Dealing with a Snarky Jesus

A while back a friend emailed me with her concerns—prompted by a well-known Christian author—about the story in Matthew 15 and Mark 7 of the Canaanite woman and her exchange with Jesus. He initially ignores her pleas for the healing of her daughter and then insults her by metaphorically comparing her people to dogs. She persists anyway, in a clever argument responding to Jesus’ insult, and he, impressed with her faith, heals her daughter with a word.

My friend—and the author—was upset with Jesus’ behavior, as many have been before her, and asked me my response.

Here is an edited version of my reply. I give it not for any insight into this particular story, but to indicate one believer’s general response to troubling passages in Scripture. I offer it only as my own practice, not as an exhortation to others to think the same:

As to the story of the Canaanite widow, it is, for me, just one of many in the Bible that worry / puzzle / provoke me, but that at the same time usefully undercut sentimental versions of God the Father, Jesus, and faith generally. Most of these stories are in the Old Testament for me, but not all.

Regarding how commentators have approached this story, I know of the “save Jesus from looking mean” attempts, which are versions of the “save God from looking unloving or even evil” strategies elsewhere. At the other extreme, there are interpretations that readily declare that Jesus is a mean-spirited racist who the woman is trying to save from his racism.

My own approach: tell me everything that's useful to know about the context of any Bible story; about the meanings of key words; about how this might link to other stories, including immediately before and after; about the history of interpretation of this passage; and a few other things. Often that will answer superficial objections from me as a relatively ignorant reader. But sometimes it won't. 

Then I have a choice. I can choose an answer or approach that I “like” best (as on Facebook), I can judge the characters and the Bible itself as morally deficient (using myself and my age as the standard), or I can simply hold judgment in suspension, neither sanitizing the story, nor claiming to understand it, nor using it judgmentally. The “hold it in suspension” option will seem like cowardly evasion to those who insist on knowing exactly what a Bible story means and how to fit it into their overall theology and worldview. I don't think it an evasion, just an honest response to my own limitations. Like trusting a surgeon who approaches me with a sharp blade. (I realize the comparison is not exact.)

Overall, I think we would like God (in all three Persons) to conform more to our notions of kindness, gentleness, and fairness than God actually does. These invaluable qualities derive from God's nature, but do not exhaust it. And we water even these down in the direction of “niceness.” The report of people who powerfully experience the numinous is that it makes you want to lie flat on your face, erases your sense of self, and has a distinct element of fear as well as awe. It does not make you want to be God's examiner—nor even God's buddy.

At the same time, the Bible depicts God as quite open to being argued with, even accused, as the Psalmist does repeatedly and as Jews have always done since. And as the Canaanite woman does in this story. I was raised by fundamentalists, who were okay with an angry God—which they too often thought justified their own anger, and I found myself later among the evangelicals, who often prefer the Jesus who welcomes the little children to the Jesus who seems hard on the Canaanite woman.

One of my general principals is "Be not quick to think you understand." Or the corollary: "There's more to the story than meets the eye."

My two cents.