Stump a Bible Scholar: Was Jesus Perfect?

Last updated on: September 30, 2014 at 8:00 am by Deborah Arca

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Stump a Bible Scholar: Was Jesus Perfect? 2014-09-29T17:54:34+00:00 Deborah Arca

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It’s Tuesday and that means it’s time for another question and answer session in our Stump a Scholar series here at Patheos Progressive Christian. No question is too tough or too radical for our experts!

This month, we’re answering your questions about the Bible with resident expert Professor Jerry Sumney. Dr. Sumney is professor of biblical studies at Lexington Theological Seminary and the author of Colossians: A Commentary (2008) and Identifying Paul’s Opponents (1990). He’s also the author of the new Bible: An Introduction, Second Edition from Fortress Press, a dynamic interactive digital textbook for learning about the Bible on your own.

This week’s question comes from a commenter on the blog, who asks:

How do you interpret Matthew 15:26-28: Is it evidence of the humanity of Jesus, in that he seems to show in this passage that he is capable of making a mistake and changing his mind? Can we take from this that Jesus was not, in fact, perfect?

Professor Sumney responds:

Thanks for a good question that points us to a complex story that has many things going on.

Unfortunately, the shocking language of Jesus (he calls a woman a dog) often diverts modern readers from what the story is about. To get a clearer understanding of what Matthew wants readers to hear we first have to remember that the Gospels are theological accounts. Their narratives are not concerned with getting the facts correct; rather they are concerned to speak a truth about who Jesus is and what God is doing through him. So this story is a construction of Matthew, a story that he got from reading Mark—and he made some significant changes to it. In this short format, I cannot give a full reading of the story, but I will try to touch on things that help us see what Matthew is (and is not) doing with the story.

First, we should note that this is not the first time Jesus does a healing for a Gentile in Matthew (see the episode of Jesus healing the Centurion’s servant (or son, depending on how the word pais is translated) in Matthew 8:5-13. So in the course of Matthew’s narrative Jesus does not need to be taught that Gentiles can be the object of God’s healing. But we should note at the same time that he has explicitly limited his own earthly mission to Israel. When he sends the disciples out on their first preaching mission, he tells them to go only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:6; this language is repeated in our story in 15:24). So Matthew identifies the earthly ministry of Jesus as one limited to Israelites. To do this he changes what Jesus says in Mark (most New Testament scholars think Matthew read Mark and used it as a primary source for his own telling of the story of Jesus’ life). In Mark, Jesus does not limit the disciples’ preaching to Israelites. It is the tension between Jesus’s contact with and healing of Gentiles on the one hand, and his limitation of his mission to Israel on the other that Matthew highlights with this story. And remember, Matthew makes that tension explicit by having Jesus remind the disciples that his mission is only to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (15:24).

There is an interesting sign in Matthew’s telling of the story that indicates to his readers that the woman coming to Jesus is a representative character. That is, this is not a verbatim account of an incident in Jesus’s life, but rather a story to teach a lesson. This sign is the way Matthew identifies the woman. In Mark, the woman is “Syro-Phoenician,” a recognizable ethnic/regional identity in the first century. Matthew changes that ethnic identification so that she is a “Canaanite” (15:22). All of Matthew’s first readers know there is no such thing as a Canaanite anymore. That is an archaic designation that no one uses. So everyone knows this character is not an identifiable person. For Matthew’s readers, this identity names her as an outsider, perhaps even one of the enemies of Israel. So Matthew explicitly opposes this “Canaanite” to the “house of Israel.” Why would Matthew do this? The answer lies in the practical circumstances of the church to which he is writing.

The Gospel of Matthew was written for a church that was initially and predominantly Jewish, but that had a substantial and growing number of Gentiles. The Jewish members of the church called these Gentiles members of God’s people, even though they did not fully convert to Judaism by becoming proselytes. Matthew’s church needs help thinking about this and being able to defend this practice to Jews who are not in the church but are members with the Jewish church members in the local synagogues. It is clear to everyone that Jesus historically spent most of his time with fellow-Jews. So how can this church justify expanding the mission of Jesus to Gentiles?

This story helps Matthew explain the expansion of the mission and it helps him maintain the priority of Jews in the church. Matthew is not alone in maintaining the priority of Israel in the church. In Acts the church begins and initially spreads only among Jews. Then Acts always has Paul begin his preaching in the synagogue when he arrives in a new city. Only after preaching there does he reach out to Gentiles. And in his own writings Paul explicitly says that the gospel is for Jews first and also for Gentiles (Romans 1:16—this letter is also written to a church that has a significant number of both Jewish and Gentile members). So the way many New Testament writers envision the new act of God through Jesus is that it comes to Jews first and then to Gentiles.

The Canaanite woman story is the second story in Matthew that has Jesus heal at a distance for a Gentile (remember the Centurion) and both stories conclude with Jesus commenting on the great faith of the Gentile—indeed, he says he sees in them faith that is greater than what he sees among his own people. These two Gentiles have longer conversations with Jesus preceding the healing than others in Matthew and the episodes conclude with almost exactly the same words. So Matthew wants us to see them as parallels. Whatever is going on in this story, Matthew does not think Jesus needs to be taught that Gentiles or women can be healed or are worth healing.

Another element of the narrative that points us toward understanding it as a story that addresses the question of the place of Gentiles in the church is the way the woman addresses Jesus. She calls him, “Son of David” (15:22). This is very much a Jewish kind of identity for Jesus. It is not the way a “Canaanite” or any Gentile is likely to identify Jesus. Gentiles in the early church quickly came to use the title Christ (the Greek version of the word Messiah) as a name for Jesus because calling Jesus Messiah had little meaning for them. Similarly, the title “son of David” would make little sense to Gentile believers. But it is important for Matthew and his fellow-Jewish church members. It establishes a continuity between God’s acts in Israel and in Jesus, and so between the church as the people of God and God’s promises to Israel.

Finally, we should note that in the flow of the narrative (that is, in how the developing story unfolds) in Matthew, there has only been one story and one summary of Jesus’ healings since we heard Jesus say to Peter, “You of little faith” (14:31). That evaluation of Peter (a thoroughly Jewish character in Matthew and known to Matthew’s readers as a leading apostle) is still ringing in the ears of Matthew’s readers when Jesus says to the Canaanite woman, “Woman, great is your faith” (15:28). As a Jewish author, Matthew knows how that contrast sounds in the ears of his fellow Jewish church members and in the ears of his Gentile congregants.

Taking all this context into account, the purpose of this story in Matthew is to justify the presence of Gentiles (as Gentiles) in Matthew’s church, while maintaining at least the chronological priority of Israel. The mission of Jesus during his earthly life was to the Jews, but there are moments when the future breaks into that narrative; moments when God’s desire to bring all people into relationship with God push their way into a narrative about a mission to Israel. It preserves the truth about Israel’s primacy in being the people from whom the new act of God in Jesus comes and in their being the first to respond to it. Yet this story won’t let the wider intent of God remain without some expression, some indication that the purposes of God exceed the bounds of ethnic Israel. Here and in the story of the Centurion, those who have the strongest faith are Gentiles, those who have not yet even been called. These two stories help Matthew say why it is legitimate to have Gentiles as full members of the church without them becoming full proselytes to Judaism. At the same time, it maintains the view that the gospel is for Jews first, then also for Gentiles. This pattern of Jews first, may also be evident in the way the woman responds to Jesus. When the woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter, Jesus responds with a question. His question is whether dogs should get any of the children’s food. The woman’s response is that in the proper order of things, dogs get the food after the children. The pattern of the response says that Gentiles get the blessings of God after Jews (the figurative “children” here).

We have come a long way, and I have still not answered the question directly. All of this explanation does nothing to make the language Jesus uses less offensive to us. Indeed, some think the language also made Matthew uncomfortable, and that is why he makes the woman a Canaanite, someone who cannot be a real person. But in important ways, when we ask whether this story shows us Jesus making a mistake or changing his mind, we are asking a question that this kind of story cannot answer. We are asking a historical question of a text that is not concerned to give you that kind of factual data about history. I think we can be sure that Matthew does not intend his readers to think that Jesus needs to be taught a lesson. Especially since Matthew emphasizes the identity of Jesus as the authoritative interpreter of God’s Law and will. We can also be sure that Matthew would not have included this story if he thought that it made Jesus look bad—after all Luke does leave it out. So I think it probably tells us little or nothing about the historical person Jesus. Matthew does not tell us this story because he wants to preserve a little slice of history; he has a different agenda for this story. We should also remember that at the time of Matthew there would be little need to affirm the humanity of Jesus, at least in Matthew’s church. Everyone (including those Jews not in the church) acknowledged that he was human; the question was whether or how God had acted through or been present in him.

As I understand this story as a part of the narrative flow of Matthew, this is not a story in which we see Jesus learn to think Gentiles deserve God’s care. He has already shown that he knows that in earlier stories. What we do see is a Gentile woman who has the kind of faith Jesus seeks in all people. Perhaps even the offensive language emphasizes how surprising it is to have a Gentile be the one with great faith. And don’t forget the contrast with Peter’s little faith. As we think about the objectionable, really unacceptable, language Jesus uses in this episode, we might temper our critique by remembering that there were Gentiles in the audience this Gospel was written for. Since the central point of this story is to provide an affirmation of Gentiles and their place among the people of God, Matthew must not think it is so offensive that it would keep them from hearing and experiencing that affirmation. Of course, the way Jesus treats this woman is not a model for us. Matthew is not presenting Jesus as a model here or in Jesus’ limiting of his ministry to Israel. Neither is Matthew pointing to (or including) development in Jesus’ thought or consciousness. His concerns are about other matters. Despite the objectionable language and the strangeness of the story, perhaps we can see the important messages about including Gentiles that Matthew was trying to convey.

Got a question? We’ve got an answer! Join the new Stump A Scholar series every Tuesday here at Patheos Progressive Christian — leave your question below for Prof. Sumney and we’ll post a response to a select question here next week.

And to learn more about the Bible on your own, check out The Bible: An Introduction, Second Edition interactive digital textbook by Jerry L. Sumney here!

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