August 16, 2026
Pentecost 12 / Proper 15, Year A
The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Essex, CT
Genesis 45:1-15 ~ Psalm 133 ~ Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 ~ Matthew 15:10-28
The Canaanites were not always the enemy. They weren’t always the “dogs.” Abraham the patriarch settled in the Land of Canaan (Genesis 13). His sons Isaac and Jacob also lived in Canaan, and Joseph’s brothers came to him in Egypt because famine had struck the land of Canaan. So, when did Canaan become the bad guys in our story?
It’s hard to say. Sometime between Jacob and his household moving down to Egypt where they thrived, and the death of Jacob and Joseph and all that generation, and when “a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph” (Exodus 1:8) and who enslaved the Israelites – sometime after that and the passage of 400 or so years in slavery, then the Canaanites were those people who occupied the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and those interlopers had to be dealt with so that the Israelites could claim their Promised Land. Most scholars believe that there were kinship ties between the inhabitants of Canaan and the people Moses led out of bondage, but scripture tells us that God told them to take the land from the Canaanites, and they did.
By the time Jesus comes along, maybe even they had forgotten why they hated each other so much. We flinch when we hear Jesus – our kind, gentle, merciful Jesus – refer to this desperate woman as a dog, but the feeling would have been mutual. She may have referred to him as “Son of David,” perhaps as a way of currying favor, but she would have had no higher opinion of him – an Israelite – than he did of her – a Canaanite.
They understood each other.
They also understood the hierarchy around who ate and when. In this culture, men of privilege ate first, then the men among the hoi polloi. Next came the privileged women, then the “lesser” women. Boy children were followed by girl children then male servants and female servants and then, at last, the animals and the beggars. This may sound unfair and cruel, but these two understood this cultural lineup. The woman points out to Jesus that this order may be the way things are, but even so, eventually the dogs get to eat according to the scheme, so why not feed her daughter now in her moment of desperate need? It’s going to happen eventually, and her need is great now, not later when it may be too late.
Of course, in this moment, we aren’t really talking about food except as a metaphor for healing, for blessing, for what it takes to survive. But it also is about food, which is how this reading from Matthew starts. What is and is not acceptable practice when it comes to cleanliness and food? Jesus knows the codes around purity. He isn’t dispensing with them; he’s emphasizing them, just as he always does, to make sure that folks understand what the purpose of the codes is about in the first place. You can follow all the rituals around food that you want, but if you are eating just for yourself and not making sure the hungry person in front of you also eats, you aren’t doing it right. And this woman in front of him is hungry for healing, so maybe doing things in some hierarchical order is less important that doing the thing when it is most needed.
Some interpreters see this as a hinge point in the narrative, as if this encounter with Jesus changed his mind about who he had come to save. In Matthew, he came for the children of Israel, not some Canaanite woman. By the end of the gospel, he sends the disciples out to all the nations. I’m not so sure he changed his mind about that. Matthew might simply be giving us a glimpse of what is to come, of Jesus coming first to the singularity of Israel, but only first, and then to the rest of the nations, or in Paul’s words, “by the mercy shown to you, they too may now have mercy” (Romans 11:31).
Jesus left his home country and traveled to Tyre and Sidon – literally a different country – still trying to get away and rest. It is here that he is interrupted by this foreign woman who is of no account to him. And he shows mercy to her. He heals her daughter.
This may just be an invitation to us. Until we seek out those who differ from us, who have gifts we can’t imagine, stories to tell and talents to teach, God’s vision for creation will never be fulfilled. We get so accustomed to staying close to home, figuratively speaking at least, surrounding ourselves with like-minded and similarly situated people. We need to go to those outside of the House of Israel, as Jesus called it, seeking out strangers and sojourners among us, not just the ones from other places, but those for whom this country, their home, is not a welcoming place.
Joseph and his brothers and their father Jacob and their families were made welcome in the land of Egypt. They were strangers in a strange land, and they were given a home there, at least until a new pharaoh came along. The Canaanite woman was outside of the House of Israel, and yet Jesus gave her the healing that she sought. She was a nobody, and yet her encounter with Jesus serves as a sign of what is yet to come.
Our encounters with those outside our immediate circle can teach us something about empowerment, about standing up for basic human rights and decency, about claiming authority from a position of marginalization. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to stand with the outsider. Because in God’s reign, as Jesus just showed us, there really is no such thing as an outsider. And thanks be to God for that.