Allie Papke-Larson: Reflections on Matthew 15
In Matthew 15: [10-20], 21-28 the Pharisees continue to challenge Jesus with questions about what defiles a person, and the Disciples continue to learn by asking questions and witnessing Jesus interact with a Canaanite woman seeking mercy.
We witness the Pharisees and Disciples learn, or refuse to learn, because of certainty instead of faith, and arrogance instead of openness.
The author of A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle talks of fantasy being a guide to truth. She said; “Fantasy goes beyond easy possibilities to the possibilities that are much harder which open us and push us.”
When I was 10 years old, I was in a community theater’s production of the musical Peter Pan. I was apart of the chorus, a lost boy who would run around the stage with twigs in my hair, a wooden sword in my hand, singing about flying to Neverland. This play gave me a taste for fantasy. A year later I read J.M Barrie’s novel Peter Pan and fell in love with Neverland. I wanted nothing more than to be a lost boy, live with Peter, and all the rest, and to always play make-believe. As a 5th grader going on 6th grader, I ached to be a lost boy. I was absorbed in this fantasy novel right as I was transition from young childhood to adolescence. I was now in middle school, which meant a bigger building, many different teachers, peers, and responsibilities. There is nothing factual about the novel Peter Pan, but that does not mean this story does not hold truth. While I didn’t fully understand it at the time, Peter Pan was a fantasy story reflecting on the truth I was experiencing; that it can be painful, scary, and inevitable to grow up, and that something is lost in this process.
The Pharisees and Disciples in the Matthew 15 are stuck on the facts.
In the first 10 verses, the Pharisees are coming from a place of certainty and arrogance. They are approaching these purity codes through fact, which on some level makes sense, if you don’t wash your hands before you eat, or if you eat meat that isn’t clean, you’ll be defiled, meaning you actually could become sick. Jesus is approaching defilement through fantasy, not fact, he is pointing to a larger spiritual truth; that what comes out of your mouth, your words and actions, can defile you because they reflect what is in your heart.
The Pharisees are challenging Jesus, wanting to make him slip up so they can despise him, they are certain of his falseness. This is where their hearts are set: on their certainty of their doubt of his Messiahship.
In the last 10 verses of the Gospel, the Disciples are coming from a place of certainty, and arrogance. They believe they understand what Jesus is trying to teach when he was silent towards the Canaanite woman.
They asked Jesus to send away a woman asking for mercy. Their hearts seem to be coming from a place of certainty about their own understanding of his actions, this is arrogance.
The Canaanite woman is asking Jesus for the miracle of healing her daughter possessed by a demon, and this man, this possible Messiah is her only hope.
The woman isn’t even in Jesus’ world so to speak, she is from a different place, of a different faith, and on a different side of a long political battle. Still she comes to him with the faith he can heal her daughter.
Perhaps it was pure fantasy that this man would listen to her or that he would even be able to heal her daughter, especially when the attitudes of his Disciples become clear after they ask Jesus to send her away. Perhaps it was fantasy that a Canaanite woman, someone considered “the other” to Jesus and his Disciples, could challenge this man and have him listen. Or even fantasy that the small crumbs he might give would be enough to heal her daughter.
Maybe this is the kind of fantasy Madeleine L’Engle was talking about. Fantasy that allows us to look beyond facts which restrict us, to believe we are just a Canaanite woman, to possibilities that push us to open up and have faith.
This woman was challenging Jesus. The Pharisees were challenging him, too. So why did Jesus, after comparing her to a Dog, listen to her, and not to them?
In her heart was hunger for the healing of her daughter and faith in who this man was and what he could do.
But it was with this faith, this imagination, that led her to challenge Jesus and receive his mercy.
Madeleine L’Engle said; “Fantasy goes beyond easy possibilities to the possibilities that are much harder which open us and push us.”
As an 11-year-old I wanted to stay young and to live in Neverland. But the truth, that every child (except one!) must grow up, face their adulthood, and lose something in the process, was much harder to digest. But this truth this fantasy was helping open me up to was everything adulthood has to offer, everything life has to offer.
The Canaanite woman pushed herself, and who knows maybe she pushed Jesus that day, too, to go beyond the easy possibility that she was outside of God’s mercy. Instead she and Jesus opened up the possibility that we can receive the joy and healing of our Messiah, that even the crumbs from this God can be enough, and with a faith like hers, and a God like ours, these crumbs become life and abundance.
Amen
Allie Papke-Larson is Program Coordinator for Lutheran Campus Ministries/Canterbury Episcopal Campus Ministries at Northern Arizona University and Youth Director at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Flagstaff.
