God's Silence
And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” - Matthew 15:21-23
I went for a swim the other day. I started thinking about Julia and the upcoming one-year-anniversary of losing her. Will I ever be happy again? I prayed to God to speak to me, to assure me. Wasn't this his cue to give a comforting word, to help me be happy? But he did not give a comforting word. He did not give any word at all.
God's silence may be harder to interpret than his words. My classmates in a seminary class argued for a couple hours together this week about the story of the Canaanite woman. A mother cries out to Jesus for healing for her oppressed daughter and Jesus's first response to her is silence. This seems out of character for Jesus. Is he just ignoring her? Does he not have any compassion? Is he scared or powerless?
What does Jesus's silence do? The disciples' response gives us a clue. They don't want a scene. A wealthy woman from their enemy territory is being loud. They wish Jesus would give her what she wants and send her away so she'd stop being so disruptive. But Jesus won't settle for cheap justice. His silence amplifies her grief and amplifies the generational history of conflict so that nobody there can ignore it any longer.
My goggles started to fog up, not from the pool water, but from my own tears. I gotta get out of here. I went quickly to my car and started sobbing ugly tears. I screamed a few times. I don't want this story, God! I want her back! I just want her back! I hadn't let myself be that loud or ugly for some time.
I immediately felt ashamed. Was I too loud? What if I hurt my baby? I wasn't too loud for Jesus. He provoked me to let it out, by his silence. He wanted all my ugly grief to have the biggest microphone. And that release is exactly what I needed.