food, dipped in salt as was done with the meal offering in the Temple (see Leviticus 2: 13). In this way, he says, and food, one of the physical of needs, is invested with the charisma of holiness.
However, Jesus argues with his visitors, saying they give equality or even priority to traditions, such as washing your hands before eating, above the law itself, exemplified in commandments such as honouring father and mother (see Exodus 30: 17-21).
This reading then opens with Christ then calling together a crowd and telling them that it is easier to be defiled or made unclean by what comes out of the mouth, by what we say, than to be defiled by what goes into our mouth, such as found touched by unwashed hands. holiness is grasped not with our hands but in our hearts.
The disciples point out to Jesus that the Pharisees are offended by what he has said. But he is blunt, and tells the disciples not to follow them: they are like the blind leading the blind.
But still Peter does not understand, and he asks for an explanation. Christ then tells the disciples that what is eaten, even though it may be ritually clean, ends up unclean, in the sewer. But the mouth is the channel from the heart, the very seat of our emotions, desires and personalities. It is what is in our hearts, rather than what we put in our stomachs, that is in danger of defiling us, and showing how unclean we are.
‘The Phoenician Women’ by Euripides … sets the stage for the demands by Phoenician or Canaanite women on behalf of their daughtersPart 2, verses 21-28:
Some years ago, there was a fashion in wearing accessories with the simple initials ‘WWJD’ – ‘What Would Jesus Do?’
At first sight, this is an easy standard to look to when we need a yardstick for moral decisions and how to behave towards one another. But would you like to behave the way Jesus did when he first met the Canaanite or Syro-Phoenician woman in the district of Tyre and Sidon?
This Gospel reading, on first reading, seems to show us a Jesus who first rejects the pleas of a distressed woman, deeply worried about her daughter. One writer suggests that this is a Gospel story where Christ is caught with his compassion down. Even his disciples want to turn her away. They see her as a pest, a nuisance, a pushy woman breaking in to their closed space, their private area.
After a very trying and busy time, that included the beheading of John the Baptist, the feeding of the 5,000, the calming of the storm, and a major debate with leading Pharisees, the disciples and Jesus have arrived in the coastal area of Tyre and Sidon, an area of small villages, perhaps looking for a quiet break for a few days.
This is foreign territory, inhabited by a large number of Canaanites or Phoenicians, who were culturally Hellenised and mainly Greek-speaking. It was also the territory associated with Elijah, the prophet who raises the widow’s child from death (I Kings 17: 9-24) and who, in Father Kieran O’Mahony’s words, ‘was markedly, even offensively, open to foreigners.’
So Christ could expect to find himself among a large number of Greek-speaking ‘Gentiles’ in this area. Would the Disciples expect him to behave like Elijah and to break all the rules in being open to them, take miraculous care of a lone mother and her child?
If Christ was planning simply to get away for a quiet break with his friends and companions, then those plans were frustrated when a woman from this region comes to him with her very pressing demands.
In Saint Matthew’s account, she is a Canaanite woman (verse 22); in Saint Mark’s telling of the story (Mark 7: 27-31), she is a Greek or Syro-Phoenician woman (verse 26). Both mean the same thing, for Canaan in Hebrew and Phoenicia in Greek both mean the Land of Purple. She was a Gentile, a foreigner, a Greek-speaker and a woman. What right had she to invade their privacy? Could she not just accept life as it is?
In the classical world, Phoenician women were pushy women. About 400 years earlier, the great Greek playwright Euripides wrote his tragic play The Phoenician Women (Φοίνισσαι, Phoenissae), rewriting a similar story used by Aeschylus in his play, Seven Against Thebes, and dealing with tragic events following the fall of Oedipus.
The title of the play, The Phoenician Women, refers to the Greek chorus, which is composed of Phoenician women on their way to Delphi and who are trapped in Thebes by the war.
The two key women in the play by Euripides are Jocasta and her daughter Antigone, who have survived against all odds. They challenge the accepted concepts in Classical times of fate and free-will.
In the face of death, they refuse to accept what other people regarded as their destiny, they refused to be pushed aside, marginalised and dismissed as the men around then compete for power.
So, in the time of Jesus, educated, Greek-speaking people, including those around Tyre and Sidon, would expect a Greek-speaking Phoenician woman and her daughter to be pushy in the face of what appears to be a cruel fate, even if this involves confronting successful or ambitious men: they are prepared to stand up to kings and rulers, prepared to challenge them, and prepared to risk rejection and exile.
For their part, the disciples, who are probably without this cultural knowledge, would have dismissed the woman for what they saw her as: a Gentile, a stranger, a foreigner, a Greek-speaker and a woman. Her religion, language, nationality and gender put her beyond the compassion of the disciples.
But, faced with her daughter’s needs, the woman ignores the disciples: she is direct and aggressive in demanding healing and justice. And in demanding justice and healing for her daughter, she is, of course, demanding these for herself too.
The dialogue between this woman and Jesus must have sounded crude and aggressive to those who had gathered around to hear what was going on.
This pushy woman forces herself into the house, addresses Jesus in Messianic terms, and demands not that he should heal her daughter, but that he should show mercy. On whom? On her tormented daughter? On the distressed mother? The NRSV translation is clear, where the RSV is not: in the original Greek, she asks for mercy for herself (verse 22).
At first, Christ appears to treat her with contempt: at first he does not respond to her, he does not even utter one word. Instead, he turns away and tells his friends he is only here for the lost sheep of Israel (verse 24).
But she is persistent and – with a touch of melodrama – she throws herself at the feet of Jesus, the original Greek says she was worshipping him, saying ‘Lord, help me’ (verse 25).
Jesus then shockingly describes his fellow Jews as ‘little children,’ and compares the Gentiles with dogs, little dogs (verse 26). Today, it would sound like Jesus is calling this woman a bitch, and her daughter a little bitch.
But there is something even more shocking here: at that time, dogs were regarded as unclean animals. They were kept outside the city gates, and it was an indication of how low Lazarus had sunk that outside the gates the dogs licked his sores (Luke 16: 19-31, see especially verse 21).
Despite the title of Don Bluth’s animated movie, All Dogs go to Heaven (1989), it was a popular teaching at the time that dogs were not only kept outside the city gates, but also that they were the only animals to be excluded with certainty from heaven (see Revelation 22: 15).
It is language that is deeply offensive, culturally and theologically, unless Jesus is engaging in humorous banter with this woman.
For just one moment try to imagine the body language of the conversation, imagine you were trying to stage it as drama, to put it on stage. You would have Jesus talking face-to-face with this pleading, pushy woman. But the disciples are standing behind him and can see her facial reactions … but not the face of Jesus.
If, by now, Christ has engaged with this woman face-to-face, she now knows it is worth pushing her demands for mercy and help.
So, who is Jesus looking for a response from? The woman has already shown both her compassion and her faith. But can the disciples also show compassion and faith.
The woman not only has compassion and faith, but she also shows humour when, in her response to Jesus she engages in banter with him, telling him that even puppy dogs, when they are away from adult view, play under the table. Could Jesus, when he is away from the view of Jewish crowds, not engage with those he doesn’t sit at table with but who nevertheless are in his presence, those he had dismissed as dogs?
Jesus appreciates this encounter: her insistence on meeting him face-to-face, her refusal to be oppressed on the grounds of ethnicity, religion, language or gender, her forthright way of speaking and her subliminal but humorous comparisons are all part of the drama in this story.
And this combination, when it all combines to show that she is a woman of faith, produces results. In Saint Mark’s Gospel, Christ responds to her demands, and when she returns home, she finds her child has been healed (Mark 7: 30). In Saint Matthew’s account, Christ goes further – he commends her for her faith (verse 28) and her daughter is healed instantly.
Iokasti, a restaurant in Koutouloufari in Crete … are there comparisons between Iocasta and her daughter in ‘The Phoenician Women’ and the Greek-speaking Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite woman in the Gospels? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)A reflection of the Gospel reading:
Nothing is said in the second part of this Gospel reading about the response of the disciples to the woman. They had been trying to push her away, despite her crying, her tears, her distress, her plight over her daughter.
Perhaps nothing is said about the response of the disciples … because we are the disciples. How do you and I respond to encounters like this?
As a social response, for example, we might consider that the confrontation is an illustration of how we might respond to the needs of strangers and foreigners.
Do we find them pushy and demanding?
How do we respond when the foreign woman in our society wants the same treatment in hospital as Irish-born children?
How do we respond when foreigners who are more open and joyful in conversation, appear to be encroaching on our privacy on the bus, on the street or in a shop?
Are we like the Disciples, and want to send them away? Or are we like Jesus, and engage in conversation with them?
Do we think we have some privileges that should not be shared with the outsider and the stranger?
How do we respond to people who are pushy and continue to demand care for their children in the face of society’s decision to say no?
The parents who want teaching support for children with learning disabilities, the parents who want to know why children’s hospitals are so badly funded that they have to raise funds with charity events while their children wait for treatment.
But this Gospel story also raises questions at a personal, spiritual level too, when it comes to matters of faith.
How many people do you know who give up when they turn to God in prayer and find those who are supposed to represent Jesus appear to turn them away?
How many times have I dismissed the needs and prayers of others because they appear to be outside the community of faith as I understand it?
And, at a personal level, how many times have I gone to God in prayer, and given up at what appears to be the first refusal?
This woman never asks for healing for her daughter. She first asks Jesus for mercy. She has a difficult situation back at home and may be finding it difficult to deal with. And she gets no answer.
She asks again for help, not for her daughter, but for herself. And she is rebuffed.
But she is insistent, she is persistent. She refuses to accept what other people regard as her fate and destiny.
And in the end, she receives the mercy and help she asks for, and much, much more … for she is commended in front of the disciples for her faith, and her daughter is healed, healed instantly.
We do not have to accept misery in our family life, even if others see it as our fate or our destiny. And, in simple prayers, we may find more in the answer than we ever ask for.
The Theatre of Dionysus, beneath the slopes of the Acropolis … the tragedies and comedies of the great playwrights, Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles were first performed here (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)Matthew 15: (10–20) 21–28 (NRSVA):
[10 Then he [Jesus] called the crowd to him and said to them, ‘Listen and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’ 12 Then the disciples approached and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees took offence when they heard what you said?’ 13 He answered, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind.* And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.’ 15 But Peter said to him, ‘Explain this parable to us.’ 16 Then he said, ‘Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.’]
21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 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.’ 23 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.’ 24 He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ 26 He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 27 She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ 28 Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.
The Canaanite Woman ... an image in Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Folio 164r (The Musée Condé, Chantilly)Liturgical Resources:
Liturgical Colour: Green (Ordinary Time, Year A)
The Collect of the Day:
Let your merciful ears, O Lord,
be open to the prayers of your humble servants;
and that they may obtain their petitions,
make them to ask such things as shall please you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Collect of the Word:
Almighty God,
you have given your only Son
to be for us both a sacrifice for sin
and also the example of godly life:
give us grace that we may always thankfully receive
the benefits of his sacrifice,
and also daily endeavour
to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life;
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
O God,
as we are strengthened by these holy mysteries,
so may our lives be a continual offering,
holy and acceptable in your sight;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Suggested Hymns:
Genesis 45: 1-15:
563, Commit your ways to God
649, Happy are they, they that love God
522, In Christ there is no east or west
525, Let there be love shared among us
527, Son of God, eternal Saviour
531, Where love and loving–kindness dwell
Psalm 133:
518, Bind us together, Lord
522, In Christ there is no east or west
525, Let there be love shared among us
438, O thou who at thy Eucharist didst pray
507, Put peace into each other’s hands
661, Through the night of doubt and sorrow
Isaiah 56: 1, 6-8:
522, In Christ there is no east or west
342, Sweet is the solemn voice that calls
285, The head that once was crowned with thorns
343, We love the place, O God
Psalm 67:
695, God of mercy, God of grace
Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32:
218, And can it be that I should gain
9, There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
Matthew 15: (10-20) 21-28:
324, God, whose almighty word
716, Kyrie eleison
433, My God, your table here is spread
104, O for a thousand tongues to sing
514, We cannot measure how you heal
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
The hymns suggestions are provided in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling. The hymn numbers refer to the Church of Ireland’s Church Hymnal (5th edition, Oxford: OUP, 2000)
Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.
The theatre in Epidavros … ‘The Phoenician Women’ by Euripides was performed here regularly in recent years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
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