Silence

How do we interpret silence? We have a hard enough time interpreting what a person says. But silence? It is hard to read. What does it mean? Why is the person not saying anything in this situation? So we begin to infer from the silence and think we know what the person is implying by it. We are often wrong. In the story of the Syrophoenecian woman in Matt.15 and Mark 7, the apostles were faced with the silence of Jesus. The woman was a Gentile, a Canaanite. To the disciples this was an important piece of their interpretation of Jesus' silence. Look who is crying out to Him. Look at this crazy Gentile woman. Three strikes. So Matthew says, "But He did not answer her a word." (15:23) Silence. What could this silence mean? The disciples had to conclude something. They had to take the entire context into consideration. Perhaps they remembered Jesus' instructions in Matt.10:5-6, "Do not go in the way of the Gentiles and do not enter any city of the Samaritans, but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." That's it. Jesus doesn't care about the Gentiles. He came only to save Jews. But, didn't Jesus speak words of life to a Samaritan woman (Jn.4) and stay in Sychar, a Samaritan city for a couple of days teaching those people? Confusing. What was Jesus' will? What is the truth? Do we have anything to do with Gentiles or not? So far the evidence seems conflicted. So what does the silence mean? The disciples showed their hand when they came to Jesus and kept asking Him to "Send her away, for she is shouting out after us." (15:23)

There you have it. Their request reveals their interpretation of Jesus' silence. Surely His silence means He is annoyed by her request. Perhaps they believed as the blind man did in John 9 that God does not hear the prayers of sinners, and surely this Gentile woman was a sinner, and perhaps the demon-possession of her daughter even proves this woman is a sinner. When a person has bad theology in their heads it is hard to interpret silence. But, interpret they did, and concluded that it meant that Jesus did not want anything to do with this crazy Gentile woman.

But, perhaps the silence was meant to accomplish other spiritual purposes. Perhaps it was there to allow the disciples time to draw their own spiritual conclusions so that Jesus could show them when he did speak that they were not equipped to interpret His silence. When Jesus did speak it seemed that their conclusions were confirmed. "Let the children  be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." (Mark 7:27) There you have it. It is not good to help this woman. She is a dog to Jesus. Case closed and their interpretation of His silence is confirmed. Not so fast. As she persisted and answered wisely it was revealed that Jesus was not ignoring her and not setting a precedent on how we are to handle crazy Gentile women. He was allowing time for this woman's great faith to be revealed. Jesus not only granted her request to heal her daughter but he actually went into her home to do it. I guess that kinda blew their interpretation of His silence out of the water. It seems we are no better at interpreting the silence of God than the apostles were. So maybe we should not try.