Today’s guest post is from Dominique DuBois Gilliard, a graduate of North Park Theological Seminary where he also served as an adjunct professor, and comes via the ECC’s Commission on Gender Equality’s blog.
How does one best care for marginalized people, those who have been isolated from community, stigmatized by society, and even neglected or wounded by the Church? This question has dwelt within my soul. It has inspired me to study the Bible in deeper, more focused ways. It led me to seminary and while there, it lingered on. It led to me taking courses which explored issues of individual and social brokenness that bred marginality and isolation. I asked hard questions within these courses, inquires which could not be pacified by the prototypical Sunday school responses. I read, researched, and wrote on these issue, all in a diligent pursuit to answer this one question.
Along the way, I had a few revelatory moments, but I also became intrigued by a biblical character who I believe personifies everything I was wrestling with, the nameless Canaanite woman of Matthew 15: 21-28. While theologians have correctly articulated how her interaction with Jesus foretells the gentile inclusion into the mission and kingdom of God, this text has more to say to us than just this. First, a close reading of the text mandates that we ask a few questions; what are the scriptural implications of being a Canaanite, nameless, and the parent of a demon possessed child?
Biblical scholar Craig Keener says that the Canaanites are depicted as “the bitter biblical enemies of Israel whose paganism had often led Israel into idolatry.” Another scholar writes, “[the nameless woman] is a member of the condemned Canaanites who are to be offered to the Lord as a whole burnt offering of purification of the land to God.” However, this negative depiction of Canaanites is not the only legacy Scripture provides. In fact, two Canaanite women, Tamar and Rahab, are included in the direct genealogy of Jesus. This is significant because Tamar’s life symbolizes one of the most victimized scriptural realities, and Rahab illustrates one of the most unlikely characters of biblical faithfulness, not only because of her vocation, but also due to the marginalization and stigmas it caused. The fact that these two women are both Canaanites, yet are directly included within the traceable lineage of Christ is not coincidental, nor is the fact that this nameless woman’s ethnic and gendered identity is also that of a Canaanite woman. Through incorporating these women within the direct lineage of Christ, Scripture illustrates how Jesus literally becomes identified with their marginalization, and, as is the case with sin, Christ takes on their marginalization…
Read the rest here, at the Commission on Gender Equality’s blog.
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