Chapter 8 - Foreigners

Climate

 I grew up in a climate of casual racism – not in my home, let me stress, but in my community.  I’m always told it’s not malicious.  Casual.  Casual is an adjective used to describe something relaxed, almost fun.  It does not apply to racism.

 The local shop was defined in derogatory terms about its owner, whose ethnic origins were in Pakistan.  The Chinese takeaway had a racist abbreviation.  The whole thing came from the dominant culture of white, working class British.  So anyone who was different was defined only by that difference.  And treated as somehow less than us.  Maybe this is a hangover from the age of Empire.  That’s an excuse, of course, not a valid reason.

 Latterly, racial tensions in our islands have expanded to include people of the same colour and from the same continent.  Economic refugees, as much as political ones, these days engender similar disrespect, anger, suspicion or hatred.  And then there’s religious hatred, or ‘intolerance’ as we might prefer to call it.  Yes, that sounds more sanitised, but any refusal to accept the right to exist of another person or group’s reasonable worldview, is hatred.

 Any way we cut it – in all the politically correct jargon we like – it fails to see the other as fully human, made in the image of God.  Like us.

 This kind of thing is as old as we are.  And it’s something Jesus was familiar with.

Coming over here, stealing all our miracles

 In both Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts of Jesus, there’s an incident where Jesus encounters a foreign woman.  Jesus leaves his native Galilee and enters the region of Tyre and Sidon.  And while he’s there, a non-Jewish woman seeks him out.  Both Matthew and Mark want to stress the ‘foreignness’ of this woman.  She is a “Canaanite” (Mt 15:22), and a “Gentile” (Mk 7:26).

 Gentiles, of course, were all those outside of the Jewish race, religion and culture.  Canaanites, an old-fashioned term it seems, is a reference to those living near Israel who were not subjugated during the ‘conquest’ of the Promised Land.  The Canaanites were the natives of Canaan, the Promised Land, who were to be driven out or conquered by the people of Israel under Joshua.  It turns out that there was no conquest.  Some cities were taken, and there were skirmishes and power struggles, but in the end, it seems many Canaanite peoples remained in the land, bordering the Israelite tribes.

 So this Canaanite woman may have been seen not just as a foreigner, someone different; she was possibly viewed with some hostility, as an ancient enemy.  In any case, she was definitely not ‘one of us’, from the point of view of Jews like Jesus and the disciples.  Hence their reaction. Matthew reports the disciples’ response: they say to Jesus, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us…” (Mt 15:23).  This betrays a lot of information about this situation.  The disciples have, in their perception, a huge gap between themselves and this woman.  First, they treat her as a nuisance – perhaps with the same disdain or disregard some of us may bat away a beggar on the street.  Second, they are getting ideas above their station.  Listen to the woman’s cry: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon” (Mt 15:22).  She is calling out to Jesus, not the disciples.

 When Jesus does reply to the woman, his response is controversial, and has led to much speculation by interpreters.  At best, Jesus is saying he came for Jews first; at worst, for Jews only.  He then likens this woman and those like her to dogs.  This forces us to ask the question, is, or was, Jesus racist?  Is he a product of his time and space, or is he challenging the racism so prevalent in his culture by creating this situation?  After all, Jesus so often and so effectively destroyed ideologies by adopting them and identifying paradoxes within these worldviews, and (more importantly) forcing their proponents to identify these paradoxes.  Some brilliant examples of Jesus turning people’s own reasoning against them come in his ‘final’ week (cf. Matthew 21:23ff; 22:15ff).

 Whatever the case, Jesus’ words point to the racism of the day.  The Jewish daily prayers included the following:

“Blessed are you, O LORD our God, King of the Universe, for not having made me a Gentile… a slave… [or] a woman…”

 It seems to me that the issue at stake here is one of possession.  Territorialism.  Jesus and God’s kingdom are all about Israel, his salvation is for the Jews.  They don’t want ‘all these foreigners coming over here, stealing all our miracles…’  It’s as though God isn’t big enough.  As though his kingdom doesn’t have enough resources to go round.  We have to keep things to ourselves.

 This is the same kind of fear that expresses itself in anti-immigrant rhetoric.  Some immigrants come to our shores fleeing utter horror, mortal danger.  And we worry that we might have to queue a bit longer at the Jobcentre?  Or wait a bit longer to be treated on our excellent, if under-resourced, health service (free at the point of need to anyone).  Treated, in all probability, by a doctor of different ethnic origins to our own.

 Some come into our communities for improved prospects, and many take their opportunity with both hands.  Very often immigrant workers undertake the work that ‘our own’ can’t or won’t do.  Either ‘we’ are not qualified to do it, or we are not prepared to do it; it is either above us, or beneath us.  Thus, the relationship, the inclusion of immigrants, is mutually beneficial.  Let us not think that others come here simply to sponge.  We can all benefit from sharing resources and expertise.  And we can learn from the attitudes of others.

 This is certainly the case in this story.  The woman’s reply to Jesus teaches everyone a lesson.  She recognises the vast generosity of God.  He gives so much that the overflow of his goodness goes out to others, not just ‘his own’.

 God has given enough and more.  If the ‘haves’ learn to live on enough, then the ‘have-nots’ can have a bit, or a bit more.  Perhaps this is why Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”.  It echoes the tradition that God rained down manna in the desert for his people (Exodus 16).  They were instructed to take just enough of this bread for the household for the day.  Not more, and it was all to be consumed that day, or it would go off.  Today’s bread is enough for today.  And if we each use what we need, and not more, then there will be enough for everyone.

 This has been woven into the fabric of scripture, of God’s way of living, for a long time.  Two different traditions which have contributed to Torah, God’s instruction, Deuteronomy 24 and Leviticus 19, both make provision for “the alien”.  They are to be treated fairly, paid well and promptly.  In harvesting, some of the produce is to be left, and any that falls is not to be picked up.  It is for the poor and the foreigner.

 It seems to me that a society is to be judged on how it treats the other in its midst.  Do we welcome?  Embrace?  Share generously?  Respect?  Learn?  Or do we reject?  Exclude?  Do we hoard resources?

Where they come from

 Of course, a detail that makes all the difference here is that the foreigner in this story is not the woman.  It’s Jesus.  He is on her patch.  This story takes place in Syro-Phoenicia.  It’s her country, not his.  And this further mocks the superiority complex of the Jews in the story.  They are in no position of strength here.  As a nation, they are occupied by Rome, like many other cultures.  They are not some mighty, self-sufficient empire.  On the world stage, both Syrian Phoenicia and Israel (or Judea) had similar standing: not much.

 But it wasn’t always like that.  In the past, Phoenicia had launched numerous expeditions from the Eastern Mediterranean, settling new city-states in Iberia, Greece, Italy, and perhaps most famously, in North Africa, at Carthage.  This city-state engaged mighty Rome in three wars, ending in the utter destruction of the Phoenician settlement.  Their most famous son, Hannibal Barca, came agonisingly close to conquering the eternal city, with his legendary strategic thinking – and some elephants.

 Culturally, the Phoenicians also made significant contributions to the world.  The point to note here is simply that the Phoenicians were a people, with a history, who contributed, had made their way in the world, and were deserving of respect as a culture and a race.

 It’s worth noting, actually, that natives of Tyre, in Syro-Phoenicia, were instrumental in the construction of the Jewish Temple in the reign of King Solomon.  He hired the Tyrians for their wood, both the material and their craftsmanship.  And it was an artisan of Tyrian descent, Hiram, who took charge of the metalwork in the temple.

 Despite this indebtedness to Tyre, the main area in which the Jews perhaps justified their feelings of superiority over their neighbours was in the realm of religion.  The Jews were God’s chosen people.  Theirs was the ‘true’ religion.  This racism was directed against other groups as well.  Perhaps Israel’s worst racial hatred was reserved for the Samaritans.  And here, it is religio-ethnic difference that was key.  And this, perhaps, because they were so close. Samaritans were possibly the closest of all races to the Jews.  They were seen as ‘mongrels’, having been decanted from Samaria, capital of the old northern kingdom of Israel (as distinct from southern Judah), by the Assyrians in the eighth century BC, then re-settled there with other races.

 The Samaritans followed their own version of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament).  This featured different names, different places, and different emphases, but was otherwise pretty similar to the Hebrew version.  Trouble is, both claimed authenticity.  All of this caused tension between these two peoples.

 So, in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10), it’s interesting to note that the passers by are Jewish religious ‘professionals’, a priest and a Levite.  They have failed to understand or practise one of God’s most fundamental laws, that of neighbourliness.  Yet these men were agents of the true religion, they are the chosen from God’s chosen.  In outrageously controversial contrast, it’s a Samaritan who gets it right.  A Samaritan.  Worse than Gentiles, because of their skewed version of the Law.  Worse than enemies, because half-related.

 Is it just me, or is the Good Samaritan story about religion?  And racial and religious intolerance?  Today, perhaps, Jesus might have told the story of the Good Muslim?  After all, Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same God, in different ways.  We all have the same Father Abraham (had many sons).  Let us never succumb to the temptation to view our own religion, or interpretations thereof, as completely true and others’ as completely false.  Maybe we can learn from each other, co-exist, and even work together?

 Again, Jesus once met ten lepers, and healed them all (Luke 17).  He sent them off to perform the prescribed ritual.  One of them came back to thank Jesus and praise God.  And that one was a Samaritan.  Again, the Samaritan is held up as an example, while the Jews in this episode seem to see the whole thing simply as a transaction, a religious rite – or right – something to which they are entitled.

Open

 Finally, in Jesus’ inaugural address in the synagogue in Luke 4, he is almost lynched when he comes to the part about vengeance, and stops.  He then goes on to speak about God’s inclusion of the foreigner.  How small-minded of that crowd, we may say.  But let’s just check our own openness to the foreigner.  How do we feel about others ‘cutting in’ on our God, his resources, his kingdom, his salvation, his love?  How do we treat those who come to live among us, learn among us, work among us, worship among us?