A Jesus who learns

There are Gospel passages that make you think straight away: yes, that is the Jesus I know.

Jesus who welcomes people.

Jesus who heals the sick.

Jesus who crosses boundaries.

And then there is this Gospel.

As you read it, you almost want to say: Jesus, what is going on with you today?

A woman comes to him. A foreigner. Matthew explicitly calls her a “Canaanite woman”. She does not belong to Israel.

And she is not even asking for herself. Her daughter is suffering.

And Jesus?

At first: nothing.

“But he did not answer her at all.”

Then the disciples say, in effect: send her away.

And Jesus replies:

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

In other words: you are not my responsibility.

But the woman does not give up: “Lord, help me!”

And then it gets even harsher:

“It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”

That makes you stop short.

The children — that is Israel.

And her?

She does not belong.

This is not really the Jesus we know.

Now there is a pious explanation: of course Jesus knew all along and was merely testing the woman.

Perhaps.

But the Gospel says nothing of the kind.

Perhaps we sometimes try to protect Jesus from his own Gospel.

After all, what would be so terrible about the idea that Jesus learns something in this encounter?

We confess that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly human.

And being truly human does not mean that God puts on a human body while already knowing everything inside.

Then the incarnation would be a performance.

No: when God becomes human, God truly becomes human.

With a background.

With a culture.

With experiences.

And with the ability to learn.

Luke’s Gospel already says that Jesus increased in wisdom.

Perhaps here too.

Jesus initially understands his mission in relation to Israel.

And then, suddenly, this woman stands before him.

She does not fit his existing understanding.

And she contradicts him.

I find that almost astonishing:

A foreign woman contradicts Jesus — and Jesus listens to her.

She takes his own image and turns it around:

“Yes, Lord! Yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

In essence, she is saying:

Surely your mercy cannot end at this boundary.

And Jesus says:

“Woman, great is your faith.”

Her daughter is healed.

Perhaps, in that moment, a boundary falls.

I find that incredibly relevant today.

Because we live in a time when many people fear one thing above all:

having to admit they were wrong.

In politics.

In the Church.

On social media.

And in ordinary everyday life.

Often we no longer discuss things in order to learn. We discuss them in order to win.

Whatever you do, do not say:

I was wrong about that.

I had not seen it that way before.

Yet that is no weakness.

Those who can learn are not weak. Those who can learn are free.

I know this in myself too.

I have gone into conversations thinking: I have a rough idea of the problem. I know what is right according to the Church. Perhaps I even know what this person needs now.

And sometimes afterwards I have had to realise:

No. I had jumped to conclusions.

The other person had shown me something I had not seen before.

Especially people who do not fit our familiar church categories.

People who rarely go to church.

People whose life stories have taken a different course.

Sometimes I have learned more from them about faith and longing than from many a ready-made church answer.

I experience this with new forms of worship too: people come whom we hardly ever see otherwise. And suddenly you realise:

We do not have to bring God to them. God is already there.

Perhaps it is we who need to learn to discover God there.

And that raises a great question for our Church.

For centuries, we have become very good at saying:

This is how it is.

This is how it has always been.

You belong.

You do not belong.

But perhaps a Church that follows Jesus should say more often:

Tell me.

What have you experienced?

Where have we hurt you?

What have we not understood?

What can we learn from you?

Because what is truly unsettling about this Gospel is this:

If Jesus can allow himself to be corrected, what right have we to think that we never need to be?

And who sets this story in motion?

Not the disciples.

They want to get rid of the woman.

It is the stranger.

The woman from outside.

Perhaps God sometimes speaks precisely through those we dismiss too quickly.

Through strangers.

Through critics.

Through people who do not fit our categories.

The Canaanite woman asks for a crumb.

For a small piece of hope for her child.

And in doing so, something becomes visible:

God’s love does not grow smaller when more people share in it.

God’s bread is enough.

For Israel.

For strangers.

For the devout.

For those who doubt.

For those who belong.

And for those who have been left standing outside the door for far too long.

Perhaps, in this story, Jesus learns something about the breadth of his mission.

And perhaps Matthew wants us to learn something too.

Faith does not mean already having the right answer to every question.

Sometimes faith also means:

listening.

allowing ourselves to be unsettled.

and having the courage to say:

You are right.

I had not seen it that way before.

If even Jesus could learn in his true humanity, none of us needs to be afraid of doing so.

Perhaps it is even one of the most spiritual abilities of all:

to remain a person who can still learn.

Amen.