How often do you use the words "Us" and "Them"?
Maybe this year will be different in the Nosh. [fyi –Nosh = the UMSL food court.] Not the food – that is beyond help. ;-) When you come down the escalator to the floor of the Nosh, there are some pretty predictable things you will almost always see. The Greek community will be sitting around four of five tables immediately to the right of the exit. A group of African American students will be sitting around 3 or 4 tables two rows off to the left. The Residential students and Pierre Laclede Honors College students will be sitting under the slope of the escalator closest to the food court. Though there are no signs up that say “For Greek life students only” or “RHA only” and the like, each group has ‘their turf’, their unspoken place of gathering. I often wonder what happens to the new/transfer student who inadvertently sits ‘in those designated places.”
It seems that as human beings, we get kind of used to sitting in the same place. And more importantly than the actual place of sitting, is the circle of people whom we interact with at that place. It is easy to become comfortable with our little circle of friends. We don’t set out to exclude people, but eventually, by custom or habit or sometimes even choice, what used to be an inclusive circle becomes a place of “US” versus “THEM”. Expand that experience to nations with borders to protect and resources inside those borders of value; throw in religious differences; add a touch of killing and loss of family members to those OTHERS, and suddenly the chasm is deep and the differences wide.
The hatred between the Jewish people and the Canaanites ran deep. It was the major “US vs. THEM” them cultural bias in the time of Jesus. Deeper than the split between Jew and Samaritan, the Canaanites were the hated threats to all that the Jewish nation held dear. The Canaanite woman in the gospel becomes the embodiment of all the excluded. Not only is she the hated other, but she is a female hated other, even more on the outs. But she has the courage to try and break through the impassable boundary that separated her from the Jewish man she sensed was a source of life. She goes into the public square (a male domain), and takes the initiative in addressing a man- taboo in those days. Such is her need and her courage. (It’s why the disciples wanted Jesus to send her away – she was culturally disruptive by calling after them.)
Jesus’ response to her is pretty tough, isn’t it? First – stony silence. Then, “My mission is to Israel, not you.” Finally it is downright insulting: “Don’t give the food of children to the dogs.” Pretty off putting, wouldn’t you say? As if he was trying to keep the woman out.
OR – is there something else going on. I wonder if he had come to realize prior to this incident that maybe his thinking was too small? That to just be sent to the chosen people was not enough of a task from this God of his. So this why he traveled to Tyre and Sidon, -to pagan territory, because he knew an opportunity like this might arise? Because it would afford him a chance to open a door that had been closed for centuries! And he could do it in a way memorable enough that even his thick headed disciples would get it.
So the treatment of the woman is a testing of her faith, to see if her faith is strong enough to change hundreds of years of his people’s history. And you know that Jesus had to smile in triumph and wonder when she comes back with the riposte – “Even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the tables.” AHH! There it is. An encounter of such faith that even the disciples will understand that my Father’s love has to go beyond the boundaries that they usually want to set for their love.
It would be a tough lesson for us to learn. In our own day – it surfaces in words like NIMBY – not in my back yard. Someone has to take care of the unwed mothers – but NIMBY. Someone should reach out to ex-felons – but NIMBY. It is so easy to live with a small heart – loving those who we know, whom we trust. Our current political debate about immigrants is being dangerously couched in this us-them vocabulary. As long as they are a ‘them’, we can ignore the human stories behind the struggles.
Us vs. Them. It is so easy to love those we know…but to approach the stranger, that’s another story. The healing of the woman’s daughter tells us that love is to know only the boundaries of those who need us, not those we would like to minister to.
Concrete challenges:
We gather to celebrate a love that knows no bounds. For even we, with our wayward hearts are welcome at this table. May all our brothers and sisters find the same welcome in our hearts…