Hide and Seek
But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Matthew 15:24 NASB
Lost – There are four senses to the Greek term apóllymi: to destroy or kill, to suffer loss or to lose, to perish, and to be lost. Most of the time the word is used in its literal sense for something destroyed, but here it is figurative. These sheep are missing. They’re off-track, gone astray, disappeared. If a shepherd can’t find them, they might suffer destruction, a nuance that can’t be ignored. They’re very lives are at stake.
Yeshua’s words are a response to an insulting comment by his disciples. A Canaanite woman begs for mercy. The disciples ask Yeshua to send her away because she is annoying them. Who is this person? Well, Canaanites were still in the Land, but they were essentially refugees—and treated as such. They had no status, as this woman acknowledges in her subsequent conversation. Without a homeland, they were as lost as they could be. They fit the lyrics of “No Horse to Ride” (Luke Grimes): “I’d be the kind of lost that’s hard to find.” CLICK HERE if you want to listen to the song.
But Yeshua doesn’t treat her as someone who needs to be found. He treats her as nothing. He flatly tells her that he isn’t for her. Go find someone else. His mission is focused entirely on those off-track souls of Israel. Others don’t matter. The disciples were right. Go away!
We find these words and this attitude appalling, especially in the mouth of the Master. How could he be so callous? This poor refugee isn’t even coming for herself. She begs his involvement for someone else, her daughter. And yet it seems that he doesn’t care at all. He reflects precisely the feelings of his followers. “God’s goodness is not for you. You’re not one of us.” Put this way, we might discover we’re just like those disciples. “Us” and “them” is the real issue. Who’s in and who’s out. You can be “out” for all kinds of reasons, sometimes even just because you were born “out.” In the “us” and “them” world, any excuse for exclusion will do.
Do you think that Yeshua made this statement as a lesson to his disciples? Is it possible that he used this opportunity to show them their own prejudice? He does engage with this woman, and, in fact, ends up proclaiming that her faith is stronger than any of the “us” crowd. What do you think the disciples thought after they heard that? His remark is not a mistake. It’s a reflection of his disciples’ attitude—and a rejection of their exclusion. You might even say it’s his statement about loving the enemy in action. Not so easy to do when the crowd calls for “them” to be dismissed. I wonder why it took the Roman Catholic Church two thousand years to recognize this attitude in their treatment of the Jews. Apparently the nations of the world still believe what the disciples thought. “Us” and “them” is the history of humanity. Paul’s words seem to fall on deaf ears: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is [a]neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). But we don’t live in the Kingdom, do we?
Topical Index: us, them, Canaanite, lost, Matthew 15:24
Certainly the interest of Yeshua was more universally considerate than we can fully appreciate (epitomized in these words he spoke… “I and the Father are one,” for example; and also as demonstrated through his actions, including his miraculous works).
We may characterize Yeshua’s rebuff of the woman in any number of ways. We may subject the interaction to a theological framing… that of rabbinic Judaism for instance… whereby the woman may be understood to have found ultimate failure in her spiritual (idolatrous) and tribally based (Canaanite) identification with (the first) Adam, and now seeks identification with Israel, God’s people of the Torah. Yeshua’s rebuff both particularizes and distinguishes her tribal identification not merely as lost, but rather he characterizes her as a member of those who stand in opposition to the True and Living God— those who would even go so far as to assault the place of His throne and seek to destroy His people.
Certainly, what Skip suggests— that this is possibly an intentional reflection of his disciples’ attitude as a lesson to his disciples— is an astute possibility, especially in its representation of “loving the enemy in action”… i.e., in “deed and truth” as well as “with word or with tongue.”
Nevertheless, we are left to consider a variety of paradigmatic patterns as possibilities, both those of theology as well as history. And finally, the stress must fall on the regular patterns we find as persons within the creation in relation to the recognition and experience of God— understood to derive from God himself, communicating himself as Spirit to our spirits.