Was Jesus racist and sexist?

Was Jesus racist and sexist?
Stephen Curkpatrick

Jesus’ encounter with a Gentile woman is interpreted by some as an occasion when Jesus is taught new lessons that change the horizon of his ministry.* Referring to his mission as feeding the children and not dogs, the woman’s riposte is that even the dogs eat the children’s crumbs from under the master’s table.

Having declared that he is only sent to the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew), this encounter supposedly represents an expansion of Jesus’ horizon to include Gentiles and also, gender equality. Jesus learns these lessons from a non-Jewish woman. Before this encounter, Jesus supposedly harbours racist and sexist attitudes.

What are the theological implications of asserting that Jesus was racist and sexist until instructed otherwise? What presuppositions are present in such an assertion? What contradictions are generated when this interpretation is promoted among Christians?

Some interpreters of Jesus begin from assumptions that harbour hostility toward Christian faith as they seek to uncover deputed cover-ups that are sustained in Christian readings. The basic assumption here is that Jesus, like any person, is necessarily educated by “the other.” The other, in this instance, is a woman who is excluded from the purview of Jesus’ mission. This approach is also presented as “post-Christian.” While Jesus of Nazareth might be rehabilitated, there is little or no expectation that Christian faith is of value.

Christians who accept the view that Jesus is necessarily taught racial and gender equality, claim to find confirmation that Jesus, even if eventually exemplary, is like any other human in the formation of integral values and right attitudes toward God. In this approach, Christian faith can take its place alongside other religious traditions in an assumed equivalence of such traditions.

Accordingly, Christian faith does not make exceptional claims about Jesus of Nazareth and therefore the uniqueness of Christian faith for humanity—which would cast it into conflict with other religious traditions. This approach is presented as pluralistic. Yet while Christian faith is assumedly retained, articulating Jesus of Nazareth in this way effectively scuttles unique claims of Christian gospel concerning Jesus Christ.

There have and will continue to be various perspectives of Jesus of Nazareth; some interpretations are generous and others hostile. Christians will see these for what they are—various readings of a fascinating figure, like Socrates or Gandhi. People without Christian faith cannot be expected to articulate the full implications of a story suffused with claims that can only be accepted by faith. Their interpretations may or may not be fair in their appraisal of Christian interpretations of Jesus of Nazareth. This is a different issue.

It is a source of consternation and grievance among Christians when deputed Christian interpretations of Jesus swallow studies that come from neutral or even hostile separation of Jesus of Nazareth from Christian faith. Those who promote such readings among Christians should not be surprised to experience decisive critique in response. How can a supposedly Christian reading of Jesus of Nazareth promote readings of Jesus that are essentially inimical to Christian faith?

Can the assertion that Jesus was racist and sexist until a particular encounter be feasibly made? What blind-spots are sustained in making such an assertion? Scholars get into a theological muddle when they isolate a particular writing or passage from Scripture and lose its ambience within a bigger picture of biblical testimony with its pervasive character of apocalypse or revelation. This can be demonstrated from the encounter in question—Jesus’ encounter with a non-Jewish woman.

The charge of racism ignores a greater biblical context. Everywhere in Scripture we hear of Israel’s unique call from among the nations and in the New Testament, that the gospel is announced first to Jews, then to the nations. The call to righteousness as recipients of grace distinguishes Israel from the idolatrous nations for the sake of the nations. To renege on this call is to experience judgment, with favour extended to Gentiles instead. To be a holy people is to be distinguished by testimony to grace and truth for all people. This is not to be regarded lightly.

Paul’s image of a wild olive branch being grafted into a cultivated olive tree conveys the double image of Israel’s call to uniqueness according to God’s purpose, with the possibility of stumbling in failure to respond to this mission. Gentiles are grafted in, yet never displacing Israel in the irrevocable call first given. The image confirms a refrain within biblical testimony—Israel is unique in being called to righteousness and distinction for the sake of all in God’s mercy. This can be thwarted by refusal and God is free to choose alternative means of expressing grace and truth. Yet ultimately, the call of God is not revoked.**

The context of encounter with a non-Jewish woman is the sovereign freedom of God in biblical testimony. To assert that Jesus is racist—because he announces the priority of mission to Israel and seemingly strengthens this in response to the woman’s request—is to ignore the pervasive theme of call and response. The woman at least recognises this call and appeals to a second strand that belongs to this story—the faith of Gentiles is never spurned; sometimes it is elevated, as Luke recalls of Elijah and a widow of Zarephath.

The charge of sexism similarly ignores the biblical phenomenon of apocalypse and having ears to hear in the occasion of encounter, trial and response. Faith is solicited never forced. God’s disclosure creates conditions under which a person may or may not accept the disclosure; without ears to hear, it can be interpreted alternatively.

The repartee between Jesus and the woman suggests circumstances under which faith is often invoked. An encounter, being tested and prevailing through faith precede a significant change of destiny. In this instance, it is a daughter’s wholeness.

Jesus’ reference to dogs is whistled up and seized upon as derogatory. The woman’s response, with reference to receiving crumbs of the children’s bread, suggests a repartee in which she is very aware of the historical priority of Israel, the real possibility of blessing for Gentiles in this priority and the necessity of faith that watches intently in waiting patiently at the master’s table.

The charge of sexism can only be made by evaluating Jesus’ initial response as derogatory. Alternatively, this scene represents the pervasive biblical theme of encounter as supple disclosure, testing the patience of faith in characteristic conditions of apocalypse and response through having ears to hear.

Nothing is spoon-fed in biblical testimony. The primary condition of reception is faith. Solicitation of faith occurs in a range of variegated ways in which humans in their particularity are encountered in specific times and places within which, unique call occurs. Biblical testimony is conveyed and responded to within the particularity of God’s intimacy with human life.

The integrity of biblical testimony is fragmented when a single writing or encounter is isolated and divorced from its ambience and horizon in biblical apocalypse and gospel. To assert that Jesus is racist or sexist, because in skewed interpretation of one story he supposedly first learns to accept Gentiles and the equality of women, is to pursue an arbitrary interpretation extrinsic to the spirit and textures of Christian gospel and biblical testimony. It is also the pursuit of a mischievous and unhelpful conjecture that is ultimately even if implicitly calculated to engender antagonism to Christian faith.

* Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30

** Romans 11